Shake off Your Jitters (Pt 1 of 2)

A while back I was giving a two-hour training to a group of a few hundred sales professionals.

In the front row were a couple of women who kept smiling, giggling, elbowing each other and pointing at me.

I thought, “Man, I’m killing them up here. I must be in The Zone!”

I was so encouraged that I got even more passionate and animated in my presentation. Near the very end of my talk, I looked down and realized that my fly had been gaping open the entire time.

Near the very end of my talk, I looked down and realized that my fly had been gaping open the entire time.

What was worse is the entire audience noticed that I JUST noticed.

I quickly put on a face of comic surprise and everyone roared.

Then, as the laughter died down, I leaned against the podium, nodded knowingly, and said:

“Remember this, of all the sales strategies, tips and tactics we talked about today, none of them mean a thing unless you remember to close.”

And with that I zipped up my fly.

I got a standing ovation and for years after that presentation, people discussed whether or not I’d planned the whole incident.

When speaking in front of crowds or giving a presentation, sometimes your greatest fears can be your greatest moments of engagement, humility and memorability. Embrace it all.

Look, success in today’s world comes down to your ability to sell your ideas, expand your influence and enroll others into a worthy mission or cause.

That means you need to learn to present.

Today I will be giving you a few key ideas to help you conquer the hearts and minds of those you seek to influence through presentation.

By the way, EVERYBODY is a public presenter.

Maybe you’re presenting your ideas at an office meeting, interviewing for a new job, pitching your argument for why a new piece of office equipment is needed or trying to convince your friends which movie should win the Oscar. Whatever the situation, being able to speak effectively in public is essential to success.

Whatever the situation, being able to speak effectively in public is essential to success.

A recent survey conducted by Distinction discovered that, of the executives and entrepreneurs surveyed, more than 86 percent said being able to present effectively has a significant impact on their income and success.

But you are afraid to speak in front of a group.

It’s true, many see this as a Death-Defying act.
According to most studies, people’s No. 1 fear is public speaking.
No. 2 is death.

Doesn’t that sound insane?
People would rather die than speak in public.

That means if you go to a funeral, more people would rather be the one in the casket than have to give the eulogy!

First off, let’s put this into proper perspective:
No one has ever died giving a bad presentation.
Well, except for President William Henry Harrison.
Harrison developed pneumonia after giving the longest inaugural address in U. S. history. Which I guess is our first lesson on giving a presentation—keep it short or you might die… or at least kill the attention span of your audience.

So why do we think connect speaking in public to an act of suicide?

We come by this fear through our crazy ancestral brain wiring.
You have to remember that we have been walking erect for more than 4 million years.
Even if you call “modern man” 6,000 years old, we have some long-living, deep-seated survival brain wiring that is really over-inflated for our modern times.

We have learned that predators hunt in packs and their easiest prey are those who stand alone, without a weapon, on a flat area of land where there is no cover.

What does that sound like?
Yeah, standing on a stage, alone, in front of an audience, with all their eyes fixed on you.

Our ancestors, the ones who survived, that is, developed a fear response mechanism to these situations. However, these days we are rarely chased by lions or attacked by packs of hyenas, making our fear response programming out of sync with much of modern life.

You have to ask yourself, “Hey, what’s the worst that can happen?”
Certainly death is rarely a consequence, so anything short of that leaves nothing to be afraid of, really.

So my job as your mentor is to help you shake off the jitters when it comes to speaking in public.
You might find it helpful to know that some of the most successful and famous public speakers have the same ancient brain wiring issues we all have:

-Elvis Presley said, “I’ve never gotten over what they call stage fright. I go through it every show.”
-Bono, of U2, claims to get nervous the morning of every one of the thousands of shows he’s performed.
-Thomas Jefferson was so afraid of public speaking that he had someone else read the State of the Union Address. George Washington didn’t like speaking either.
-Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Walters, Johnny Carson, and Barbra Streisand have all reported fears of public communication.
-I just read an interview with legendary crooner Tony Bennett in Esquire where he said, “Every great performer I have ever met has been frightened to go on.”
-Even Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Jack Welch, James Earl Jones and the former King of England, all had stutters and were nervous speakers at one time in their lives.

So hey, if you are a bit nervous, you are in good company, and there is a great chance you can still be stellar at it.

http://darrenhardy.success.com/2015/04/shake-off-jitters-1/#article