Talk Power

The Mind-Body Way to Speak Without Fear

Natalie H. Rogers

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781510760103
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Communication & Public Speaking

A simple step-by-step science-backed system that actually affects your anxiety ridden brain and is guaranteed to transform every previouslyfearful public speakerinto a much admiredpresenter. Do you break into a cold sweat when you have to give a speech? Would you rather jump off a ledge than speak in public? Have you attended Public Speaking Classes hoping to find a teacher who could teach you to get of rid of your debilitating public speaking anxiety and nervousness, only to find false promises, disappointments, and frustration? Natalie H. Rogers'latest book Talk Power: The Mind-Body Way To Speak Without Fear offers a different approach. Instead of the traditional public speaking classes based upon lectures, theory, tips, hints, video therapy, andsuggestions about bodylanguage, etc., Ms. Rogers'originalbreakthrough training program focuses upon you, your mind and body and the chaos that isactuallyhappening inside of you when you face an audience. By practicing hersimple and practical Talk Power step-by-step mind-bodyexercises, drills, and routines youwill develop the performance skills necessary to speak comfortably and confidently in front of an audience of any size. Just as with regular practice one isable to grow a muscle on an arm, withthe Talk Power training program you will develop the skills you need for the mastery of every aspect of public speaking. This systemof exercises, integrating neuroscience, behavior modification, performance techniques, speech crafting, and leadership skills, actually affects and remodels your brain by developing new neural pathways for performance skills that eliminates anxiety and other negative reactions to Public Speaking. Over the past thirty-five years, Ms. Rogers' Panic Clinic For Public Speaking Workshops, with 13, 000successful and satisfied participants, have proven that this unique program works.No matter how severe your condition may be, practicing at homewith the easy step-by-step exercises, routines, and drills will helppeople who previously could never speak in public develop the performance skills necessary for ending fear of public speaking. Talk Power will:

• Eliminatestage frightand fear ofspeaking in public
• Provide exercises and drills to end self-consciousness
• Establish permanent public speaking skills
• Help you thinkon your feet in front of anaudience
• Perfect proper breathing techniques to reduce anxiety
• Provide effective templates for speaking at meetings

For thirty-five years, Natalie H. Rogers has helped people master their fears of public speaking. This new and updated edition offers Rogers's clinically-tested, perfected, and expanded system to a new generation of fearful public speakers, with more than twenty years of new science-backed methods included for the first time.

Part I

THE PRELUDE

INTRODUCTION

I am not afraid of dying. If you placed a gun to my head, I would not want to die. . . . I would be able to face it with dignity. Put me in front of a group, and I totally fall apart. I know a terror that is impossible to explain or understand.

—Charles, colonel, USAF

After twenty five years as founder and president of TalkPower, Inc., I can safely say that I have heard every horrific public speaking story imaginable. During this time thousands of students in my TalkPower workshops have recounted tale after hair-raising tale of sleepless nights, anxiety, public humiliation, excruciating stage fright, panic attacks, forgotten lines, and botched presentations, as well as disasterous job interviews, eulogies never given and wedding toasts never made

My job has been, and always will be, to repair the damage. Again and again, I have watched my students overcome their terror of public speaking by adhering to my simple, yet transformative, TalkPower program. I am convinced that the method I set forth in these pages can conquer even the most deeply entrenched fear. With proper training anyone can learn to speak before an audience with clarity, grace, and authority.

My Own Story

In 1978, I returned to college after many years as the Artistic Director of the Dove Theatre Company in New York City, a professional actress, director, and teacher, to prepare for my second career as a psychotherapist.

One day I was sitting in a class called “Oral Communication,” waiting for the instructor to arrive. Snatches of conversation drifted across the room:

“I sound like a moron!”
“My voice is so monotonous.”
“I hate this.”
“They don’t like me. I know it; I can feel it.”
“Oh my God, the other day she was reading a menu during my entire speech.”

The students commiserated with one another until the instructor arrived and the class began. I watched the bobbing heads, waving hands, in continuous motion, nervous pacing, and listened to rapid speech and the many ums and ahs woven into every sentence of the repetitious presentations.

Each speaker looked extremely uncomfortable. Most of them had no experience speaking in front of a group. Tension in the room mounted as the students rambled on and on.

The instructor sat at the back of the class, taking notes and making suggestions. “Relax,” she kept saying. “Relax.”

Was I the only one aware of the discomfort and loss of concentration? Apparently, the instructor was not concerned. Apart from her command to relax, she ignored the students’ profound distress and continued urging them to make eye contact and to speak more slowly. “Don’t be so nervous,” she’d add, trying to be helpful. “We support you.” And when critiquing the presentation: “that was a good try but remember you have to have a beginning, a middle, and an end”.

I was bewildered. This wasn’t at all like the systematic training I had received in acting school, where we were given training for relaxation, attention, awareness, and authenticity. Here, the sole focus was on the preparation of the speech, with no serious attention paid to the painful anxiety and loss of confidence that many students were experiencing.

Filled with advice and lectures about how to know your audience, use body language, get to the point, try to relax, gimmicks, bits and pieces of superficial information and a hodgepodge of theory, this class was ineffective in helping the students calm down and take control of themselves. The most basic questions were never addressed. For example:

• Why do I feel so out of control in public when I am so confident in a one-on-one?

