Babble Ahead

Beating Your Fear of Public Speaking

By Dana Bristol-Smith

Knocking knees, butterflies (who came up with that word?) in your stomach, sweaty palms, quavering voice. We’ve all been there – some of us more than others. I’m going to share with you some of the tricks of the trade to help manage and reduce your anxiety before and during your presentation. These methods are tried and true and have helped many presenters.

The first time is always the worst and it gets better from there.

In 1991, I gave my first presentation to a large audience. My audience was 150 fifth and six grade students in an outside courtyard of an elementary school. I was scheduled to give a 35-minute student assembly that explained a collection of international artifacts (masks, musical instruments, hats, and other interesting items). It was a program designed to increase multicultural understanding. I was so fired up about the topic, and thought that it was such an important subject that I thought I could deliver the program.

Well, of course everything went wrong! The wind picked up and knocked some of the items off the display table (the kids thought this was funny, I didn’t). The microphone had that horrible screeching feedback. My knees shook the whole time, my voice quavered, my heart pounded – and I felt like it was going on forever. I got through my content somehow and looked at my watch. I gave a 35-minute presentation in 15-minutes! I think that I probably forgot to breathe.

After packing up my items and loading them in my car, I collapsed in the driver’s seat. When my heart starting beating normally, I had a realization. My realization was that I did deliver the program, yes–terribly, but I did finish it and it would probably never again be that bad. From that point on, I learned something from every program I gave; how to keep the audience engaged, how to test AV equipment BEFORE I started, how to breathe normally and speak at the same time. The list goes on and on. In three years, I delivered this program to more than 100,000 students and teachers.

Today, I help adults develop the skills of public speaking. It seems that everyone has some degree of nervousness or anxiety. What I know is that you can live through those feelings and that over time they get easier and easier to deal with. Give these strategies a try and see if they will help you too.

How about having a conversation?

Use your mental energy to think of your next presentation as a conversation. You have conversations all day, every day! Do you get nervous before a conversation? Most conversations are non-threatening experiences, just a way for two or more people to communicate something. How is a presentation different than that? Try to think of your presentation as a conversation, just with a few more people. See if that eases your mind and nerves.

Make some new friends in the audience.

Most people are nervous in front of an audience of strangers. What would happen if you had a friend in the audience, or a group of friends? Would you feel more comfortable? Next time you have to give a presentation to a group you don’t know – do something revolutionary! Introduce yourself, shake hands, and greet as many of the audience as possible before your talk begins. That way, when you’re standing in the front of the room looking out, it is no longer a sea of strangers, but a friendly group, because you met some of the people first. You’ll want to find them in the audience and make eye contact, and it won’t be too hard, because they’ll probably be smiling at you.

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes for a moment. Imagine that you are attending a special seminar at work. How would you feel if before the seminar, the speaker took a moment to introduce herself to you? Would you be a more receptive listener to what she had to say? I bet your answer is yes!

How about smiling?

Smiling has a physiological affect on us – it helps to calm our nerves and make us feel better. It also has the added bonus of making us appear more pleasant, comfortable and happy – definite positive characteristics of a presenter. Often times, the audience will mirror the expression of the presenter. So guess what happens when you smile? You got it; your audience will be more likely to smile back at you.

Tags: Beating Your Fear of Public Speaking

How to Recognize Stress Before it Turns Into Anger

By Dr. Tony Fiore

After a stressful day as a computer programmer, Jim pulled into his driveway. The children’s toys were scattered on the walkway to the house.

He immediately began noticing slight tension in his muscles and apprehension in his stomach. Entering his house, his wife ignored him while she talked with her sister on the telephone. His heart started beating a little faster.

Looking around, he noticed disarray; nothing was picked up, the house was a mess. Irritation and frustration started to settle in. Finally, as his feelings grew, he exploded and began yelling at his wife and children.

Stress may trigger anger:

Stress is often the trigger that takes us from feeling peaceful to experiencing uncomfortable angry feelings in many common situations such as the one described above.

Stress is most easily defined as a series of bodily responses to demands made upon us called stressors.

These “demands” or stressors can be negative (such as coping with a driver who cuts in front of you on the freeway) or positive (such as keeping on a tour schedule while on vacation).

Stressors may be external to you (like work pressure) or internal (like expectations you have of yourself or feeling guilty about something you did or want to do).

Whether the stressor is external or internal, scientists have discovered that the major systems of the body work together to provide one of the human organism’s most powerful and sophisticated defenses; the stress response which you may know better as “fight-or-flight.”

This response helps you to cope with stressors in your life. To do so, it activates and coordinates the brain, glands, hormones, immune system, heart, blood and lungs.

Avoid Jim’s destructive behavior toward his loved ones. Before your stress response turns into anger or aggression, use these strategies to get it under control:

Read your personal warning lights: Becoming aware of your stress response is the first step to managing it. This means listening to your body, being aware of your negative emotions, and observing your own behavior when under stress.

For instance, notice muscle tension, pounding heart, raising voice, irritation, dry mouth, or erratic movements.

What you see is what you get: For a potential stressor to affect us -stress us out – we have to first perceive it or experience it as a stressor.

Gaining a new perspective on the stressing situation can often drastically change the effect it has on us. Our stress response can indeed be a response (something we can control) instead of a knee-jerk reaction (which is automatic).

Examples: Cut off on the freeway? “It is not personal. That guy has a problem. I will stay calm.” Bullied by a co-worker? “If I react, he wins. Later, I will privately let him know how I feel about what he did. If that doesn’t work, I’ll discuss it with our manager.”

