Many thanks to Kathy Reiffenstein who writes the popular Professionally Speaking Blog on Creating Confident, Persuasive Speakers! Kathy wrote a superb review of my book, It’s Your Time to Shine: How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking, Develop Authentic Presence and Speak from Your Heart. For many valuable ideas on public speaking, visit…
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Seth Godin, author of Tribes, writes a blog on leadership at sethsblog.com. He quotes his book, “Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.” He continues with: “It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers. It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail. It’s…
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“Jump right into the middle” and “open the shoot and let the bucking bronco out of the pin” are my mottos for opening talks, speeches and communications to groups. I don’t like to hear speakers mumble phrases like “I am so honored to be here” or “Thanks for inviting me.” No one is listening…
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My Zimmer Method approach to helping people to transform stage fright and fear of public speaking has been evolving since 1984. It began by asking people to stand quietly in front of my acting classes to see if they could just be there at the center of attention. Most people had great difficulty simply…
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Over several years, I developed a pattern for the process that guides people safely and slowly into healing stage fright so they feel free to share their thoughts and feelings in all kinds of situations. Even more remarkably, this process awakens in people a powerful and authentic presence that radiates from them. However, this…
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Stage fright is fear of feeling in front of others. It is the fear of revealing that you are human and that you have human emotions that are not always positive. It is fear of being seen for who you truly are. Becoming the center of attention also triggers feelings of shame – shame…
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When you do become the center of attention, there is only one thing to do: try to exit the situation by leaving your body. If you can’t get out of the situation by avoiding the event, then you try to avoid the sensations felt inside. The way to avoid the sensations is to leave…
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The secret to healing stage fright is to focus attention into your fear, into the sensations of tension inside your body. Once you do that, you will find that the experience is not as bad as you expected. Inside yourself, you can relax into the tension and discover a new, safe ground within your…
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Begin to imagine your stage fright as emotional energy or passion that is not flowing freely through your body, and then you can learn to channel that pent-up passion into a genuine connection with your listeners. That may sound impossible, but it is what you can learn through The Zimmer Method. Every symptom of…
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You won’t believe me now, but it’s a good thing to have stage fright. In fact, the more stage fright you have, the better presenter or performer you can become, and the more potential you have to be a deeply impacting communicator and speaker! The reason is that you have the feelings. Your feelings…
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