Butterflies and Sweaty Palms E-Book

Judy Apps

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 180

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

If you have ever carried a lucky talisman in your pocket to give yourself courage before a big event then carry this book instead. Based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), the ground-breaking solutions to performance anxiety in this book will carry you through the most daunting experience of public speaking.The exercises are simple and highly effective. Even if you have suffered intolerably from performance nerves in the past this book will enable you to perform with passion and determination and wow your audience. How many times have you picked up a self-help book and thought "It's all very well but it won't work for me." This time the book meets you where you are and helps you to succeed by approaching the problem on many different levels.Judy inspires and encourages you with her descriptions and anecdotes. There are exercises that you can easily do at home and which are interesting and fun to do. The exercises are diverse so that issues are tackled in a variety of different ways. You can do the exercises either alone or with other people. The book is brief and easy to read, the techniques highly practical and the methods simple yet profound.

Leseprobe

To all who have felt fearful before speaking

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Part I: Exploring the Territory

Chapter 1: Is It Really Possible – For Me?

So what will be different this time?

What you’ll learn

Chapter 2: Let’s Look At This Thing Called Fear

It feels lonely … but is it?

Fear and the famous

What have you tried so far?

How do effective speakers manage it?

Good luck charms

How do you do fear?

Change the connections

The curse of perfection

Success or failure thinking

‘I’m going to fail anyway’

New ways to learn

Part II: 25 Confidence Strategies

Chapter 3: Use Your Imagination

Strategy 1 – Change fear to excitement

Strategy 2 – Imagine what you want

Strategy 3 – Play with the vision

Strategy 4 – Find a good model

Strategy 5 – Transfer an ability

Strategy 6 – Think about after the ball is over

Chapter 4: Be Present

Strategy 7 – Focus externally

Strategy 8 – Find ‘the zone’

Strategy 9 – Use association triggers

Strategy 10 – Centre yourself four ways

Chapter 5: Come Alive

Strategy 11 – Use energy before you start

Strategy 12 – Ride your fear like the rapids!

Strategy 13 – Breathe in power

Strategy 14 – Find your purpose

Strategy 15 – Find your passion

Strategy 16 – Let feeling in, or not

Strategy 17 – Use all or nothing thinking

Chapter 6: Let’s Look At the Audience

Strategy 18 – Make friends with your audience

Strategy 19 – Create a connection

Strategy 20 – Lead the audience

Strategy 21 – Coach yourself

Chapter 7: Be Yourself

Strategy 22 – Connect with your inner self

Strategy 23 – Wave your magic wand

Strategy 24 – Play, seriously!

Strategy 25 – Trust

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Copyright

Introduction

‘You’ve either got it or you haven’t,’ that’s what people say.

‘Either you’re a good public speaker or you’re not.’

‘Speakers are born and not made.’

That’s bad news if you don’t feel you are a born speaker. Speaking is an essential skill. It isn’t only those occasions on the podium or even the oft-dreaded wedding speech; the ability to communicate under pressure is required in countless different situations – for informal presentations, meetings, interviews, key leadership moments, tackling a difficult situation with a colleague or even asking someone out on a date.

If you don’t feel confident about your ability such moments can be a real challenge and create a lot of sweat, anxiety and sleepless nights. But they are hard to avoid completely.

So, should you give up now?

No, not at all.

Just read a little bit further …

O God of second chances and new beginnings, here I am. Again.

Nancy Spiegelberg

PART I

Exploring the Territory

CHAPTER 1

Is It Really Possible – For Me?

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a minute and think of it.

A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Lots of books have been written on public speaking and presenting; perhaps you’ve read some of them. Maybe up till now none of those books has made much difference. You might ask yourself if it’s really possible to speak well in public – for you.

So straight away I want to tell you the answer is yes.

Yes, it’s possible.

It’s possible for you.

You really can learn how to perform well in public. You can learn what to do to overcome performance anxiety even if you think you have tried everything and have completely run out of ideas.

What gives me the confidence that it’s possible for you? Well, because I have witnessed many people succeed. Over the years I have coached hundreds of people on public speaking and confidence, and many started with little hope. My Voice of Influence workshops have been attended by some who could scarcely get themselves inside the door but edged in holding on to the walls with fear. And those very same people by the end of the next day stood up and gave a speech – without notes – that connected powerfully with the audience.

