Presentations in Action (Pioneer Panel's Library) by Jerry Weissman

Author:Jerry Weissman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FT Press
Published: 2011-11-10T16:00:00+00:00

43. Presentation Advice from Pianist Murray Perahia: Concentration Creates Control

Murray Perahia is one of the most acclaimed classical pianists in the field. Along the career path to his acclaim, Mr. Perahia was fortunate to have had help from several giants of classical music; the most influential was his teacher, the legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz. But according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, “One thing Mr. Perahia seems not to have absorbed from Horowitz is the latter’s legendary stage fright.”F43.1.

Stage fright is, indeed, the stuff of fearsome legend, affecting the public appearances of musicians, actors, and our particular area of interest—public speakers. The cold, clammy hand of dread that grips speakers with such paralyzing power is so pervasive that it has given rise to an entire industry of providers offering relief. If you search the Internet for the fear of public speaking, you’ll find millions of entries offering remedies.

Although there are a great number and variety of solutions, the problem remains unsolved because the vast majority of them are purely physical solutions to what is not a purely physical problem. The fear of public speaking is caused by a presenter’s fear of failure. So unless that mental fear is allayed, physical cures will not work.

Mr. Perahia agrees that “it has to do with a fear that you might fail in some significant way. But it’s not something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, because you just have to do it. Communication is a very strong part of art. And to get it, one needs to play it, to live it.” As the article on Mr. Perahia concludes, “[A]udiences typically savor his legendary concentration and unassailable technique in hushed form—granting him a degree of respect not always afforded other, equally famous artists.”

To bring concentration from the concert stage to the podium, use The Mental Method of Presenting. Succinctly stated, the method involves shifting your mental focus. Don’t think about how you are doing—whether you succeed or fail—but on how your audience is reacting to you. You can then respond to what you observe by either pausing to adjust your content or moving forward. This simple shift of concentration gives you control of your own destiny and, in doing so, reduces your fear of public speaking.

I recently met a young businesswoman who, upon learning that I am a presentations coach, proceeded to confide in me and describe her perpetual problem with nerves. She said that whenever she has to face an audience, she goes to the front of the room clutching a stack of note cards and shuts her eyes for before speaking. I suggested that instead she open her eyes and read her audience instead of her notes. That mere summary of the Mental Method brought an immediate sigh of relief and a smile to her face.

Imagine what will happen when she—and you—put the correct focus into practice.

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