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butterfly - handling nerves

12 Tips for Grappling presentation nerves and public speaking gremlins

There’s a saying in showbiz that every good performer has butterflies but the professionals get them to fly in formation.

Some of the very best performers and top executives feel nervous. It’s a sign that it matters and you care how you come across.

If the nervous energy isn’t used it can start to work against you and comes up with a range of symptoms from trembling, to vocal tightness, to blushing to feeling sick and faint.

It’s at this point that you are ‘ready to rock’ as they say.

The brain doesn’t respond very well being told what not to do (as anyone who has ever been on a diet or given up smoking will know) so rather than focusing on stopping the adrenaline burst it’s a good idea to give your brain something positive to do to handle those presentation nerves. Read more

Presentation Skills Tips with Colin Firth

Before you get too excited – this might not be quite what you think!

Alistair and I went to the cinema last night – just the two of us. It’s been a while since we went to see an adult movie – that is, a movie for grownups, not the other sort, I hasten to add. Usually we’ve got one or more kids in tow as we head for the latest Harry Potter or Toy Story movie (see my previous blog).

Instead, we went to see The King’s Speech and as I’m a big Colin Firth fan I fully expected to enjoy it, which I did. What I didn’t expect was the lovely humour. Some bits of it were ‘laugh out loud’ funny.

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Parties, Personal Branding, John Peters and Flying Free

So it seems January hails a year of austerity.

The Christmas socks and diamante earrings are put away for another year as  the diet and the gym beckon.

How did the party season go for you?

For me there are two types of social gathering.

There are the ones that you go to that are easy and you know lots of people and you laugh and let your hair down.

And there’s the other type.

These are the ones where the conversation often revolves around what you do for a living. I guess its our quick way to suss each other out and categorise each other by association.

As you struggle for conversation when thrust together with strangers and abandoned by your plate spinning host, it’s a lot easier to ask, “What do you do?” than ask something that might give you a little more meaningful information about the person you are addressing.

But then I suppose, “Who are you?” or “What do you stand for?” might be considered odd…

It’s a shame. Read more