Stress-Guard your life: You can also make many life-style changes to reduce or minimize feeling stressed-out, even if you can’t change some of your actual stressors.

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Solving Climate Change – Follow the Money

By Peter Meisen

Climate change is the challenge of our time. It’s not our only global problem: terrorism, water shortages, fishery depletion, pervasive hunger and poverty all persist on the planet. Yet climate affects everything, and how we deal with this issue will make matters better or worse for all the rest. Over the past century, our energy investments have created a wealthy, dynamic global economy. We now understand that continuing this path is unsustainable as fossil fuel resources decline and environmentally destructive carbon dioxide emissions accumulate — threatening our economy and way of life.

The only way to shift the direction of climate change is to shift our energy investments. The International Energy Agency projects that $9-$15 trillion will be invested in the next few decades to meet the world’s growing energy demand. To tackle climate change, it is essential that renewables, clean technologies and energy efficiency receive the lion’s share of this investment. Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, pension funds and individual investors will drive this transition – and benefit handsomely. Formerly known as “alternative energy,” this new sector has become mainstream, creating thousands of new jobs in research and manufacturing. The opportunities are global, as India and China strive to raise living standards of 2 billion people.

So far, these two nations have followed the same energy path as the west. Solving climate change will require both the west and east to cooperate and invest in the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. Growth rates for renewables are impressive, with wind and solar industries increasing 20% – 40% each year since 2000. The commercialization of these renewables has attracted Shell, General Electric, British Petroleum and other energy multinationals to initiate significant financial commitments. Yet solar, wind and geothermal remain less than 2% of the global energy mix, even though some experts suggest that these renewables could supply 50% of our energy requirements in 2050.

That would be a 2,500% increase from today’s level, offering investors strong return potential. Efficiencies are coming from government policy and technical breakthroughs. Several countries and states are banishing the incandescent bulb for the more efficient compact florescent (CFL). Looking forward, the light-emitting diode (LED) is the next generation of energy efficient lighting, using just a fraction of today’s wattage-wasting bulbs. Gas-electric hybrid cars get 2-3 times the mileage of our current Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard fleets, with the promise of plug-in hybrids getting over 100 miles per gallon. Breakthroughs will double solar cell efficiency and windmills have grown to megawatt-size turbines. Each of these new technologies is a huge business opportunity, creating new jobs while improving both efficiency and performance.

The first warnings about carbon dioxide emissions came 50 years ago. Like cigarettes, the consequences seemed so far in the future that doing nothing was easier than making any real change. Now, the leading scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have projected a warmer world, rising sea levels, stronger storms, species extinction and spreading topical diseases. Minimizing these effects would clearly benefit all humanity. Most everyone has now seen the Earth at Night visual from NASA — a beautiful nighttime mosaic of our planet from space. Presently, two-thirds of all those lights come from fossil fuel power generation.

Coal and natural gas remain the fuels of choice for generating electricity, while petroleum is used predominately for cars, trucks, trains and planes. We are truly addicted to fossil fuels to run our modern society. If we continue building and funding the world’s energy needs as we did in the last century, we deserve the consequences. If we embrace the “energy revolution” (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, September 24, 2007), investments in clean energy solutions will flourish and dominate the 21st Century. Climate change will be solved by shifting investments from fossil fuels to renewables, clean tech and energy efficiency. To track our progress, follow the money.

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Opportunities in an Age of Economic Uncertainty

By Carlos G. Garcia

The current economic situation has been described as one of the worst recessions in recent history, and as a possible depression not seen since the Great Depression. Most economists agree that the current economic crisis has probably not hit the bottom, and that the road to recovery will be long and hard.

Personally, I believe that the recovery is within our reach.

If we take a look at how the current economic crisis is evolving, we tend to see a trend and what some call a vicious circle. Let me explain. Companies around the world are feeling the economic punch and are looking for ways to become profitable and to stay in business. Most companies look for ways to lower their costs by cutting salaries, re-negotiating salaries, and maybe even laying off workers.

If salaries are reduced, or if employees are let go, their spending power will be affected. People will start to re-evaluate their spending and will focus on covering basic necessities. By examining this effect, it becomes obvious that people will start to spend less and will try to save more. By doing so, they start consuming less goods that are not basic necessity.

Now, if people start spending less, companies that produce goods are affected directly by having lower sales volumes. This translates into companies having a difficult time covering expenses, and thus having to look for ways to cut costs, resulting in cutting salaries and laying off workers.

There you have it! The cycle begins again. Of course, one of the simple laws of economics comes into play: demand and supply. If the demand for a certain product decreases, the supply of this product has to adjust itself to the demand, in order to not have to lower the price of the goods. This makes sense, and is one of the primary reasons for the economic crisis, along with inflated prices for certain goods, the famous NINJA (no income, no job) credits, and in some cases, manipulation of information.

You are probably thinking, referencing the title of this article, what does this have to do with opportunity.

Well, opportunity is a key factor for getting out of this cycle. No matter what the economic situation is, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are trying to find new ways of generating income. Like some say: “The crisis brings out the best in us, it creates new ideas, it helps the creative process, and it makes us tougher and wiser”

With this concept in mind, one of the things we need, is the right attitude. By right attitude I mean, the will to fight, work hard, and find new ways of generating income so that the current economic crisis does not affect us.

If you sit at work all day, and then at home all night thinking only about the crisis, and how it is affecting, you are not helping yourself. You have to change your state of mind, and try to see the positive side of it. Think about how you can survive this crisis and what you can do to come out on top.

The basic concept follows the line of not depending on one single stream of income, like a job. You have to create multiple streams of income, so that if one fails, you still have the others to rely on. Basically, the more income streams you have, the better.

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