Public speaking nightmare

You’re preparing to give a presentation to a group of your peers. As the time draws closer you notice your heart is beating twice as fast and your palms are getting sweaty. Your mind is plagued by thoughts of how this is going to go wrong. You tell yourself that your colleagues don’t even care what you're about to say, they’ll be bored of you after the first 30 seconds and all be playing with their phones by the time you reach your conclusion.

A polite round of applause welcomes you to the front of the room. You feel a small bead of sweat trickle down from your brow and you stutter in your first sentence. A polite cough echoes around the eerily silent room. The computer has frozen and isn’t moving onto the next slide. Make a joke about it? Pretend like you don’t need the power point you worked so hard on? People shuffle in their seats, growing impatient as the temperamental soul that is technology brings your whole presentation to a halt.

Panic overwhelms you. You’ve lost sight of where you were and frantically look through your notes that now seem like a language unknown. You start to rush your words, desperate for the ordeal to be over. You care no longer whether your presentation makes sense or conveys the point you intended. You conclude your message half heartedly and the same polite applause accompanies you back to your chair. You sink back, wishing you would fall straight through the chair, the floor and into a place where presentations were not a part of your job.

Any of that sound familiar?

Dale Carnegie work with thousands of individuals who have felt the same worries, anxieties and doubt over their public speaking as you do and seek to develop those skills to ensure they no longer need panic when in front of a crowd. We can work with you to make sure you engage your audience, use positive tone and body language and provide you with confidence that once you’ve finished your presentation, you can sit down knowing the message you wanted to put across, has been received.

We will be running a complimentary preview to one of our Presentations development programmes (High Impact Presentations) on Thursday 10th May. For more information give us a call on 0207 379 4323.

Brett Mills

Practice makes Permanent

Only three days to go and I am starting to get nervous. I am about to co-host a 2 hour workshop this Thursday and I am finding difficult to focus on anything else. Public speaking played a big part in a previous role and all I can remember is that I loved it. I managed a large sales team and was responsible for motivating them daily. I also had opportunities to speak at large national conferences and lived for it. I actually couldn’t remember what it was like the first time I stood up in front of my team or when I spoke to a large audience. Was I nervous? Was I any good?

Our flagship programme, the Dale Carnegie Course has five key drivers and these are developed over a period of time through, facilitation, practice and coaching. Another medium that is used to develop some of these skills is public speaking. I have spoken to many people over the last 18 months for whom confidence was a fundamental challenge that needed to be overcome. I have assured many people that it is natural to feel nerves when speaking in public. I have advised my clients that everyone gets butterflies, even the most polished presenters. It’s just a matter of turning that into excitement and using it in your favour. I believe there are only two instances where you would not feel nerves before presenting. One is if you don’t care about what you are presenting and the second is if you don’t care about the audience.

I have realized however that it is very easy to fall back into my comfort zone. It has been a while since I last presented and the nerves have kicked in big time. I guess it’s time for me to take my own advice and try to make it work for me. I know the only way for me to become a better presenter is to practice and practice.

If you would like to attend some of our free seminars and course previews and find out how we have supported individual’s, teams and companies to over come challenges and get better results then please follow the link below.

FREE SEMINARS AND PREVIEWS

Hopefully, I’ll be presenting at one of these events.

Have a great week,

Amar

Create change and see what happens

With The Apprentice returning to our screens next week it’s timely that I should discuss an entrepreneur in this blog post. One who had an idea for a product and who followed it through with grit, determination, initiative, passion and trying something different. Here’s some things I learned which I wanted to share.....

Sara Blakely came up with an idea of creating underwear which makes you look thinner and solves the VPL which so many women try to avoid. Spanx was born. And now at the age of 41 she is a self made billionaire (1 billion USD, £638 million). I have no idea whether she was in it for the money or if she wanted to create something she was passionate about, but however you measure her success, she is in no doubt successful. So just how did she do it?

Her past jobs certainly helped her. She worked at Disney as a meeter-and-greeter which no doubt gave her a background in Customer Service (as Disney are renowned for excellent customer service). She then worked as a door-to-door salesperson and was used to hearing ‘No’s’ and having knockbacks.....no doubt with the odd door slammed in her face. She also was a stand up comic in her spare time which meant she had no problems presenting to crowds, some of whom I can imagine could be a tad difficult.

She was passionate about her product and invested her life savings to make it happen. And in order to get her product noticed she really had to fall back on to her previous sales role.

Sara also had initiative and in her 10 min slot with a potential buyer she took her to the ladies to show her a before and after demonstration of her product rather than spend the whole precious ten minutes explaining to the buyer why she should stock her product. There certainly wasn’t a confidence issue there. But her big break came six months after that meeting whereby she sent a sample to Oprah Winfrey who was so impressed with her product that she added it to her Favourite Things Show. What better free advertising/PR can you get than an endorsement from a world renowned celebrity on a show which is seen on a global scale? Needless to say Sara never looked back after that.

As a result of her success, she set up the Sara Blakely Foundation to help women through education and entrepreneurial training which also funds scholarships in South Africa, as well as donating $1 million to Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy.....therefore giving back to the community.

Some of us will have an idea which we want to pursue and some of us won’t. Some of us will have most of the tools we need to pursue that goal and some of us won’t. If you would like to know how to present to groups, or build up your confidence, then by all means drop us a line. We are friendly, helpful and above all, really listen to what you require. And we would love to help you achieve your dreams.