I have worked with people one-to-one who have told me at the outset that their issue goes beyond fear: ‘This is not just fear, it’s a phobia,’ they say. Those same people learn in a few sessions how to perform with assurance. One person had actually fainted from anxiety the last time she’d had to give a presentation for her corporation. Very soon after we had worked together she went on to give a successful presentation to an audience of two hundred potential investors.

I am sure that you too would like to be able to perform with assurance and confidence. But the truth may be that you are worried and frightened. You tell yourself not to be but nothing ever changes. Maybe too you have heard promises from teachers and trainers that didn’t lead to any positive results for you.

So what will be different this time?

Firstly, it’s not just about learning what to do. You probably have a good idea what to do already. Even if you feel less than confident about your material, the finer points of running a PowerPoint presentation or the protocols of a formal speech, even if you worry about forgetting things or looking stupid or making mistakes, I’m convinced you have watched enough people speak either live or on screen to know broadly what to do. You are probably also sufficiently aware of the pitfalls to know what not to do.

The problem is that even with this knowledge you can’t do it. You’ve already tried to do what you see good speakers do and it hasn’t worked for you. The reason it hasn’t worked I suspect is that you don’t believe it’s possible for you. It’s your self-belief that lets you down.

What you’ll learn

If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.

Betty Reese

This time you’ll get to the root of it. This book will help you in easy steps to gain the self-belief to speak brilliantly.

You’ll learn:

• The one thing you need to know to stop feeling alone and hopeless.

• The four ‘common-sense’ strategies you’re probably using right now and why they never work.

• Why most of the advice you’re getting from well-meaning professionals and self-help books is actually making it harder to perform well.

• Why ‘working’ at improving your performance is never successful and what to do about it.

• How to overcome your self-defeating belief that it’s just not possible, and create the mindset that will allow you to get exactly what you want.

• How to make sure you’re in the right frame of mind – every time.

• How to come alive when you’re speaking instead of dying on your feet.

• What to say and what not to say to make sure that the audience loves you and listens to every word you say.

• How to ensure that you hit the ground running whenever you speak.

The book is in two parts: Part I introduces you to some of the tools and Part II contains 25 sure-fire strategies for overcoming performance anxiety. When you get to Part II you might want to read straight through from beginning to end on a first reading, or you may prefer to browse to see which strategies jump out at you and practise those first. You can then go through Part II again and learn the strategies one by one. Some will be immediately useful and others might take a bit of practice. Sometimes those are the very ones that will become your favourites.

Each strategy in Part II is introduced and then the process is laid out step by step. At the end of each strategy there are notes or case studies based on the experiences of others who have done the exercises. These notes will guide you to explore various options to make the strategies work for you – even those that seem less easy at first. This makes it more like my working with you in real life: we are all different and sometimes exercises work better if they are ‘tweaked’ a little to suit you.

Keep the book by you and consult it every time you have a question you can’t answer or whenever you need a bit of extra help. You can also contact me at [email protected] if you can’t find the answer.

The journey starts here. If you are impatient you can go straight to Part II and get started on the strategies! Come back to Part I though – it’s an important part of the process.

Your success will depend less on hard work than on your willingness to try something different. Listen to this cautionary tale:

The Fly

In our kitchen we mostly keep the window shut and the door wide open in summer. I often find dead flies on our south-facing windowsill. Each fly tries to escape to the garden through the pane of glass. Again and again it flies towards the light against the glass; it buzzes furiously and again and again I hear the small bang of its body hitting the pane. I sense the life and death exertion: ‘Again! Again! Try harder, try harder!’ But it is never going to succeed and the effort allows no hope of survival. The fly is doomed.

If it could just back away from the seductive light of the window and change its strategy for only a moment it would find the huge gaping door to take it into the world outside. With simple ease in just a few seconds it would be free. But it never can. It has condemned itself to endless effort towards a doomed goal.

Are you like the fly banging at a closed window with your efforts to overcome performance anxiety? If you try what you have always tried you are probably going to get the result you’ve had so far.

