116. How to Regain Control When Your Mind Goes Blank

"I freeze in meetings." "My mind goes blank." "I know what I want to say, but the words don't come out right."

In this episode of Talaera Talks, we explore the real communication challenges that professionals face, particularly those working in a second language. We reveal why your brain freezes during high-stakes moments and introduce the RESET framework, a five-step process to regain control and communicate with confidence. From managing cognitive overload to implementing bridging phrases, this episode provides actionable strategies to help you succeed in meetings and presentations. Tune in for a deep dive into practical techniques for overcoming communication hurdles and boosting your professional impact.

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Read the recap: https://www.talaera.com/blog/mind-goes-blank-reset-technique

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Talaera Talks. If you've been listening for a while, you know, we've had some incredible guests on the show recently, but today it's just you and me and there's a really specific reason for that. I've spent the last few weeks doing a deep dive into the real day-to-day communication challenges that professionals like you are facing. I've analyzed thousands of posts and comments and forums like Reddit, LinkedIn, and Blind, where people get really honest about their struggles at work, and I saw a pattern, the people I'm talking about, and. This might be you are ambitious. They're talented, their English level is great, but they keep hitting the same wall. They say things like, I have all the ideas, but I just can't get them out. When it really matters, and it's not a grammar problem, it's a confidence problem. It's that feeling of freezing in a meeting with leadership. It's the frustration of knowing you have more to offer, but your communication skills are holding you back from the career you deserve. So I'm very excited about this. We're launching a new series, no fluff, no basic grammar, just practical specific confidence building micro wins to help you move from feeling stuck to speaking with impact. And we're starting with the single most common frustration I saw, the horrible feeling when your mind goes blank in the middle of a meeting or a presentation. So let's set the scene. You are in a video call. Your VP asks you a direct question, and you see all those little boxes on the screen. All those faces turn to you. This is your moment to shine, and then nothing. Just nothing. Where did your brilliant ideas go? You know the answer, but you're stuck looking for the right words in English, and while you're searching, the moment passes, someone else starts talking, and you just stay quiet and for the rest of the meeting, if you're like me, you're not even paying attention. You're just replaying that one moment, feeling like a fraud. So if that sounds even remotely familiar, I need you to hear this loud and clear. This is not a sign of incompetence. It's not a sign that you don't know your stuff. It is a predictable biological response to a very specific problem called cognitive overload. And today I'm going to translate the neuroscience behind that freeze and give you a simple brain-based plan to regain control. So why does your brain freeze? I call it the three job problem for ambitious professionals working in a second language. Your brain's trying to do too many things at once, and specifically is trying to do three incredibly demanding jobs all at the same time in a high stakes moment. So first, your a translator. You are quickly trying to convert your complex ideas, uh, with all the nuances from your native language into your professional English. Second, you're, you have the perfectionist role. You are searching not just for any words, but for the perfect words, the perfect sentence structure, trying to sound as smart as you truly are. You want to make sure you don't make any grammar mistakes, and this is something that I've seen very often among our, um, clients and learners. You're not just trying to express your ideas. You want to make sure they're. Right. They're just the right words. They don't have any grammatical, um, errors. And third, it's the fear manager. You are trying to manage this fear, which is oftentimes very intense, and you have this fear of being judged, uh, judged because of your accent, because you're making a mistake, because you're being misunderstood. Have this fear of I don't belong here. They're going to find out it shouldn't be here. So when your brain is forced to do that much heavy lifting under their pressure, it's alarm system system, this little part of the brain called the amygdala can trigger what's known as this amygdala hijack. So it floods your system with cortisol and it effectively shuts down the part of your brain responsible for complex thought and language. And so that feeling of my mind goes, goes blank. It's real and it's physiological. And the solution is not to try harder. That only increases the overload. The solution is to have a simple framework that gives your brain a clear, manageable job to do. So this framework is the reset technique. It's your, we can call it your emergency restart. Button and it's a five step process to interrupt that panic and speak with calm authority. So let's break it