I will leave you with a quote from Sara Blakely which I think sums up her success:

‘Now I give speeches and I always ask: If no one showed you how to do your job, how would you be doing it? Take a moment and ask that question. Often your way is better. Maybe it’s a fresh new approach. If you are doing something the way that everyone is doing it, you are not really creating change by doing it that way.’

Helen

Overcoming Self Built Barriers

I am sitting in a room full of professionals, all experienced in their fields and all investing in the development of fundamental interpersonal skills. It is the first session of the Dale Carnegie Course and our coach Charlotte is encouraging us all to mingle, meet and greet. During these few minutes, I ask people what are their expectations of the course and the response is mixed. Some are anticipative, some are rather nervous and of course there are a few skeptics.

Once we had all sat down, Charlotte ran through the introduction of today’s session and out of nowhere, picked on me first! This didn’t surprise me, being the only one sitting on a front row of eight seats. I casually took the few steps needed to stand at the front and face my newly found class mates when tunnel vision set in. This is what happens to me when I am asked to present in front of a group. This is a real bug bearer for me as I am a confident girl and I know that even the worst outcome of this situation is not really one I need worry about, it’s hardly life or death. As it turns out all I had to do was introduce myself to the group and whilst doing so, emphasize both my first and last name. This I did with ease, still feeling a little red faced but already starting to feel more comfortable. I watched everyone else do the same and we were then asked to note down the first and last names of our class mates. When asked to see how many we could remember, I shamefully could only rattle off four names.

After a little more coaching on memory techniques, we were given another challenge. I was now feeling way out of my comfort zone as it was different and definitely unusual challenge.

‘Tell us your name through imagery, using your physical body to create these images, and then present this as expressively as you can to your class mates.’

Ok, let’s throw myself into this I thought, this is a great opportunity, it would be a shame if I played shy and didn’t push myself. The challenge was hilarious; the class was divided into groups of fours so we could help each other and feedback the effectiveness of ideas. When presenting our name, I was first after the lovely Charlotte. Tunnel vision set in once again, but this time the ‘silliness’ of the situation evoked so much laughter from everyone that I instantly felt more comfortable. By the end of my turn, tunnel vision had left me and I was absolutely chuffed with this mini break through. After all had presented their names using that technique, we were asked how many we remembered. I remembered everyone’s.

For the first time ever, I had presented my ideas to a group of people I believed were all more experienced than me, and when finished, I had a smile on my face and my palms were perspiration free.

Session 1- My classmates and I learnt to have an open mind with regards to the effectiveness of less conventional activities, and not to be afraid to be creative.

Michaela Foden

The difference between confidence and nerves.

As I am coming up to the half way point of the Dale Carnegie course I thought I could use this blog to maybe describe one of the key breakthroughs I have made so far. The course is designed to develop a variety of skills and mentalities which in turn will be beneficial in your relationships with others, enable you to project confidence and maintain a positive attitude in all situations.

I have recognised through the presentations I have made on the course and speaking to others partaking that we all get nervous. Whether its presentations or something entirely different, I don’t know anyone who does not get nervous at some point. I use to think that by being constantly nervous I was somebody who suffered from a lack of confidence but would often be given good feedback in the areas I thought I was not confident in.

I have come to realise that nerves are more related to the significance of an event and confidence is linked to our preparation for it. If I have to give a presentation on a particular subject and I’m not prepared, then I will be nervous and have no confidence in myself to carry out the presentation. If I have prepared for the presentation then I have total confidence in my ability to deliver a good presentation but it does not stop me from feeling nerves.

I have learned to welcome the feeling of nerves in any scenario in life as for me it underlines it is something of importance. If I don’t feel confident about my ability to get through it, then I need to find what’s missing in order to rectify it.

I would encourage you to embrace nerves as a means of motivation. Next time you have a presentation and you feel nervous…good, it means that what you are doing is important to you! Next time you have a presentation and you don’t feel confident…work out what is missing, change it and give yourself the confidence that you have all the tools to give the presentation of your life.

Brett Mills

Natural Leadership

This is Emma and Juanci, my beautiful niece and nephew, 9 & 8 years respectively. Like many children they are spontaneous, energetic, fun loving, joyful, creative and daring souls. Their mission in life is being happy and their vision is doing the things that make them happy; simple really. They live each day to the full, content and satisfied and sleep deeply at night unless it is their Birthday, Christmas or another special event!

Recently a client of mine from the Finance sector said to me, ‘I want to be like my son. He is learning to walk. He falls down, gets back up again, succeeds a little, falls down, gets back up again and so on. He is fearless! If I did the same in my business I would achieve my dreams!'

Like Emma and Juanci and like my clients son, what if we woke up each day with a clear mission and vision in life that would have us leap out of bed with excitement and boundless enthusiasm? How many of us actually know and live the mission and vision of the companies we work for? What if we aligned our mission and visions with that of our organisation? Would we perhaps feel we were contributors and a part of a diverse leadership within our business and for our clients?

Despite the current economic situation, confidence is returning, risks are been taken, and opportunities are abound, if only we look for them. The overwhelming challenge for the UK is in leadership and management, we spend 1,100 Euros per manager on leadership and management training compared to our European counterparts who spend just under 5,000 Euros. Now is as good a time as ever whether you are an employee, a Manager, a Director or an Executive (if we are not already being this way) to be ourselves, to communicate our mission and our vision clearly with each other and to involve our customers, partners and suppliers in the challenges we face. We are all leaders after all and this collective, co-operative approach is what kids do so naturally. I know Emma and Juanci are constantly and unwittingly reminding me.

Lizzie Thomas
Consultant

http://www.london.dalecarnegie.com/