In response to David’s comment to my last post about fear arising not at the beginning of a talk but rather 3 or 4 minutes into the talk, I thought I’d share the first article in a 26 week article series I’ve written entitled The ABCs of Presence in Speaking, Leading, and Life! This first More…
Tag: fear of public speaking
Fear of the first few minutes in public speaking
I swim for exercise. I swim in pools that are kept relatively cool so that lap swimmers don’t overheat when they work up a “sweat”. This means that it’s always hard to get into the pool at the beginning of my swim. Once I’ve been in the water for even one lap, the chill wears More…
Contemplative practices reduce anxiety
Several weeks ago, I gave a talk with Dr. Sara Lazar, neuroscientist and researcher at Mass General Hospital, a Harvard teaching hospital. Sara’s research is centered on changes in brain structures that result from meditation and yoga. Her results are very interesting! Basically they show that regular awareness (or contemplative) practices like yoga and meditation More…
Find the haven of your back body…
The ability to step back, not get caught up in the fray, see the forest for the trees, is key for leaders in all capacities. When the chaos of an emergent crisis grabs everyone’s attention, it is so easy to jump in with both feet. All our attention gets pulled to the details of the More…
Intentional Attention: Insights from the cha cha cha
I took an aerobic dance class yesterday at my fitness center. We were doing the cha cha cha and a series of steps with lots of turns. Long ago as a modern dancer I was trained to “spot” when I turned, that is, to focus on one spot during a turn so that I could More…
Do we need a written script when we deliver a talk?
More thoughts on inauguration presence. I’ve been following the glitch around the presidential oath with some interest. As I understand it, John Roberts didn’t have a written version of the oath with him and was depending on his memory. Clearly, in the pressure of the moment, he didn’t have access to what he must have More…