THE JOURNAL OF A SENSEI

Michelle Yozzo Drake – Overcoming Fear of Public Speaking

Fear of public speaking ranks higher than fear of DEATH! Michelle Yozzo Drake reveals her secrets for overcoming the fear of public speaking to deliver powerful presentations.

Public Speaking: Giving a Great Speech : Public Speaking Tips: Practice & Preparation

Before delivering a great speech, the most important thing to do is practice. Prepare to give a great speech with tips from a communications specialist in this free public speaking video. Expert: Tracy Goodwin Bio: Tracy Goodwin has received numerous public speaking awards and has been a college professor of public speaking, interpersonal communications, voice and diction, and business speech for over a decade. Filmmaker: MAKE | MEDIA

Public Speaking Tips : How to Be a Good Public Speaker

Learn how to speak, listen, and build confidence in your public speech in this free lesson on the importance of public speaking. Expert: Scott Ginsberg Contact: www.himynameisscott.com Bio: Scott Ginsberg is an author of five books, a professional speaker, and the only person in the world who wears a name tag 24-7 to make people friendlier. Filmmaker: Ross Safronoff

Overcome Fear of Public Speaking

Learn how to overcome fear of public speaking, speech anxiety and phobia, an important skill for mastering the art of presentation.

Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety the Easy Way

Overcoming public speaking anxiety is not an easy task. Your knees shake, your hands sweat, and your heart pumps even faster than you can count; but if you have the determination to succeed on stage, overcoming public speaking anxiety is a breeze.

There are a lot of reasons why your fear is triggered when you speak in public. These are some of the reasons why overcoming public speaking anxiety can be challenging at first:

? You feel that you may commit errors in grammar or provide invalid information along the way.

? You feel the people around you are judging you wrongly.

? You feel insecure about the topic of discussion.

? You feel the audience doesn’t like you as their speaker.

? You feel the audience doesn’t understand your point.

Treat your audience as a friend by giving them the benefit of the doubt about how they feel and think about you. Instead of feeling like they don’t like you, assume that they do and you’ve taken the important first step to overcoming public speaking anxiety.

Keep your audience awake by being provocative. Ask some questions and maintain eye contact for a couple of seconds to as many people as you can inside the room. Change your voice tone when there’s a need to emphasize things.

The center stage is not the most comfortable place in the world, and public speaking has been known to top the list of fears for most people. Your body reacts to the pressure you’re going through while in front of your audience.

Don’t worry because the feeling is absolutely normal. When all that adrenalin reacts to how you feel, overcoming public speaking anxiety can become easy. You may model other successful public speakers but remember to put your own unique style in your speech delivery.

Effective Public Speaking – Five Ways to Captivate your Listeners

Public speaking is all about effective communication, whether this is on an auditorium stage, in a small room or a huge arena. Gaining then holding the favorable attention of your listeners are the keys here. Once you’ve worked out what you want to say, conquered your fear of speaking in public, and brushed up your skills to actually present your ideas, the all-important next step is to captivate your audience.

Here are five ways to captivate your listeners:

1 Instantly gain your audience’s favorable interest by using an attention-grabbing opener. This can be a question, statement or a personal anecdote that is in context. Select something that would appeal to, and not embarrass,

your listeners. Find out something about your audience that they may not expect you to know or acknowledge. So, if it is at a convention then ask questions of your convener, beforehand, as to what’s the current convention theme, or “buzz”, then refer to it. Do not try jokes or allude to rumor as this will surely offend somebody. Remember you are to gain the favorable attention of your listeners, not unfavorable.

2 Acknowledge your audience. Let them know that you appreciate that they have given up their precious time to listen to your presentation. Even acknowledge a couple of those your know by name in a friendly, warm fashion. Many speakers hide behind reams of notes and powerpoint slides to try to block out the people present in the room so as to control their fear of public speaking. You have to remember that you actually need to communicate with your audience, not just tell them. You’ll win over your listeners if you acknowledge them and by interacting with them by asking or answering questions. One technique here is to ask “who has the first question?” – then wait! … and to close off by asking “who has the final question?” Even just by making eye contact with a few people can make a big difference in being accepted by your listeners. This will do wonders for your self-confidence.

3 On notes and visual aids, most people prefer to have some notes handy for public speaking events, and you may prefer to use slides, Powerpoint, videos or other visual aids. Notes should be no more than headings, in big print for easy and quick visual reference to the main sign-posts of your message. You should know your subject well enough so that you can talk about it – and not read out a written speech verbatim. Don’t look at your slides when you speak – look at your listeners. Move around the room or even take a few steps forward on the podium to emphasize a point. Visual aids can be very useful, but be careful not to let these take over or you may be in danger of losing your personal connection with your listeners.

4 Be yourself at a public speaking event. You’ll gain a lot more respect from the people you’re addressing. Let your personality come across. Unless you think you have potential as an Oscar winner, don’t try to act. Even Oscar winners are accepted more kindly when they speak spontaneously from the heart rather than from sweaty lengthy notes. Although public speaking is a performance to some extent, it’s your personality rather than your material that will make it interesting. If your material is of a technical nature then prepare handouts so that your listeners can read your message is more depth at a later time. Motivate them to read your notes later by piquing their interest with one or two more important points during your presentation. You are really selling yourself, rather than your material, to your listeners.

5 So, in summary, remember to leave a lasting favorable impression on your audience by closing with an interesting or unusual fact or a final challenge for them to ponder over. The challenge can be a call to action and should flow logically from the main body of your speech. Keep in mind that public speaking is not only about getting your point across, the impact you make really depends on people remembering you favorably.

