stage presence and condfidence

would anyone know any techniques to overcome (stage fright) and to achieve confidence while doing a show and or demonstration.?

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Permalink Reply by Don on April 4, 2010 at 12:03pm

Chris,

The first time I made a professional presentation, I saw a call for papers for a group which asked for a hundred-word abstract for papers to be given at their forthcoming convention. I thought that it would would be easy to do. So I sent them a hundred words based in my Master's thesis. My graduate advisor asked me with some surprise, "Are you interested in going to conferences?" I really hadn't thought that much about it, but it was easy to dash off a hundred words after you had written an entire thesis on a topic, so I did. They accepted (probably to the surpise of us both!), and I was stuck

I still had the physical appearance of a teen-ager; and by the time I had finished writing my paper, I was so scared that I was convinced I wouldn't be able to do it. My advisor sensed this, I think, and he asked me to ride in to the convention with him. He was driving a Volkswagen Beetle with a loud muffler, and I couldn't hear a word he was saying the entire trip in, from Claremont, California, to Los Angeles, but he talked all the way in and I kept smiling and nodding in order to save myself the embarrassment of asking him to repeat himself over and over.

When I got up in front of the group, the first three or four minutes were sheer terror. I think I blanked out, but I kept talking. Then I got interested in what I was saying, and forgot about myself. At the end of the talk, I. felt good because I had enjoyed giving the presentation. The talk seemed to go over well, probably because I had enjoyed giving it because I was enthusiastic about the material itself.

The reason I am going into such detail is that I've always thought that this would be a good hypnosis script. Suggest to yourself (or have someone else suggest to you) that you're going to get so interested in what you are saying that you will forget about yourself completely, regardless of your fears ahead of time; that you will enjoy the presentation, and that you will remember it with pleasure, and look forward with anticipation to the next opportunity to give a talk. This will give you a chance to "vent" your anxieties beforehand, and when the time comes to actually present, you're able to get into the material, forget about yourself, and enjoy the opportunity to tell others about something that's near and dear to your heart. (I guess it was a shorter approximation of the Best Me Technique.)

But watch out -- the cycle can be addictive!

Don

www.hyperempiria.com

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Permalink Reply by Don on April 4, 2010 at 12:14pm

Doc Regal said:

Success is more than luck; it is preparation meeting opportunity. Solidly know your material. Practice, practice, practice!

Amen!

Don

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Permalink Reply by Hugh Cole on April 4, 2010 at 2:01pm

Wow Interesting Scenario ... One of my favorite clients was an overweight woman with a bubbly and happy personality. She came to me for weight management but during the intake I learned she was very active in a local Charity and gained a bit of noteriety as a housewife turned fund raiser and homeless advocate, She could talk for hours about her projects with me. As it turned out she was terrified of public speaking but in my office she was a chatterbox.
After seeing me several times (ie 15 lbs later,,) she asked me for help on another issue. She and several other women were to be honored as SMU (southern Methodist University) woman of the year. That unfortunately necessitaed a fifteen minute presentation and an acceptance speech.,,, in front of 600 + people. Well suffice it to say to say I was later told that she got up to do her talk, walked to the podium, settled in and made a beautiful presentation, got a standing ovation, accepted her plaque and a nice check for her charity and sat back down. She told her husband " wasn't it nice of Dr. Cole to come and sit right there, I hardly noticed anyone else", She promptly forgot about whole thing and went back to here dinner conversation. Only thing was ... I was in Los Angles at the time. Yes ... when you can focus on what you really enjoy.. The rest takes care of itself'.

Hugh Cole
The Pretty Goodest Hypnotist on the Planet,

Don Gibbons, Ph.D. said:

Chris,

The first time I made a professional presentation, I saw a call for papers for a group which asked for a hundred-word abstract for papers to be given at their forthcoming convention. I thought that it would would be easy to do. So I sent them a hundred words based in my Master's thesis. My graduate advisor asked me with some surprise, "Are you interested in going to conferences?" I really hadn't thought that much about it, but it was easy to dash off a hundred words after you had written an entire thesis on a topic, so I did. They accepted (probably to the surpise of us both!), and I was stuck

I still had the physical appearance of a teen-ager; and by the time I had finished writing my paper, I was so scared that I was convinced I wouldn't be able to do it. My advisor sensed this, I think, and he asked me to ride in to the convention with him. He was driving a Volkswagen Beetle with a loud muffler, and I couldn't hear a word he was saying the entire trip in, from Claremont, California, to Los Angeles, but he talked all the way in and I kept smiling and nodding in order to save myself the embarrassment of asking him to repeat himself over and over.

When I got up in front of the group, the first three or four minutes were sheer terror. I think I blanked out, but I kept talking. Then I got interested in what I was saying, and forgot about myself. At the end of the talk, I. felt good because I had enjoyed giving the presentation. The talk seemed to go over well, probably because I had enjoyed giving it because I was enthusiastic about the material itself.

The reason I am going into such detail is that I've always thought that this would be a good hypnosis script. Suggest to yourself (or have someone else suggest to you) that you're going to get so interested in what you are saying that you will forget about yourself completely, regardless of your fears ahead of time; that you will enjoy the presentation, and that you will remember it with pleasure, and look forward with anticipation to the next opportunity to give a talk. This will give you a chance to "vent" your anxieties beforehand, and when the time comes to actually present, you're able to get into the material, forget about yourself, and enjoy the opportunity to tell others about something that's near and dear to your heart. (I guess it was a shorter approximation of the Best Me Technique.)

But watch out -- the cycle can be addictive!

Don

www.hyperempiria.com

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Permalink Reply by John Cleesattel on April 4, 2010 at 5:27pm

I will share an actual event that happened shortly after I completed my training. The place where I worked my day job at the time, had a toastmasters club that met two floors below me during lunch once a week. I figured that if ever there was a place that I could use my newly acquired hypnosis skills to practice on people, that would be it, so one noon I ambled on down there to check it out.

After everyone found out I was "the hypnotist", and nobody felt the need to be hypnotized, I hung in and tried to stay low key.

On the day of the next meeting, I showed up a bit early and there was guy waiting there already that was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He was visibly sweating and shaking. I asked him if he was okay and he told me that it was his week to present, but he always went through fear like this, and it was the reason why he had joined toastmasters to begin with, to try and get over it.

I asked him if he would be interested in spending 30 seconds to get rid of that unwanted feeling. He was not at the first meeting I went to, and he had not heard about me from the others yet. As I was giving him a little pretalk, the others started arriving. We could hear "Look! He's gonna do it!" and then the conversations all hushed. I unabashedly proceeded, and in about a minute, I had the guy open his eyes and tell me how he felt. He was as cool as a cucumber. Very calm, very poised, and started greeting everyone that was now arriving.

The meeting then got underway and he not only gave his presentation, but was the toastmaster of that day and officiated over the entire meeting itself with a very calm and likable demeanor without a hint of the trauma he previously was experiencing. He got a standing ovation and was told that was the best he had ever done. When it was over, the guy told me that he was glad that I helped him because he had a meeting the following Monday where he had to address 200 managers on some new procedures that they had to follow. Now all I did was take away an unwanted feeling, not any kind of actual fear removal intervention.

However; at the very NEXT meeting, two members of the human relations department were in attendance and I was asked if I was hypnotizing people during company hours. When I told them that I had just helped someone with a fear of public speaking, I was told to cease and desist because they did not want any liability issues because of it. They did not want to hear about how harmless it was, I was just told to stop.

I never saw that guy again, and have no idea how his next meeting with the 200 managers went.

John