Relax. Breathe again. Sometimes it’s about going about something differently. Have a look around you. The door to freedom is open. All you need to do is step through …

CHAPTER 2

Let’s Look At This Thing Called Fear

A young actor confessed to an older actor before a performance that he had nervous butterflies in his stomach. ‘I don’t expect you get those any more, do you?’ he asked.

The older actor looked at him with the hint of a smile and replied, ‘Oh yes, I still get them; but I don’t try and kill them. I’ve taught them to fly in formation.’

Fear is not bad of itself. It keeps us out of danger so that we don’t get too close to a cliff edge or lean into a fire. But our fear is sometimes out of date and based on a strange assortment of emotional data from the past. Human beings do not have to be in real danger to set off feelings of fear.

So let’s start at the beginning by looking at fear itself, not because we want to focus on the negative but in the spirit of kissing the frog that’s going to turn into a prince.

It feels lonely … but is it?

When you are afraid, it can be a lonely feeling. You feel inadequate and abnormal. You convince yourself that you are the only person in existence who feels this way. It seems that the whole world can do this thing and you’re the only person who can’t.

Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you if you get a kick out of feeling unusual.

This isn’t unusual: it’s common.

The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety.

Eric Sevareid, American news commentator

People get fearful all the time and they are afraid of a lot of things! A BBC survey in 2006 of people’s twenty worst fears1 came up with an extraordinary mix of scare-making things from buttons, balloons and ice-lolly sticks to coleslaw, feathers and the letter Y! Fear of public speaking is certainly not unusual. One survey in 1993 asked people ‘about the things of which nightmares are made’ and they mentioned fear of heights, deep water, insects, financial problems, sickness, death and much else besides.2 But the most common fear of all was speaking before a group. It came out right at the top of the list way above fear of death!

It is true you may have a gentler word for it, there may be a number of other factors involved and of course technique is important too, but the basis of most performance discomfort is fear. In fact, it’s the biggest single factor preventing us from achieving just about anything.

‘More good creative ability is wasted due to fear than anything else I can think of,’ says the author of Creative Thinking, Michael LeBoeuf: ‘People with good voices are afraid to sing. People with artistic talent hide their paintings rather than risk ridicule. People who love to write are too embarrassed to show their writing to anyone.’3

What are your main fears about public speaking?

• Fear of being looked at?

• Fear of not knowing enough?

• Fear of not being able to express in words what you want to say?

• Fear of drying up?

• Fear of your voice sounding all wrong?

• Fear of going red and blushing?

• Fear of being judged and found wanting?

• Fear of being vulnerable to what people might say or do?

• Fear of revealing things about yourself that you don’t want people to know?

• Fear of forgetting something important or losing track?

• Fear of getting flustered with unexpected questions or interruptions?

• Fear triggered by remembering bad occasions in the past?

• Fear that you won’t measure up to other people?

• Fear of looking foolish?

• Fear of not being good enough?

• Fear of the feeling of panic?

• Fear of getting frightened?

• ..............................................................................

• ..............................................................................

Are your fears included here? I’ve left a space for you to add your own. What frightens you the most?

Fear and the famous

It plagues me. I’m standing in the wings with the sweat pouring off me thinking what on earth am I doing?

Sinéad Cusack, speaking about stage fright

It’s not just ordinary people who get nervous: it’s everyone! You only have to use your eyes and ears to know that it’s true. Switch on the television news and watch presidents and prime ministers as they come into the public gaze. Before they descend the stairs of the recently arrived aeroplane the men adjust their ties and touch their pockets and the women smooth their skirts and play with their hair. Do you think they didn’t check their appearance before the aircraft door opened? Of course they did. This fidgeting is just nerves.

Watch well-known speakers: how they compulsively straighten their conference papers or touch their faces. Watch actors being interviewed: how they over-laugh and over-enthuse. Watch politicians in important debates: how their gestures become stiff and their voices narrowed. Then watch them put on the spot: how they blink and fidget and tap or clutch their hands. Think they aren’t nervous?

So take note of this important observation:

The extent of your nerves bears little relation to the amount of talent you have.

Many famous people have been famously frightened:

• The actor John Cleese confided that before The Frost Report, which was transmitted live, he could not have been more afraid if he had been in a bullring with an angry bull.

