ProductiviTree: Cultivating Efficiency, Harvesting Joy

Productivitree #16 Speak Like You Mean It: Public Speaking Without Panic

• Santiago Tacoronte • Season 1 • Episode 16

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In this enlightening conversation, Dr. Alexander McWilliam shares his journey from actor to PhD in public speaking anxiety, exploring the psychological aspects of public speaking and the common fears associated with it. He emphasizes the importance of practice, self-efficacy, and the value of public speaking in both professional and personal contexts. The discussion also touches on strategies for overcoming anxiety, building confidence, and the long-term benefits of investing in public speaking skills. 

Takeaways 

  • Dr. McWilliam transitioned from acting to studying public speaking anxiety. 
  • Improvisation can help reduce anxiety in public speaking. 
  • Public speaking occurs in everyday situations, not just on stage. 
  • Anxiety can be beneficial for optimal performance. 
  • Self-efficacy is crucial for confidence in public speaking. 
  • Practice under pressure is essential for improvement. 
  • Mistakes in presentations are often overlooked by audiences. 
  • Public speaking skills can lead to career advancement. 
  • Introverts can find their voice through gradual exposure. 
  • Investing in public speaking skills has significant long-term benefits. 

 

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Dr. Alexander McWilliam is a leading expert in public speaking and presentation skills. Originally trained as an actor, he went on to an MSc in psychology before completing his PhD in public speaking anxiety and performing under pressure in 2024. For nearly two decades, he has coached clients from companies worldwide, helping them to communicate with confidence and excel in high-stakes situations. As the Managing Director of Improve 4 Business, Dr. McWilliam has pioneered a unique approach that blends acting, improvisation and psychological techniques to empower individuals, teams and organizations. His innovative methods not only enhance presentation skills, also foster adaptability, resilience and authentic communication in professional settings. His research has been presented at international conferences and published in leading academic journals, contributing valuable insights into overcoming anxiety and optimizing performance under pressure. Through his work, Dr. McWilliam continues to inspire and equip professionals with the tools to thrive in any speaking performance environment. Alex, welcome to Productivity! Thank you very much for having me, it's a pleasure. Alex, you went from actor to PhD in public speaking anxiety? How did this transition happen? And when did you realize that people need more help off the stage than on it? Yeah, so I trained as an actor and have been performing for many years and alongside my acting I used to teach acting and public speaking skills and improvisation and it was during these improvisation classes with non-actors, so regular people off the street and people were saying, I'm feeling a bit less anxious while I'm at work or while I'm presenting. I thought well then there must be something to this, must be something to do with... with improvisation and people feeling much more confident in those social settings. So I had a look online and there was a little bit of research and I'd always been fascinated by psychology. I'd always had an interest like why do people do the things they do? Why are people afraid? Why do people get all of the different feelings in their lives? So I did a masters, distance learning in psychology. And from that, after a year of studying, that actually happened. sort of during COVID as well. So kind of prime time of studying of let's just do another, let's do another degree while COVID is happening. And through that, again, I got fascinated by cognitive psychology, what's happening in people's brains. And my thesis in that was actually looking at the effects of improvisation on anxiety and depression, the qualitative studies. So interviewing people going, hey, how do you feel when you're improvising? What do you, what benefits have you had? And There was some information about that. I thought there must be some more things that can be done. So I, a friend of mine, a really great friend and improviser, a guy called Seamus was doing a masters at another university in performance psychology. And he said that they also do PhDs there. And so I contacted the head of the course and said, I'm an actor, I'm a teacher. I've had this idea about doing a PhD looking at improvisation and performing under pressure. And he went, yeah. sounds interesting, let's have a conversation. And from that, that then spurred on three and a half years of research, looking at public speaking anxiety, why people get afraid, how we can overcome it. And then also, can we test the use of improvisation to see, can that actually be used to reduce anxiety related to public speaking? So originally an actor, I didn't do any academic work for must have been 10, at least 10 years. So going back to doing masters was a real change. My degree was in acting, so there wasn't much essay writing or really long academic journals to read. And that was a really interesting change. And then the PhD was just like another hill to climb, which I think any of your listeners who have done a PhD or are doing one, they know that it can be a whirlwind of stress, but also excitement and... trying to balance everything. So yeah, actor to masters to then PhD specializing in public speaking anxiety. So a of a whirlwind of a journey, but a fun one, definitely. We associate public speaking with stages, spotlights, but what are