down. Reset. R-E-S-E-T. R stands for Regulate your Breathing before you do anything else, this one is a physical thing, so press your feet firmly into the floor, and this is called grounding. Then take one slow silent breath in through your nose, out through your mouth. This isn't just like a relaxation trick. It's truly, it's a direct signal to your brain's alarm system that you are in control, you're not in danger. It truly helps you bring your thinking brain. Back on that. So that's R. Regulate your breathing. E stands for express a bridge. Right. You need to buy yourself time while projecting confidence. And here you'll use a pre-prepared bridging phrase, right? Uh, so I, I know silence can feel like insecurity, but this type of phrase is, is like your bridge, right? It, it helps you sound prepared. It could be something like, well that's a great question. Lemme take a second to structure my thoughts on that. Or. I have a few initial thoughts in here. Let me start with the most critical point. This way you're taking the pressure off your brain. You have a, a phrase that you can use as a bridge, and you're ready for the next step. So, R stands for regulate your breathing. E stands for expressive bridge S stands for. Summarize the question. So to get your brain fully back online, give it a very simple task. Repeat what you just heard briefly rephrasing that question. Just two things. One, it confirms that you understood and it gets you talking with very low cognitive load. You're just repeating information, not creating it, for example. So if I understand correctly, you're asking about the primary risks for the next quarter. The next E stands for express one core idea. In a moment of panic, we often try to form this beautiful, complex sentences to produce smart. But that's a recipe for disaster at this point. The goal is not to be super eloquent. Your goal is clarity. So just state the heart of your idea in one simple sentence. You can always act details later. So instead of, wow, what I was thinking about this is that maybe, and then you try to get into a complex, um, idea. Try. Well, the biggest risk is, or my main concern is keep it very simple. And finally, T stands for tie it back to the conversation. So after you've stated your core idea confidently pass the conversational turn back to the group. And this shows you're not just making a random statement, but you are actively contributing to the dialogue. So something like, does that align with what you're seeing as well? Or how does that sound to the team? So that's the reset, regulate, express a bridge, summarize, express one idea, and then tie it back. Okay. I know you might be thinking that sounds great in the podcast, but how do I do this in a real meeting when I'm panicking? First you prepare. That's how you reduce the load. The cognitive overload. You need to reduce the load before the meeting. Don't walk in cold before any high stakes meeting before. Any moment where you feel like you feel your mind might go blank. Write down just one key phrase, one statistic, or one question. You want to contribute. Those offloads the work from your brain's memory. You go in prepared and second you practice. Find a quiet space. Pick a common question from your work and actually practice answering it out loud using the reset framework. And the goal of this, that is that you build that muscle memory without the pressure. It needs to feel natural. So make sure you try it in a low stakes environment. This is what we often do in our speaking club. We come up with a topic, and it could be anything from technology, to food to culture, uh, to giving compliments at work, and we share frameworks and phrases so that you can use them in low stakes environments and save spaces. So make sure you create that moment for yourself as well. And to make it even easier, I want to give you a challenge, a first. Mission. Don't try to master all the five steps at once. So for this next week, your only goal is to use one bridging phrase from our script pack in a real meeting. That's it. Just notice how it feels to give yourself that space and your goal is always going to be progress and not perfection. And to help with that, we've put together a whole list of these. Bridging phrases, the, we can call it emergency script pack. It has phrases to buy time. You have phrases to clarify, and you have phrases to manage expectations. And you can find that full list in the show notes for this episode or on our website, palera.com. And if you truly want to take it to the next level, make sure you access our high impact communication course too. So let's wrap this up. That freezing feeling is a solvable problem. It does not mean you are unqualified. It does not mean your English is not good enough. It means you need a better plan for high pressure moments. Until next episode. Thank you for listening to Talaera Talks. We believe that great ideas shouldn't get lost in translation. If you're ready to build your confidence and make a bigger impact in your career, visit us at Talaera.com. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss an episode. And we found this episode valuable. The single best way to support the show is to share it with a friend or colleague who could also benefit. We're in the mission to help global professionals find their voice. As always, thank you and keep learning.