Why We Are Different From Our Competitors?

Competitors who claim to help people overcome their fear of public speaking rely upon  ineffective and simplistic methods like tips, advise, pep talks, video, theory, therapy, and  rehearsals; focusing upon minor issues like body language, eye contact, knowing your audience, and positive thinking where significant behaviors like rapid speech, hyperventilation, confusion, rapid heartbeat, anxiety, negative thinking, and “ah and um” are not seriously dealt with or corrected.  Even visualization techniques, a mainstay of traditional public speaking programs, will not work for the anxious speaker when he is facing an audience.

In contrast, TalkPower is based upon the practical yet scientifically sound principals of MIND/BODY,  skills-learning,  neuroscience, acting techniques and original concentration exercises. Step-by-step, through a series of concentration exercises, participants in a TalkPower workshop develop permanent public speaking and organizing skills. These techniques of control give them the ability face and audience with confidence, comfortable in their own skin.

How TalkPower Came To Be

Although  the serious nature of fear of speaking in public is largely ignored and the subject of jokes and ridicule, a reliable solution for this condition has previously   remained a mystery. Nevertheless, the problem has ruined careers and caused untold grief as year after year  millions of people refuse promotions, drop out of Graduate school or fail their oral examinations, refuse keynote address opportunities, are unable to make a toast, read in church, participate at meetings, accept awards, ask questions in groups, fail at job interviews, avoid important presentations by turning them over to staff, suffer sleepless nights weeks before a speech, refuse to pursue careers where public speaking is involved and suffer the shame and humiliation of low self esteem as a result of this “problem.”

Due to my unrelenting drive to discover a solution for this mysterious and devastating problem of Public Speaking Phobia, Fear and Anxiety,  for the past 20 years I, Natalie H.Rogers, MSW have been  conducting Public Speaking Workshops. Taking a most  unusual approach, I turned my attention to exploring the relationship between performance, the mind, and the body to develop a practical system for eliminating public speaking dysfunction. Relying upon my experience as an actress, psychotherapist, yoga practitioner and trainer I was able to use my workshops as a laboratory. As a result after  careful research and observation I have produced a completely new training technology, comparable to the way star athletes are trained for  competitive events. This includes a  series of simple repetitive muscle –memory techniques for developing inner control and  permanent pubic speaking skills,  plus a variety of original concentration and focusing exercises. These exercises actually train the brain (neural patterning) for the skill of performance(Performance:any situation where an audience is looking at you).

Can I Read My Speech?

Many of my students come the to the TalkPower Workshops with the idea that reading a speech is unprofessional; they fear that reading will make them lose their spontaneity. This is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard and completely impractical. An all-or-nothing approach will only serve to discourage you from ever taking the risk of ever speaking in public.

Isn’t it better to feel confident, using a script? Why avoid an opportunity to speak because you will forget what you wanted to say? If you do accept and opportunity to speak, isn’t it foolish to run the risk of rambling on and on, feeling insecure and embarrassed? Is it any wonder why there are so many terrible speakers out there when people are taught that using a script is a big no no? Of course you can read. Common sense will tell you that confidence comes from feeling secure, and this will happen only if your speech is accessible.

The fact is that people use their spontaneity when they read from a paper because they prepare a talk as if it where a term paper. “Fill up as many pages as possible and you’ll get a better grade.” If the professor had to skim over repetitions and irrelevancies, that was his problem. A listening audience cannot skim. Go of the beaten track for half a millisecond and you lose your crowd. The audience tunes out planning dinner, lunch, the weekend, counting the tiles on the ceiling…

Learning how to write for a listening audience, not a reading audience in a TalkPower workshop makes all the difference. After you have been using a written script for some time, and have internalized what a real beginning, middle, and end are all about, you will be able to speak without a script.

An old wives tale maintains that if you read from a script you will sound stilted. Actually, you sound stilted when you constantly read with your nose in the text. The secret of appearing spontaneous lies in rehearsing the script so that you look up at the audience and then back at your script, from time to time. Practice your talk looking at the text, then looking out at your imaginary audience, then finding your place and looking at your text again. Not only will you feel secure, you will appear charming, knowledgeable, and in control.

Each year I subscribe to a series of play readings in New York City, produced by a very talented theater company called TACT (The Actors Company Theater). The actors are all seated in a semi circle and every actor reads from his script. These readings rank among the best theater I have ever experienced. Much work and rehearsal goes into each production, yet not one actor memorized or improvises his part. Every word is read from a script, and the results are always delightful.

Politicians read their speeches from a teleprompter and they usually go off without a hitch.

Perhaps last month you saw a professional speaker a long, magnificent, hilarious presentation without reading fro ma single note. And perhaps you felt envious and inadequate. Let me assure you that this professional speaker has probably given the same talk 100 times in the last five years.