the everyday public speaking moments that most people overlook? So there's a couple of them. So if you're a student, for example, speaking up in class could be class as a public speaking situation. You put your hand up, maybe you're at university and you stand up and ask the lecturer a question. So that could be a public speaking situation. In the work-related environment, it could just be standing up in front of a meeting or just standing up and asking your boss a question. But the conversations we have, maybe you're going to a shop and you want to ask... the shop assistant a question about a product or a service, that might feel just as daunting as speaking in front of other people. So while it's, you could argue that it's any situation where you're speaking in front of other people could be classed as public speaking because it's not on your own, we're not in our private lives. So conversations in shops, in restaurants, asking questions. I think any interaction you might have with another person you could class in a very broad aspect as public speaking, just the audience happens to be one person, or maybe two or three. So yeah, I think it could be classed as any situation really. Were you ever terrified of public speaking yourself? They're, I would say, not terrified. I think acting has definitely helped train me to be more comfortable performing in front of other people. But there are still situations where I'll get a bit anxious, and there's nothing wrong with anxious or feeling anxiety when we're presenting. We need it for optimal performance. If we don't have enough any anxiety, we're too relaxed. We're not gonna have that optimal level of performance. So we have to have a little bit to get us energized. But there are situations that will maybe spike my nerves. I'm naturally quite a socially anxious individual. And so those social situations I find more intimidating at times. example is I went to a conference and I was fine presenting, but actually it was speaking in front of other people in a more social situation was a bit more daunting just for my natural persona. So yeah, not terrified, but I have experienced that fear, that worry myself, but... I would like to say that I'm more confident now in experiencing those situations. public speaking is universally terrifying what actually happens in the brain that makes people get terrified from speaking in front of an audience So I'll try and sum that down into a very short answer. So every time we encounter a situation, our brain goes through a cognitive appraisal process and we basically weigh up what is the task demanding and what are our resources. And if our resources are higher, then actually we go, okay, that situation's fine. If our resources are much lower, then we might indicate that situation as a potential threat to us that we're not gonna be able to do it. So many people lack the experience or training in public speaking, so they haven't been able to develop their self-efficacy. It's actually a fancy word for saying their confidence that they're going to do the job well. They haven't been able to develop that through lack of training or lack of experience. That's one aspect. Another aspect is very unusual. We're not used to standing in front of a load of other people on our own and being looked at by say 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 people. So that's one area where we get a bit worried. We're standing against a horde of these, hopefully not enemies in front of us, but we're worried about this. But also I think it is that we're not used to it. We're a little bit worried about those kind of unknown reactions from the audience and the social ramifications. So I might have a conversation, man, say I'm presenting at work and I present in front of my team of 10 people. Well, it's not just going to be that presentation that might have ramifications. If I think I'm doing a bad job, I might perceive that they're going to then use that in my social settings and go, well, you did a bad job in that presentation. What we're going to do is actually going to shun you from the group and reject you from the social gathering we're having down the pub. So it could be those, those worries that we have. But a lot of the time it's just, it's a lack of exposure, especially in the UK. Currently our education system has very limited opportunities for people to experience presenting. So many clients I've spoken to didn't have any training at school. The first time they presented was maybe at university and even then their lecturer might not have been coaching them at all. They just said you've got to present in front of the group. So they've never had any successful experience. So I think that's another thing. I'm terrified of skydiving. I don't like heights but I think if I did it 50 times I'd probably be less daunted about that because I've had successful, well, hopefully successful exposures of not, you know, of successfully landing. But I think that's it. We're lacking those positive experiences in presenting right from childhood all the way through businesses because so many executives I work with avoid presentations like the plague and will delegate to other people or will refuse promotions because they don't want to have to present regularly. it's... It's this kind of avoidance which ironically makes it worse. It's that spiralling effect of avoiding the problem makes the problem even worse. I recently wrote an article or a post on LinkedIn about my own public speaking journey and my fears. And some people say like, hey, you might be glorifying public speaking. Alex, it's the fear of public speaking really a weakness? I think the ability to communicate in front of other people is really important