• Why does this feeling of dread come over me for days before a presentation?

• How do I deal with the adrenaline rush that I feel just before I have to get up and do my presentation?

• Why can’t I catch my breath?

• How can I stop my heart from beating so fast?

• How do I keep from thought-blocking?

• How can I stop rambling?

• Why do I become unhinged when I have to talk at a meeting?

• Why do I feel that my talks are boring?

• Why do I lose my breath as my speech gets faster and faster?

• How do I stop my hands from shaking?

• What can I do about rushing to get it over with as soon as possible?

• How can I keep my voice from shaking?

• How can I prepare a talk that makes sense when I have so much to say and I don’t know where to begin?

MY AHA MOMENT

Sitting in that classroom, I realized that there was no established procedure for training the mind and body for public speaking. Suddenly I had an “Aha!” moment. It occurred to me that a systematic approach like the new and original training program that I had been developing for actors when I was the Artistic Director at the Dove Theater Company might help non-actors develop better concentration and self-control. In other words, a program for developing performance skills.

By performance skills I mean the ability to remain focused and clear-headed when people are looking at you as you perform some activity. For example gymnastics, golf, or public speaking. My reasoning went something like this. People who have intense anxiety about speaking in public believe that they are being negatively judged by the audience. This belief consciously or unconsciously triggers high anxiety, confusion, memory loss, rapid speech, and intellectual disintegration Thoughts like “I sound awful, they don’t like me, I am too fat, I am too old, I am not smart enough, I am a fraud, I am too short, they can hear that my voice is shaking, etc.” So in contrast to the traditional method of teaching public speaking that is based upon lectures, suggestions, tips, hints, and theory, and does not address this fearful reaction, my “Aha moment” dealt with a more practicle and effective approach. Instead of suggestions and lectures, I had an idea for a training program that would affect the brain and create the neurons that would equip one with the skills necessary for eliminating the threatening mind-set that speaking in front of an audience creates. Specifically training students with a set of original physical exercises, that could direct one’s thoughts away from the speaker’s fearful messages he was giving himself so he would have the ability to focus upon the talk he was giving. I called that training Program TalkPower. Little did I realize at that time how powerful that methodology would actually become.

Of course, a step-by-step program was the logical answer for eliminating the problem of public speaking distress. Envisioning an original mind-body training program based upon the concepts of neuroscience (dealing with the plasticity, the ability of the brain to change and transform itself), this new method would be effective for all performance situations. This includes delivering a presentation, speaking at a meeting, interviewing for a job, making a toast, asking a question in class, and even walking down the aisle.

Above all, my program would finally answer the most pressing question that people who are phobic or uncomfortable about public speaking ask: “How can I keep my concentration focused on what I am saying when everyone is looking at me?” I called the program TalkPower.^®

And so I started teaching the TalkPower method thirty years ago in a class called “TalkPower: A Panic Clinic For Public Speaking” at Baruch College of Continuing Education.

The name was so promising that from the very beginning people who had registered in the traditional public speaking class canceled their registration and chose the TalkPower class instead. The demand for my class was impressive. Calls and inquiries poured in from people who shared a shameful secret: absolute terror about speaking. In front of people who were looking at them.

In the class, students shared their stories. Some confessed that as far back as they could remember they dreaded having to speak or read out loud.

We were a very big family . . . seven children. Whenever we went anywhere, we had to sit perfectly still. If you were thirsty or had to go to the bathroom, you couldn’t go unless you got mother’s permission. You had to sit there and be still. When I was in kindergarten, I did not utter a single word for the entire term. If I wanted something, I would point. Finally, they sent me to the nurse and there, alone with her, I had a conversation. My teacher was amazed that I could talk. . . . All of my life I felt as if I was not allowed to speak.

—Laurie, sales manager

Others reported a different story. For these students, speaking well had never been a problem until one day, in front of an audience, they became inexplicably speechless. This was so humiliating that they avoided all future opportunities to speak.

I was the valedictorian and I was giving my speech when I suddenly started to lose my breath. Before this time I was never afraid to speak in public. I would even volunteer to do so. That one incident seems to be the thing that set this off, because now I can’t do it. . . . I get a wobbly voice, feelings of terror, feelings of embarrassment. I feel as though I’m completely losing control. I never speak in public.

—Phyllis, fashion coordinator

Testing my TalkPower method, I introduced the early students to a new kind of Body-Awareness Training designed to restore their shattered confidence. One of the unique features of the program is the attention paid to every detail of the presentation experience, from the moment one is waiting to be called upon to the moment one returns to one’s seat. Step by step, the training begins with correct breathing techniques followed by original Inner Awareness techniques that train the students to maintain concentration when seated and are waiting to be called upon. Then students practice how to stand up so that they resist the impulse to rush to the podium, how to pause appropriately, and finally techniques for how to deal with keeping the focus upon the presentation under the gaze of the audience. (Speech phobic people know just what I am talking about.) Since great attention is paid to every detail, at first the student speaks only the first sentence of his presentation and then returns to his seat. Gradually the practice presentation includes more and more of the text. By the end of the second day of training, every student in the class is able to calmly deliver a ten minute presentatio...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Table Of Contents
• Part I. The Prelude
• Part II. The Program
• Part III. The Polish
• Appendix Basic Performance Rehearsal Routine: Belly Breathing and Transitional Mantra
• Finally
• Index