“I was scheduled at two colleges on two successive days. On the first day my talk on Ecology went over so well I decided to get more mileage by giving it the second day. My teenage son was with me and during dinner, prior to the second talk, I suddenly became aware that my son was regailing the head table with an exact account I had given the night before- and was about to give again!”

                                                            -Issac Asimov

Where to Look

Should you make direct eye contact with the audience before you begin speaking? The answer, you might be surprised to learn, is no.

Making eye contact (which means having a nonverbal eye to eye conversation) distracts you at a time when you need your concentration to focus on your first words, your adjustment to this high visibility, the strangeness of the distance between yourself and the audience, your rapid heartbeat, and the general shock of the performance situation. You need time, about 30 seconds or even more, to get used to all of this.

ADJUSTING TO THE AUDIENCE:

The next phase involves your awareness of the audience, so that you can slip into an easy and comfortable relationship with them. This will happen automatically if you stand still when you first face your audience. You don’t have to do a thing except squeeze your toes three times slowly before you speak your first words. This phase is enormously important. If you do it correctly you will feel very much in control.

WHERE TO LOOK:

Look straight ahead at the faces in your audience, perhaps at their foreheads or even their hair. Look neither too high above their heads, nor so low that you appear to be looking at the floor. Making eye contact is not necessary because if the audience looks into your eyes and you are looking at their faces, you will feel as if you are making eye contact. The necessity for direct eye contact is a myth. For example, when you go to the movies and become involved with the story you laugh, you cry, you may become terrified, yet none of the actors in the screen make eye contact with you. In the same sense, when you are speaking, in is not necessary for you to look into the eyes of your audience for them to feel involved with you. Just don’t look above or below their faces. After two or three minutes have passed, and you feel you have established yourself in front of your audience and your presentation is flowing, you may choose to make direct eye contact with one or several of the members in your audience, as long as it does not disturb your concentration. Do what feels comfortable to you.

While keeping your gaze at the face level of your audience, do not fix anyone with a prolonged stare. Actively staring into the eyes of your audience implies that you are perusing them “Do you like me? Is this good?” Don’t look for approval. The audience looks to you for leadership. Lead!

SCANNING THE ROOM:

When you fist stand in front of your audience, please—do not mechanically scan the room, moving your head from right to left as if your eyes where great flood lights emanating from a controlled tower. This is extremely awkward and looks unnatural. Instead, as I have just said, when you first stand in front of an audience, before you begin to speak, be as still as possible and look straight ahead in the general direction of their faces. A smile is nice, but it isn’t essential. If you can smile a small smile, smile. If you want the complete attention of the audience, your physical stillness, rather than your physical activity, will make this happen.

As your speech progresses and you become more comfortable, from time to time, you can move your head slowly, looking at your audience to the left or right. Once again, naturalness and comfort should decide when and if you look at various people in the room. If at first this pose seems stiff and robotic, do not change back to your old nervous behavior. Eventually, you will relax into physical stillness so that you feel comfortable and empowered.

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WHY AM I AFRAID TO SPAEAK IN PUBLIC

“My father was a very respected orthodontist. All of my colleagues new him and thought very highly of him.………He was a very accomplished man Of course he was very critical and tough on me ……….I felt so inadequate next to him. I really feel it when I am at a meeting with other professionals. I know people are looking at me and comparing me to my father and I feel so demolished, I become speechless”

                                                                                                                          Philip Orthodontist

DISCIPLINE OR ABUSE

Verbal pounding is not considered child abuse nor does it fall into the category of criminal neglect. No person from Social Services will show up to investigate a parent who calls his child “stupid” or “lazy” every day. Yet this is psychological abuse.  This insulting  way of  communicating with a child destroys  self esteem and confidence, making any kind of public performance an ordeal, if not a devastating experience

“I went to a very strict school” “Children should be seen and not heard,” “ was the prevailing philosophy. We were discouraged from speaking up in class unless we were asked a direct question. In the beginning I was very out going, but I was punished so many times for speaking up, that I became very quiet.”

There is no escape. The incidents where one is required to make some sort of an appearance under the glare of public scrutiny are everywhere. While the necessity of performing has never been greater, the number of people suffering from performance anxiety and fear of speaking in public has grown to epidemic proportions.

    Many people try to explore this problem in therapy, hoping that with a proper understanding of how the phobia developed it will eventually leave. The results are disappointing because a phobia, a response of the autonomic nervous system, cannot be eliminated by sitting in a chair and talking about it. 

     Trying desperately to hide the inability to speak in public  so it does not seem to intrude or disrupt their lives, people manage to cope, very often to become successful in their careers. However when the opportunity arises to do a presentation, the situation becomes a nightmare. One TalkPower student introduced herself as the head of a large government agency. ”I enhance the careers of my  staff. How? When I am asked to do a presentation I give it to one of my staff members and so in this way I enhance their careers".