from a professional viewpoint. If you ever want to aspire to go up that career ladder, you're going to have to present effectively and communicate. But also from social settings, it opens so many doors. And I think for those people who are afraid, I think it's good for you to go, yes. It is something I'm afraid of. But the question is, are you willing to confront that fear and overcome it because you can see that there's value in it? Or are you content with letting that fear be there and you have no desire to overcome it? That's more of a personal journey. So I think the term weakness, you you could define it as going, okay, well, what is it a weakness that I'm going to be proud of? And then the fact that I I don't have to present, I'm really rubbish, I'm really weak at that, or my fear is my weakness. Or am I willing to go, okay, this is a weakness, I'm not proud of it, but I want to do something about it. Let's talk introverts, extroverts and confidence. it's confidence, something you're born with or it's something that you can grow. I think it's definitely something you can grow because I alluded to earlier there's a term called self-efficacy which is very different from confidence. Now confidence, they're very similar but slightly different. So confidence, I can be confident that I'm going to fail. I'm so confident I'm going to fail at that job, I'm going to fail at that presentation. Whereas self-efficacy is your belief that you're going to be successful at that task. So self-efficacy can definitely be trained. Now that comes through things like mastery experiences. So having opportunities to present that you can then successfully do it. Vicariously watching people present and go, if they can do it, I can do it. The good analogy is the Roger Ballester, the four minute mile. Before he did that, no one thought a four minute mile was possible. But since then, thousands of people have done it because they saw that he could do it and they saw other people could do it. So it's definitely self through the vicariously, but also through coach support. coaching and of steering you and going, yes, you can do it. I believe in you. You can do this. So it can definitely be trained. Now regarding introverts and extroverts, I think most people tend to be an ambivert. Certain situations, they'll be very introverted. Other situations would be very extroverted and it can kind of change sort of depending on the situation. I think naturally an introvert is going to find those social situations, potentially daunting and very draining energy-wise, whereas an extrovert might enjoy that, but both of them can experience that fear and that anxiety related to public speaking. So I think if you say, I'm an introvert, I would encourage you to experience public speaking, but in your slow progression outwards. And if you're an extrovert, I think it's a great opportunity to practice your skills. and also practice under pressure. So it's definitely a skill, confidence-wise and self-efficacy-wise that can be trained and it just takes that dedicated practice to get through that. So definitely. Let's talk a little bit about this under pressure. You teach executives to manage high stakes moments, boardrooms. What is one unexpected trick you teach them? So I think first of all, we won't know that you messed up unless you showcase that to us. So I can, in a high stakes situation, I could stumble my words, but the audience will only notice if I do this. And I make a big deal of something I've made. Half the time, executives will stumble their mess up words and people won't mind, because actually, one, the audience will forget about it. Say you're doing a presentation, a high stakes million pound pitch and you stumble a few words, they won't remember that. They'll remember the beginning, the end. That's the key point, the key messages. The mistakes you make, we're really forgiving because actually we go, wow, you're up there and you're willing to present. So we're willing to sort do that. I think I always encourage executives to have experience under pressure because when we're coaching you and I or if we're coaching in a situation or they're with colleagues. it's really to relax. There's no consequences to poor performance. So I like to go with them, right, okay, we're going to do an exercise now and the consequences of you doing it incorrectly are X, Y and Z. And if that happens, then it means the stakes are a little bit more real for them. So I would always encourage you need to get that practice because your body then gets used to that pressure. So it's kind of like, okay, I know what my body feels like when it's happening and now I can do it. When the pressure really comes, I can remain quite calm and I don't let it overwhelm me. So that's one of my tricks of get that opportunity to practice under pressure. Let's get practical. What are the do's and don'ts of effective public speaking? Do's, really consider your audience. Your presentation might be half an hour long. If there's 100 people in the audience, then that's 100 people's half an hour's worth of their job. So your value has to be essentially 50 hours worth for them. A lot of the time people will go, I'm not gonna put much effort into the practice or rehearsal, but then that then leads to a negative performance. It's quite insulting to the audience, because they go, you haven't cared, you haven't bothered. to kind of do that. So understanding that the audience are there and you're communicating a message. Another do is have a nice strong start. I am a real stickler for people not going, hi, good morning, welcome. My name is Alex and I'm going to talk to, no, get to the point. Last year, 35 billion pounds was lost due to workplace stress, anxiety