People buy you first, then your message!

Can Public Speaking Hypnosis Help You?

It seems that at some point almost everyone experiences some anxiety about public speaking. Hypnosis can be a useful tool to help many people overcome this fear of speaking in front of an audience, and become relaxed, confident speakers.

Although there are several ways to treat a fear of public speaking, hypnosis is often one of the most successful. Hypnosis deals with the “programming” in your subconscious mind, and can affect changes on a deeper level than we are counsciously aware of. Why is this important?

Your subconscious is trying to protect you by maintaining everything in your life the way it currently is — both the good and the bad! Your subconscious doesn’t really concern itself with concepts like happiness or unhappiness. It deals with basic survival, and the way it sees it, you have survived up to now the way you are, so you shouldn’t change anything and put yourself at risk.

You can see a therapist that uses hypnosis to overcome your anxiety, or you can use a public speaking hypnosis recording. Self hypnosis, like using a pre-recorded mp3 session, can in some cases be just as useful as seeing a therapist, and you can do it in the privacy of your own home. Public speaking hypnosis mp3s are available to use over and over until you feel that you have completely overcome your fear. They are also usually a cheaper option than seeing a hypnotherapist.

As with most other types of treatment, hypnosis works best when you are able to repeat it over and over. Owning a self hypnosis session allows you to use it every day, until you have successfully “brainwashed” yourself to the point where you have overcome your mental obstacles and re-programmed your mind.

Undergoing hypnosis, whether with a therapist or using a recording, usually begins by getting really relaxed and calm, and entering a pre-hypnotic state. Once hypnotized, you are usually still both awake and alert, but your mind is more receptive to suggestions. The hypnotherapist will guide you by giving you suggestions that will help your subconscious mind to change its habitual responses and replace them with new, more beneficial ones.

You subconscious does not understand negatives, so a suggestion should not be “I am not afraid of speaking in public,” but rather something like “I feel calm and relaxed when I speak in public,” or “I enjoy speaking in public.”

Using hypnosis to treat phobias has been proven effective in many research studies, and this includes treating fear of flying, fear of spiders, social phobias as well as fear of public speaking.

The concept of ypnosis has been around for a long time, but there are many misconceptions about this technique. For one, a lot of people think you are unconscious and not aware of what goes on around you when you are hypnotized. This is not correct; under hypnosis, you might feel like you are in an altered state of mind, but you are still aware of what is going on and nothing can be done to you that you do not allow.

You can not be hypnotized against your will, and you are still in control when you are under hypnosis. If you feel insecure about what the public speaking hypnosis tape will “do to you”, listen through it without focusing on following the suggestions, or read the script before you start your self hypnosis session, just for your own peace of mind.

Thinkwell Public Speaking: Why Public Speaking is Important to You

Save 20% on all Thinkwell courses! This video is a preview from Thinkwell’s Public Speaking series. For 20% off, use “TwentyYT” during checkout at www.thinkwell.com

Public Speaking: Giving a Great Speech : Public Speaking Tips: Rate of Speech

When giving speeches in public, many people either talk too fast or too slow. Give public speeches at a proper rate with tips from a communications specialist in this free public speaking video. Expert: Tracy Goodwin Bio: Tracy Goodwin has received numerous public speaking awards and has been a college professor of public speaking, interpersonal communications, voice and diction, and business speech for over a decade. Filmmaker: MAKE | MEDIA

Overcoming The Fear Of Public Speaking With Self Hypnosis

Do you suffer from a crippling fear of speaking in public? Or know someone who does?

Does that nerve wrecking feeling of being the centre of everyone’s attention leave you feeling queasy, breathless and like your head is full of cotton wool? Not to mention highly embarrassing sweaty palms and painful blushing that leaves you feeling like an awkward teenager again?

If so you are not alone!

The fear of speaking in public touches the lives of many people and unlike a medical condition there isn’t the simple option of a pill to pop and many people do not feel comfortable, or can afford, a personal therapist to help them work through this phobia. As the years go on the effect that this condition has on your life becomes more and more frustrating as you struggle to communicate effectively in not only social situations but in your working environment also.

You might be worried that you’ll be passed over for a promotion or not recognised for the contributions you have made to important projects due to you inability to clearly and concisely communicate with your boss.

Fortunately there is an alternative to those pricey therapy sessions that can help you re-train your fear response into a much more positive speaking experience. Self-hypnosis is an alternative therapy that has provided outstanding results for people just like you.

Using self-hypnosis techniques that have been around for more than 100 years, many people are starting to take control of their public speaking fear using the power of the mind! A quality self-hypnosis program that is specifically designed to take you on a journey to becoming an effective public speaker will help you unlearn old fears and build amazing new confidence in your own abilities.

The key to this new confidence is understanding that you need to re-educate your mindset to lift away the fear associated with speaking in public and replace it with a healthy and calm perspective.

It’s lifestyle change… Much like using a healthy diet to keep weight gain in check, people who are poor communicators must commit to spending 20-30 minutes a day, for just 30 days, using these techniques to re-programme their fear response. But as anyone who suffers from a phobia of speaking in public will tell you, it’s a small price to pay to be able to communicate confidently in both your personal and professional life.

Just imagine if 30 days from now you were able to deliver a toast in front all of your family and friends at a special event or chair an important meeting or speak one on one with your boss about your contributions, aspirations and goals in your role at work – all without the slightest hesitation or twitch of nerves, wouldn’t that be truly amazing?

So if you suffer from a fear of public speaking, self-hypnosis might be the answer you’ve been looking for.