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).

Copyright 2015 TalkPower Inc

TalkPower

Speaking Names Clearly

Many people mumble and stumble through names and abbreviations of names making it impossible to understand what they are saying. I am calling special attention to this because time and gain I have to remind the participants in my workshops to speak the name of people, places, and things slowly and clearly. This is true even for many experienced speakers. When you have a written text, names and letter and abbreviations are always printed in bold type, or italics, or some form of capital letter. The same type of special attention should be paid to names when they are spoken. Actually, more attention is necessary because the spoken word is so fleeting. Even if your associates tell you that your talk went very well, ask if they were really able to understand all the names you mentioned.

TalkPower Inc

copyright 2015 TalkPower Inc.

copyright 2015 TalkPower Inc.

Me, Likable?

Many of my students who feel very nervous and uncomfortable in front of an audience, cannot believe that their discomfort is not visible. Yet as long as their practice the TalkPower techniques they appear very likeable and are easy to listen to. Time and again, after a wonderfully entertaining talk, a student in my class reports, “Oh I thought I was speaking so slowly…You mean you really like my talk?” “Yes, yes” the class responds, “You were not slow at all. You were a pleasure to listen to.”

LIKABILITY IS A SKILL

You realize of course, that appearing likeable is a technique, a learned skill. You can learn that technique you really can. If you have any doubt about this, take a look at this quote by Jose Ferrer in Actors Talk About Acting.

            “Who know what happened to me. I may have a cold, I may have a hangover. Maybe I couldn’t sleep last night because my wife left me. I have to be good for a sharp audience who demands only the best. My voice, my body, my everything has to work for me. That is what technique is.”

                                                            -Jose Ferrer

LOOKING THOUGHTFUL

People know when you are thinking. They can feel it as you draw within for a mini second to think about something—to answer a question, to find just the right word—and people like thoughtful leaders. They like to know that someone is responsible enough to care about how he will handle their destiny or deal with their fears and concerns. Thoughtfulness is a very attractive quality for a speaker, a leader, or a sales person. In contrast, standup comics don’t have to be too thoughtful on stage, because standup comics are only entertaining you and not attempting to impact your life. However, leaders, speakers, and sales people should look thoughtful because when they don’t, people don’t trust them. How does one look thoughtful? Don’t talk too fast, pause before you answer a question, and practice the TalkPower program so that you can look thoughtful in a relaxed and natural manner.

The Likability Factor

I frequently ask my TalkPower client “ what is your personal objective in giving a presentation?” The answer usually is: to communicate a message, to sell a product, to convince them to do something, to unite people, and other variations on these themes. The answers are usually about the speech, never about the speaker. From my point of view, the most important personal objective is to be likeable. By this I mean general impression of confidence, ease, credibility, and warmth you project so that people feel comfortable with you.

Likeability happens when you are in control of yourself. Then you are able to be clear, not talk too fast, and your words flow with ease. A likeable speaker has a much better chance of getting an idea across, selling a product, convincing people to vote for him, and certainly winning an election. Our resent history abounds with stories of politicians who seemingly came out of nowhere to capture the public vote simply because people “like them.” I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Now, the reason I make such a fuss about this likeability notion is because so many people secretly believe that before they have a right to ask others to listen to them, they have to be brilliant, superintelligent, clever, witty, dynamic, innovative, or else they do not deserve to stand in front of an audience and talk. As a result, either you avoid speaking or your talk is top heavy with facts, statistics, attempts at inspiring generalizations, and huff-and-puff.

How unnecessary! Just use the TalkPower formula (the innovative concentration exercises, the focusing and stress reduction techniques), tell stories, look away from your script at the audience from time to time, handling yourself in a leader-like manner… In other words, be likable, and you will be a huge success!

For the TalkPower formula see the kindle book or attend one of the in-person TalkPower workshops
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TalkPower Kindle

 Dear God, please, please I'm begging you, help us lose that competition so I won't have to make the acceptance speech.

Copyright 2015 TalkPower

Public Speaking Phobia Acquired Later in Life

I used to love speaking in public and I don’t know what happened but for the last three years, whenever an opportunity comes up when I have to make a comment, address a group, or ask a question at a meeting, at that precise moment all of my brain functions jam. And there I am, hopeless, shamed…I fee like a victim in front of a firing squad.

                                                                        -Erwin, accountant

 Some 70 percent of my students and clients recall that from early childhood they were shy and didn’t speak up, the other 30 percent who suffer from public speaking phobia had a different story. These people were once excellent speakers. Generally outgoing, they were active in drama and debate clubs, were class valedictorian or presidents of class societies.

They all report that one day their ability to speak in public vanished and they had abandon all opportunities. Behavioral psychology tells us that phobias happen after a traumatic event—usually an experience that shakes the individual to his/her core—like a psychological near death experience. This could be as serious as a terrible car accident, sudden death of a loved one, a natural disaster, and experience in combat, acts of terrorism, rape, etc. Oddly enough, experiences that one can consider rather benign can also produce such an effect. For example, going away to college, moving to a new community, losing a job, etc. although these events are no where as near as life threatening as those in the previous list, with certain individuals they can fall under the category of traumatic events. As a result one sense of personal control and safety is utterly shattered at the deepest level of self, resulting in Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The stress reaction can appear immediately or up to two years after the traumatic event. No matter what the cause, or the variety or precipitating events, the result can be a phobia, such as fears of flying, driving, fear of heights, or enclosed spaces. The phobia triggered by a particular event can them generalize to other areas, such as fear of escalators or trains, or a sudden panic attack in front of an audience.

The panic attack causes an episode of thought blocking and becomes another traumatic event that will not be forgotten. The next time an opportunity for speaking arises you are psychologically transported to the past—and that moment when you are speechless. You simply cannot do it; you decline with some excuse. One avoidant excuse leads to another, and in a very short time you have glossophobia, an irrational fear of speaking in public.

Denial

Not only is there an individual silence about speaking in public, there is also a national silence. The problem receives so little attention you would think it doesn’t exist. For example, there are no public speaking phobia specialists attached to speech departments in colleges and universities. There is no National Public Speaking-Phobia Society; even the Encyclopedia Britanica, under the category of “speech” has no reference to this condition. In the speech category, although various esoteric conditions and maladies are cited, there is no listing of public speaking phobia itself, although it has a name: glossophobia.

Why is it that in the United States—one of the few countries in the world where freedom of speech is guaranteed by a constitution—fear of speaking in public is the number one phobia? This is a question I asked every time I appeared on radio or television during my first book tour. Nobody seemed to have an answer.

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