and depression. That cost your company 50,000 pounds. Over the next five minutes, we're gonna solve how we can save that. Already it gets to the point because I know like we're doing a call right now. My name is in the bottom left hand corner for me. go, we know my name. I don't have to keep repeating it. So that's my kind of don'ts and dos and don'ts. But also I think enjoy it. It's an opportunity for you to present. I know it might not feel like that and you go, no, it's not an opportunity, but it is. Someone in your team or your business has thought that you are capable enough to present. So have fun doing it. And the other big thing, when you're doing slides, don't present like this. Hi, good morning. Welcome to my presentation. And for those listening, I've turned my back to the audience. I'm reading off my slides. I watched one presentation at a conference and I felt so insulted because he hadn't prepared and all he did was lift his laptop and just look down at the laptop and was just kind of doing a presentation like this. And I thought, you haven't even bothered to practice or even see if it works. Because we're selfish as audience members. We want what's in it for me. So give them something. Alex, you are an expert in improvisation. How do you craft impactful messages impromptu? Yeah, so it's a really good question. With a lot of practice, improvisation, that skill of being able to practice storytelling and crafting those messages is one that if you can do it repeatedly again and again and again in certain situations, you start to have a back catalog of techniques that you put in. For example, we know, I always go right, we want a strong start. Already, if I'm doing an impromptu speech, And we go, right, my strong start, is it gonna be a fact? Is it gonna be a question to the audience? Is it gonna be a story itself? You know, last year, this happened to me and that gets the audience going into it. So I always make sure there's a nice strong start. And if I'm doing an impromptu speech, I've got to really think about, what's the audience wanting to get out of my impromptu speech? Is it an answer to a question? Is it more information about a product, a service? And as long as I instill that message across to them, they're gonna walk away happy whether my presentation was five minutes long, 20 minutes long, they won't feel that I've wasted my time. So with an impromptu one, I'm always like, what's a strong start? So a question, maybe a fact, a statement, a story, and then can I follow through with a nice core message of, and that's how we save you money, and that's how we can change the world as we know it, just to really drill that home, and then ending on a nice call to action of. Join me on this journey or that's how we can save you £50,000 a year. And they go, great, lovely. Let's do this. You're from your wild workshop tactics. put corporate teams in rooms and let them scream, die, to each other. What is the purpose of doing these things? So the exercise we're talking about is a game called story time. And there's a couple of rationales behind it. So we get five or six corporate individuals in front of an audience. And they've done a load of exercises before. So they're warmed up to this process. And their job is to tell a story. And when I point to a different person, the next person carries on. It's a nice sort of easy story, but there's no stakes. So we're gonna make it anxiety provoking for them. Not too much that they wanna run out of the room and never come back, but enough that they go, oh, this is gonna be a bit tense. So what I have is the audience to shout out the words die if they make a hesitation or they make a mistake. And the rationale for that is, hopefully in a presentation, no one is ever gonna shout that out while you're presenting. But it might feel like that. So someone just having their arms crossed, looking out the window might feel just as painful as someone shouting die to your face. So that gives us an opportunity to recreate that. So if you can tolerate that, then someone in the audience crossing their arms, bored, yawning, you go, actually, I've managed to deal with that situation, so that one feels nowhere near as bad. Also, it gives them an opportunity to fail. I think failure is so important because they learn and they grow. And they also experience that, again, making a mistake is not the issue. The only issue is, is if we showcase that to the audience. I always advocate, it's not the mistake, it's your ability to recover from that mistake that makes it really important. So I can make loads of mistakes, but if I recover from them quite quickly, it doesn't matter. If I stumble, fall to pieces, cry, and just run off stage, then that's what the audience is gonna remember. So they get experience of failure. And to make sure everyone gets an experience of failure, I make it harder. I put a limitation on the game. For example, they can't say any words containing the letter S. It's very hard to do. I've played it many times, I've failed. Because you go, what has an S, what doesn't have an S? But again, the other thing we're working on is I don't want them to talk like they only... have language, you know, it's very broken English. I don't want them to speak like that. I want them to go with confidence. And then if they fail, they fail. And they go, it's about recovering from it as opposed to just trying to avoid that failure. Because some people do. Some people will avoid trying to say an S for as long as possible. And then they go, I avoided that failure. But when the failure comes or the experience of someone having that negative attitude towards them, they'll never have the opportunity to experience that and build that