• The generous-sized and usually cheery actor Patricia Routlege was discovered before one of her solo spots in Victoria Wood as Seen on TV shaking in terror underneath the costume racks in the dressing room.

• TV personality Stephen Fry gave up fronting the BAFTA awards confessing that he suffered extreme stage fright prior to his appearances.

• The great actor Sir Laurence Olivier was so struck with nerves in one run at London’s National Theatre that he had to have the stage manager push him onstage every night.

• The legendary cellist Pablo Casals suffered so much from clammy hands at his Viennese debut that the cello bow shot out of his grasp during an early flourish and hit someone in the ninth row of the audience.

• The singer Barbra Streisand, after forgetting one of her lyrics during a Central Park concert, stopped performing live for almost three decades.

• The film star Lauren Bacall initially adopted her seductive trademark look – where she presses her chin against her chest to face the camera and tilts her eyes upward – as a tactic to stop her nervous quivering.

• The singer Bruce Springsteen claims to get excited rather than frightened but admits to being physically sick before performances.

Shall I go on? It’s not just actors and musicians – we meet performance fear everywhere:

• The broadcaster Sheridan Morley, who wrote the news in the early days of television, was once called upon at short notice to read the bulletin. His fear got the better of him and afterwards he says that many people wrote in to give him advice on his Parkinson’s disease!

• The boxer George Foreman recounting his famous fight with Joe Frazier remembers that his knees were knocking so much he just hoped that Joe wouldn’t glance down and realise his advantage. ‘Fear is everything,’ he said. ‘It’s not the fight you lose, it’s yourself.’

• Go back in history and you discover the British Prime Minister William Gladstone taking laudanum – or opium tincture – before important political speeches to steady his nerves.

• In the popular television programme we watch hopeful entrepreneurs arrive in the ‘Dragons’ Den’ and quake visibly or even dry up completely before the multimillionaire potential investors.

The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson writing back in the nineteenth century declared that ‘Fear stops more people than anything else in the world.’ Fear is widespread. Fear assails us all.

Most people think that courage is the absence of fear. The absence of fear is not courage; the absence of fear is some kind of brain damage.

M. Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled

But note this first glimmer of light: even though famous and talented people clearly feel fear they are nevertheless successful. So it is clearly possible to feel frightened and yet to perform with distinction. You certainly cannot claim that fear equals failure – all the people mentioned above have won through. They understood the most important lesson of performing: it’s not a case of either feel fear or perform well; it’s both feel fear and perform well. Both/and – that’s the secret.

So what about you? What can you do about it?

What have you tried so far?

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Helen Keller

You have probably already employed some strategies to counter fear. For example, have you already tried any or all of the following (which incidentally don’t work)?

Avoiding all situations where you might be called upon to speak

This is a popular strategy though it does very little to help you avoid stress and pain. You turn down invitations to speak. Then your work situation increasingly demands that you do speak. So you prevaricate and postpone. You send members of your staff who don’t mind speaking. You arrange presentations that involve your whole team with the excuse that you are making it a democratic event or providing a learning experience for them. You do this for as long as you can. But sooner or later you’re up against some situation that is hard to avoid, and there you are back in the black hole of fear.

Beating yourself up

You tell yourself that you should be able to speak confidently. You tell yourself that you are a pathetic worm and that you will never amount to anything. You insist to yourself that you face your fears. You beat yourself up again and again. This all makes you feel very bad; beating yourself up never worked for anybody. So when you actually do speak in public your negative inner voice that has got so used to beating you up saps your confidence and sabotages your performance. The more you beat yourself up the worse you feel; and the worse you feel the more daunting the situation seems. It never works.

Telling yourself to be positive

You always think this should work. It never works. You tell yourself that you are feeling confident and that little voice pipes up inside you: ‘Actually, I’m feeling really shaky.’ So you revert to the previous strategy and beat yourself up verbally for a bit. Then you tell yourself again that you are feeling really positive; and the little voice pipes up a bit more stridently and wails, ‘Hang on a minute. I’m feeling really bad, my knees are knocking.’

In fact, the more you tell yourself you are feeling positive the worse you get. You’re not feeling positive at all. It’s a lie.

Positive thinking is going to help you. But this isn’t it.

Controlling the fear