Speaking FreelyOvercoming stage fright and fear of public speaking blogCategory Archives: public speaking

David Portney at Best Public Speaking Training  has written an article on how to Prevent Stage Fright.  He has a great idea to meet and greet audience members just before your talk.  I have advocated this for many years. I hope I have David’s permission to mention his article and to add to his helpful… Read more

Learning to speak in front of groups is similar to the caterpillar’s process.  The high intensity of energy that gets stirred inside your body when you become the center of attention requires a meltdown.  You have to melt into the feelings of physical tension and emotional overwhelm that get stirred up inside.  The lovely thing… Read more

In Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach teaches us that perfect speed is being there. That means the exact right pace for any activity is the pace that allows you to be fully present for the event. In speaking to groups, presenting and public speaking, pace is a key to effective communication. If you talk too… Read more

Thursday evening, I was almost asleep with the TV on when I awoke startled to hear Thomas Friedman speaking to Charli Rose on PBS.  Thomas was speaking about the importance of talking to people from a gut level. He mentioned Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton as speakers who impart more than information, as speakers… Read more

This week, Andrew Dlugan’s Six Minutes Blog on Public Speaking and Presentation Skills published my guest article “9 Steps to Conquer Nerves and Communicate Clearly in Interviews.”  This article is only published on Six Minutes.  You can read the entire article.  Thanks Andrew for the opportunity to share! Read more

To empower your talks, identify a universal message that you own through experience.   A universal message will energize your presentations with passion for what you are saying.  A contributing factor to stage fright and fear of speaking is the fact that people often leave out their most deeply held beliefs and values from their presentations. … Read more

Ever feel stuck?  Like you can’t move forward in your life and don’t know why? Fear of feeling is the block that prevents one from going forward in life.  A human being is meant to experience life, digest the experience, take the lesson and meaning from the experience and release the negative emotion from each… Read more

Tim Brown, CEO of Ideo, gave a talk about the relationship of play to creativity.  Among his main points he stressed that adults are embarrassed to share their most creative ideas with peers because they are sensitive to critical opinions from others.  As a result, most adults only offer their most conservative ideas.  In order… Read more

Almost everyone has heard the term being in the zone. Athletes of all kinds use this term along with the phrase Ideal Performance State, coined by Dr. James E. Loehr of the Human Performance Institute.  Within the fields of presentation skills, public speaking and artistic performance, the zone is called presence or being present in… Read more

People who have stage fright and fear of public speaking will often feel uncomfortable in networking situations and social settings. The issues are really the same – being comfortable with yourself and opening to connect with others.  I have written in the past about  the importance of opening to receive others for both networking and… Read more