Presenting Yourself

Why do we find it so difficult to be the centre of attention? What's stopping us from being comfortable, thoughtful, connected, aware of our awareness, present, and somehow not self-conscious when we are in front of people?

 It shouldn’t be that hard – should it?

You would think that the order of fixing public speaking problems should be something like this:

1. Sort out my self-confidence problems.
2. Sort out my adrenaline problems–going red, increased heartbeat, dry mouth.
3. Sort out what I was going to say and prepare for a talk.
4. Practice, practice, practice.
5. Maybe conjure up a persona that I could just switch on when I need to. And with that big bold bright persona I can now look at the audience, and talk in a way that convinces everybody in the audience to do exactly what I want them to do.
6. And if all else fails there must be a secret pill/mind technique /physical stance that is out there somewhere which will help me.
That sounds like a lot of work with a fair amount of magic thrown in.

But after teaching this for 12 years I’ve learned that this is NOT the way to do things. If you are uncomfortable speaking then practice, practice, practice can allow you to practice being scared even more!
The way to do it is to simply become more comfortable being in front of people.That might sound strange and perhaps counterintuitive but you need to learn how to be PRESENT first.
To allow yourself to be in the moment without the need to rush or fill the time with noise.  Can I be in this moment without having to try*? (Here the "trying" is about having to entertain, perform, make people like you or any other of the pressures that people have when they are in front)

If I can learn to BE here right now, with each of you– then I won’t feel flustered or confused. If I am in the moment I am fully here with/for the audience.

Some people will find this strange advice. Maybe public speaking in their eyes is about performing, delivering, hiding behind PowerPoint and getting it over and done with quickly.
However what the audience wants is a real person standing in front of them. The audience wants to be able to trust the speaker. The audience wants to know where you are coming from and what's important to you.
The audience also want somebody who is relaxed and connects to people in the audience easily and at times powerfully. So presentations shouldn’t be about “delivering” a performance. The clue is in the word itself – it’s about being present.

So don’t start with practice, practice, practice but with presence, presence, presence