英语书籍:Present Your Way To The Top节选(4)

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PRESENT YOUR WAY TO THE TOP by David J. Dempsey, JD(ZT)
Published by Mc Graw Hill


Six Stage-Fright Secrets

1. 'It is perfectly natural to be anxious.' If speaking or the mere
prospect of speaking scares you, you are in the majority. As you can
see from the previous comments, speaking in public often intimidates
even professional speakers and actors who make their living onstage.
If pros with thousands of hours of speaking experience, whose very
livelihood depends on speaking confidently, become nervous, then it
is certainly natural for someone who speaks infrequently to
experience anxiety. You just do not want your anxiety to impair your
speech or to become so severe that it drives you honkers.


'The best speakers know enough to be scared. Stage fright is the
sweat of perfection. The only difference between the pros and the
novices is that the pros have trained the butterflies to fly in
formation.'
--Edward R. Murrow

2. 'Your worst fears rarely materialize.' Your imagination can be
ludicrously wild when you are preparing to speak. You might
visualize the worst occurring: your knees knock, you hyperventilate,
you babble incoherently, you faint, and you are publicly humiliated.
Such fears are imaginary, as these results rarely materialize, so
stop cringing, breathe deeply, and get a grip on yourself. There are
no known deaths attributed to stage fright, so the odds favor you.

3. 'It always seems worse to the speaker.' Immediately after making
a presentation, many of the speakers I coach swear that they had
never been so nervous in their lives, that their hands had never
before shaken that way, and that their knees had never before
wobbled like that. But I videotape every speech, and we immediately
review it together. Typically, they are surprised to discover that
they appeared far more poised than they felt.

When you are speaking, with hundreds of eyes focused on you, you
often feel intimidated, and your anxiety is naturally heightened.
You can become your harshest critic. But rest assured: though you
may be scared stiff, your audience generally has no clue--unless you
look wild-eyed, ghastly pale, or ramrod rigid.


'Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of
fear.'
--Mark Twain

4. 'Your audience empathizes with you.' Every member of your
audience has felt some level of anxiety when it has been his own
turn to speak. Anyone who denies it is fibbing. As a result, many of
them are looking at you with admiration and awe for having the
courage to stand and speak

5. 'Your audience wants you to succeed.' The members of your
audience have come to hear you speak for a variety of reasons: to be
informed, to be entertained, or perhaps to be inspired. They regard
you as the expert, and they want their expectations fulfilled. Your
listeners want you to succeed, for the simple reason that your
success will benefit them. It is a collaborative effort: you want to
give a good speech, and they want to hear one. Dispel the notion
that your audience is lying in wait, ready to pounce on any mistake.

6. 'Your audience has never heard your presentation.' Speakers often
scowl and scold themselves (or even let a few invectives fly) when
they forget a word, a line, or a point. But remember: your audience
has never heard your speech before. No one is monitoring what you
say, line by line, word for word. No one will shout, "Hey, Bonehead,
you forgot something!" In fact, listeners rarely know that you
flubbed a line or dropped a thought. You can deliver an exceptional
speech that only you realize is less than perfect--and you don't
have to tell anyone.

Audience members do not know what you planned to say; they know only
what you said. That knowledge should reduce your stress, because it
affords you the freedom to omit something with very little risk.

'No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting
and reasoning as fear.'
--Edmund Burke

It is possible that my revealing the preceding six stage-fright
secrets to you has not assuaged your presentation anxiety. If your
anxiety is acute--if the mere thought of public speaking makes you
nauseous, if you are wringing your hands and perspiring as you read
this book, if you have changed jobs 18 times to avoid speaking--then
you should pore over the books included for this chapter in the list
of recommended resources at the end of this book.

Learn to positively channel your anxiety, because the speaking game
is often won or lost at this stage. If you want to speak with
confidence, you have to believe that you can. Rein in your fertile
imagination. Learn to transform your anxiety into an asset, and you
will take gigantic strides in the right direction.

CHAPTER TWO
'Visualize Speaking Success'

'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.'
--William Shakespeare

Think like a champion! That message was painted above the door in my
high school locker room. Over the years, the paint had chipped and
faded, and thousands of football players had smudged those words of
inspiration, slapping them as they raced onto the field of battle.
But the message permeated our thinking--four powerful words that the
coaches never let us forget, and we never did.

I can think of no better advice for speakers: 'think like a
champion!' Before every presentation, visualize every speaking
triumph you've ever had, in precise detail. Don't limit this to the
presentation that was a monumental success. Visualize every victory,
large and small: the day you weaned yourself off your script, the
time you focused on the audience and really connected, or the time
you first ventured away from the lectern, even if only a few steps.

I have participated in more than 100 public-speaking contests
throughout the United States. I won a few and lost plenty. Although
many of these contests occurred years ago, I can recall everything
about those that I won: the lavish applause, the stories I shared,
even hoisting the heavy glass and marble trophies. Why? Because
those vivid images enhance my confidence whenever I speak. I ingrain
my successes into my mind. So should you.


'Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.'
--Jonathan Swift

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*****TABLE OF CONTENTS *****

1. Master the Mental
2. Prepare to Present
3. Build with a Blueprint
4. Practice for Perfection

5. Focus on the Details
6. Dazzle with Delivery
7. Talk with Tools
8. Confront Special Challenges
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• 英语书籍:Present Your Way To The Top节选(1) -纾珈- ♀ (185 bytes) () 04/07/2011 postreply 06:13:55