resilience to it. So it's a good fun game. It sounds more daunting than it is, but I promise you, we do a load of fun before and then it's such a fun thing because you see corporations' minds go all over the place and they have fun. So I think it's always advocate for fun during a workshop. Arepublic speaking class is worth it? 100%. I think you've got to find a good coach. And you've to find a coach that you get on with. I like to think of it sometimes as like therapy or counseling where the relationship between the coach and the coachee is really important. Because they could be the best coach in the world, but if you don't gel, if you don't sort of get on, then it's not going to work for you. So I think that's really important. There are these open classes where some people have group classes where it's peer-led, so everyone in the group sort of just watches presentations and then you give some feedback. I think there's pros and cons to those kind of classes. The pro is you get opportunities to present to your peers and other people. The downside is because no one is a public speaking or presenting expert, it's all kind of like everyone at the driving range trying to comment on your golf swing without actually anyone having necessarily the skills to articulate feedback. or do it in a way that they're gonna be much more receptive. A common one that people say is, oh yeah, just slow down. But so many clients have had that from me. They go, I keep getting told by other people to slow down, but no one tells me how to slow down. And I go, so we know you're speaking too fast. Well, as your audience listens, I would suggest, imagine speaking that the audience is so slowly that the audience are bored, that they're gonna fall asleep. Because actually our perception of time is really bad. We're really bad. We think we're talking slow, but we're not actually talking slow at all. So go so slowly that the audience is falling asleep because naturally when you're nervous, you're going to crank up the speed anyway. So getting used to being really slow, we can always ramp it up. It's so much harder to slow you down than to wrap you up. recommend the classes to be in person or online. So, I always advocate in person. I think they're great. However, if you're highly anxious, the thought of standing in front of other people in person is probably going to fully withdraw and you want to run away. So I would recommend for the highly anxious people, online is a really great way for you to start. And if that's too intimidating, you practicing on your own, having one-to-one workshops or coaching, that really helps. But I think online is good. And again, the world is changing and it's becoming much more interconnected. So actually, like we're connecting online, there's a lot more of those conversations happening. I'd say practice online as well. But if you ever can get in person because it's much more invigorating and it's much more pressurizing as well. How can introverts or neurodivergent professionals find their voice in public without faking being an extrovert? Yeah, think, because I've taught extroverts, introverts, neurodivergent individuals, and all of them have had the opportunities to present in front of others, and they've managed to master or become very confident at the skills of public speaking. I think getting to a class is a really great opportunity. I advocate for, especially for neurodivergent and introverted people, Improvisation is a really great way, like an improv class doesn't have to specialise in public speaking, but it just gets you used to that performance element and gets you used to doing things with other people. Because in a lot of the improvisation classes that either teach or go to, there's a lot of pair work, which is really great for someone who's naturally quite introverted to kind of practise that. But also for neurodivergent people, it's again finding the right class. and finding the right coach who can understand your individual learning needs. go, okay, well you find, for example, loud noises really provoking it and you find it very struggle. Okay, well a group class probably might not be the initial setting for you, but maybe there's a way we can do a smaller class, like a class of two or three or four people. And again, all of these classes are improving or giving you these mastery experiences, that self-efficacy development. so you can keep building that confidence. And then you'll naturally build up that confidence and self-efficacy and you won't have to fake it essentially because you will become it. So they always say fake it till you make it or fake it till you know, to become it. Which I think that's what you can do. can become this much more confident self and it's nothing and you don't have to lose who you are to be. You don't have to be a fake person when you're performing. I think the only thing that changes is you heighten your energy. Like if I had the energy I would have naturally of a conversation around the dinner table, I'd be very subdued and the audience might not be as engaged. So I have to heighten it a little bit just to get my energy up so the audience feels engaged in what we're doing. Does public speaking get easier over time or do you just get better at faking it? I would 100 % say it definitely gets easier with time. Now sometimes people will think they're making very great progress and then they might have a bad experience and then that will knock them and they'll take a few steps down that ladder of success and they'll sort go back up. But I say the more experiences you can get, the more confident and the more you're going to enjoy it. It's like with any hobbies or sports or anything, when we first started, We didn't enjoy what