Ever feel stuck? Like you can’t move forward in your life and don’t know why? Fear of feeling is the block that prevents one from going forward in life. A human being is meant to experience life, digest the experience, take the lesson and meaning from the experience and release the negative emotion from each…
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Tim Brown, CEO of Ideo, gave a talk about the relationship of play to creativity. Among his main points he stressed that adults are embarrassed to share their most creative ideas with peers because they are sensitive to critical opinions from others. As a result, most adults only offer their most conservative ideas. In order…
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Almost everyone has heard the term being in the zone. Athletes of all kinds use this term along with the phrase Ideal Performance State, coined by Dr. James E. Loehr of the Human Performance Institute. Within the fields of presentation skills, public speaking and artistic performance, the zone is called presence or being present in…
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People who have stage fright and fear of public speaking will often feel uncomfortable in networking situations and social settings. The issues are really the same – being comfortable with yourself and opening to connect with others. I have written in the past about the importance of opening to receive others for both networking and…
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Monday morning as I was getting dressed, I had The Today Show on TV. Matt Lauer introduced Suzan Colon, senior editor of Oprah Magazine as his guest. Suzan offered ten tips to help people feel happier. I stopped to watch. Glad I did! Toward the end of her tips she said “Stand on your toes.” …
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Normally I write about stage fright and fear of public speaking, but today my focus is broader. As we face an economic crisis, just about everybody is feeling some fear and anxiety right now. I have been working to overcome mine and to transform the fear into power. I have also been pondering what I…
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If you pay close attention to how you feel during stage fright, you will notice that the feeling is very familiar, and about as old as your earliest memories. It is the same feeling that you had when you were a small child – powerless, overwhelmed by the larger world and totally dependent on others…
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In my Telling Stories & Sharing Wisdom speaking class last week, one participant wowed us with a fully fleshed-out talk about what is wrong in America today. He was able to put together ideas and pieces of content that included a story about being with his daughter in a New York restaurant at a table…
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Effectiveness in public speaking or presentation is not about your performance. It is certainly not about being perfect in your speaking style. Effectiveness has to do with what happens to them, your listeners, as a result of who you are being with them. If you shared ideas, information and stories that cause your listeners to…
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So often, speakers feel that they are getting up in front of strangers. And worse, they expect that the strangers in their audience will be unaccepting or disapproving of what they have to say. The thought that they might not like you or agree with you triggers a terrifying reaction in your body and mind.…
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