Many of my clients and students blame themselves. They feel that there is definitely something wrong with them, like a birth defect. The fact is no healthy baby is born with an inhibition. Babies cry when they are tired, wet, hungry and whatever else displeases them. Babies have no problem expressing themselves. Think! When  was your expression crushed? Who do you think made you afraid? Unfortunately, knowing how you developed this problem will not help you to get rid of it .There is an exemption to this rule .And that is in the case of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome .(People who never had a problem speaking in public who suddenly find one day that they have a panic attack or other such reaction to having to do a presentation )About 25 percent of my students and clients fall unto this PTS  category .I will discuss this in a future  blog.The remedy is exactly the same as it is for people who have had at the problem all of their lives . Read on. 

                                   MISSING PERFORMANCE SKILLS 

Instead of thinking of your fear of speaking in public as a sick psychological syndrome let’s look at this condition not as a phobia but as  as a skills deficit. That’s right .You have never developed " performance skills" so you avoid opportunities to speak in public because  you fall apart in front of an audience. Why? Because so much pressure of one kind or another was put upon you  in the past,  that you developed a super sensitivity to being looked at. And now you can't stand being the center of attention. This is not the end of the story ! The good news is that  there is a method for training you  to develop performance skills  so that  when people are looking at you"PERFORMANCE SKILLS"  give  your brain  the neural patterns (skills) for holding on to your concentration. That means that you are able to focus on what you have to say and not on the audience and what they think of you. Amazing as it sounds  with the right kind of training you can  look forward to being proud and happy to speak in public. Join the many thousands of professionals  who have found their voice through Talkpower Training . (see Talkpower Inc.com)

Performance Anxiety Appears in Many Situations 

.   Presenting a formal speech in front of an audience.

.  Meeting around a table

.  In a circle where you have to introduce yourself

.  A job interview

.  Speaking to the press

.  Accepting an award

.  Making a toast

.  Asking or answering a question in class

.  Reading in a church or synagogue

.  Playing golf tennis or any spectator sport

.  Acting in a play

.  An audition

.  Playing a musical instrument

.  Being photographed or videoed

.  Walking down in aisle at a wedding

.  Being paged when you’re  name is called and having to stand up and walk

.  Appearing in court as a witness or as an attorney

.  Delivering a eulogy

.  Speaking at a PTA meting or a board meeting

.   A dance concerts

There are so many situations where you become self-conscious because you are the center of attention. In all of these scenarios, if you fear that you are going to be judged, you are no longer in a safe place like a conversation with friends of colleagues. Your mind jumps to thoughts about what the other person or people think of you and what you are saying .It becomes very personal. My clients and students have the following thoughts at this moment of high visibility.   

NASTY SELF TALK

.  I am so boring

.  My voice is wobbly/monotonous

.  They see right through me

.  They don’t like me

.  I look old

.  I look fat

.  I feel so embarrassed and humiliated

.  I didn’t do enough research

.  My presentation is a mess

.  I am going to get killed in the Q and A

   (You get the idea)

   The following list describes the various conditioning factors that that I have discovered result in a fear of public speaking. 

.   Authoritarian parents

.   Abusive parents

.   Overly critical parents or teachers

.   Perfectionist parents or teachers

.   Obsessive parental focus on child’s behavior

.   Depressed parents

.   Parents addicted to drugs or alcohol

.   Jealous older brother or sister

.   Shaming relatives, neighbors, teachers etc.

.   Bullying

.   Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (I will discuss this in another blog)

   Public speaking phobia can also be caused by negative attention that one receives because of characteristics that are different.

.   Large nose                                           .   Over weight /Underweight

.   Skin condition                                     .    Foreign accent

.   Too short/too tall                                 .    Unsuitable attire

.   Large breasts                                       .    Small or no breasts

.   Racial /religious difference                  .   Different sexual orientation

                                       THIS BARES REPEATING 

Instead of thinking about your fear of speaking in public as a sick psychological syndrome let’s look at your phobia  as a skills deficit. That’s right .You are missing" performance skills" so you avoid opportunities to speak in public because  you fall apart in front of an audience. Why? Because so much pressure of one kind or another was put upon you at some time in the past,  that you developed a super sensitivity to being looked at. And now you can't stand being the center of attention. This is not the end of the story ! The good news is that  there is a method for training you to develop performance skills  so that  when people are looking at you, you have 55 the neural patterns (skills) for holding on to your concentration. That means that you are able to focus on what you have to say and not on the audience and what they think of you .Amazing as it sounds  with the right kind of training you can  look forward to being proud and happy to speak in public. Join the many thousands of professionals  who have found their voice through Talkpower Training . (see Talkpower Inc.com)