we were doing, but as we got better and more competent, we enjoyed it much more. Same with musical instruments. I would class public speaking just like learning an instrument, because your voice is an instrument, your body is an instrument, and playing a sport, learning a sport. You're using vocal and physical skills just like a runner will use their body, you will use your body. Just like a singer uses their voice, you use your voice. So it's all of these things are trainable and definitely gets easier. the more you do it. What is the long-term ROI, return of the investment of investing in public speaking? Does people that invest in themselves through public speaking get better jobs, get better deals, they grow their careers? Yeah, I think from a career aspect, the higher you go up the ladder, the more you're going to have to speak in public and speak in meetings and speak at conferences, sales kickoffs. So if you want to progress up that ladder, then that is, the ROI on that is 10, 20, 50, 1,000, maybe a million times fold, depending on how far up you go. So if you're in that part of, if you're in that corporation from that. If you're a business owner yourself, then the fact that you can sell your product, your service much more effectively, you can communicate and motivate your team much more effectively to get them more out of them. So again, the ROI on loss of productivity or loss of sale, so you get loads of things from that. If you don't necessarily have those aspirations going, I want to be the CEO of this company, but actually it's got personal ROI. I feel much more confident talking in front of my friends and family. I've got a wedding speech I've got to do. I'm really anxious about it. But actually, through training, I didn't feel anxious and I actually enjoyed every moment of it and people keep talking about it and they've actually invited me to do X, Y and Z. So there's loads of, I think there's so much benefit to learning these skills. But people are always, or not always, but sometimes they're hesitant just because they're like, where do I start? But also, I'm not good at it. I'm not going to enjoy being bad at it to begin with. And can I put that effort in to have that long-term success? So there's definite ROI through public speaking, and I would highly recommend everyone training it if they can. Alex, let's do some rapid fire questions. Answer in less than 30 seconds. What is the most overrated public speaking tip you hear all the time? Don't practice, you can wing it. It might be good idea, but actually if you haven't practiced it, then your mouth, your tongue, your lips and your jaw muscles haven't practiced it, which means that you're going to ramble off loads of random rubbish. So, always practice. one speech you've seen that totally blew you away and why? Favorite Ted Talk is a guy called Ken Robinson. He passed away a few years ago. He did a talk about why do schools kill creativity and he had some amazing storytelling and he tells the story of a dancer who had, their parents thought they had ADHD and they couldn't do anything but actually what it was was a dancer and they took him to a dance school and that girl was now like the best choreographer in the world. So highly recommend Ken Robinson's Ted Talks. What is the best trick to calm down before going on stage or taking on a public speech? always advocate a performance visualization, which would be you close your eyes, you take a few breaths in, in for four, out for four, hold for four, that kind of thing, but then you imagine the best case scenario. So you imagine walking into that presentation room, everyone clapping, applauding you. You imagine presenting, everyone's loving it, laughing it, and they ask you the questions and you know how to answer everything. And then they give you like money, they throw you contracts, all of that kind of stuff. And then you open your eyes. and then you walk into the room with that positive mindset. worst thing to say when you're starting a talk. I'm sorry I haven't practiced or this is slide one of 850. Those are my bug bears. What's one weird thing people should start doing today to get better at speaking? I would say a normal thing would be practicing. A weird thing would be singing your presentation. I would always advocate if you want to have a bit more vocal variety when you're presenting, just sing your presentation. Like, good morning, welcome to my presentation. Just to practice that vocal range. If someone listening says, I'm not a natural speaker, what would you say to convince them otherwise? We are all born storytellers and we need the opportunities to practice and enhance that storytelling skill. I am not a natural speaker. It is something that can be trained and developed and enhanced like any other skill. So if you want to do it, you can. I love that Alex. Dr. Alex McWilliam, where can people know more about you and follow you and learn from all the things that you have to say? So there's two places. You can find me on LinkedIn under Alexander McWilliam. Feel free to connect, always happy to connect. And then I run a presentation training company which is Improv for Business and that can be found at www.improvforbusiness.com, which is the number four, .co.uk. Alex, thank you so much for your time today. It was super energizing. If I'm taking something away is that you don't need to be perfect to speak in public. You need to be authentic and believe me, I've gone through my own journey as a non-native English speaker, trying to do podcasts and stuff in English. I've beat my demons and... Your presence and your advice will come with me for the future. Thank you so much for enlightening us. Thank you very much having me, absolute pleasure.