carrier support: PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY

carrier support: PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY: " Your palms are ..."

PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY

                                  Your palms are sweaty, your knees are wobbly. The enormous crowd in front of you dissolves into a thick cloud of darkness as anxiety gets the better of you. You are most probably one of the numerous victims of Glossophobia, a strong fear of public speaking. Don’t fret! Public speaking anxiety haunts multitudes that cannot evade the task of orating on stage. However, if you wish to make it big as a successful leader, you must conquer your innate fear of giving public speeches.

 A Glossophobic person will try his/her level best to escape the burden of a public speech. He/She perceives this task as a threat and dreads failure or being ridiculed by audiences. For such a person, the heart rate begins to race, thus triggering a rise in blood pressure and irregular breathing. Uncontrollable perspiration, unrelenting quivering and irrepressible stammering are embarrassing symptoms that inevitably follow. If all this sound similar to you and you have finally made up your mind that public speaking isn’t your forte and that you should elude the prospect at all times, wait in for a surprise. Can you imagine a thriving business of the present generation obeying the futile pleas of aerophobia? Hence, you should be thoroughly convinced that your public speaking phobia must be conquered for the sake of achieving all your endeavors, professional or personal! Explore this article and learn a few reliable ways to combat fear of public speaking.

Ways To Overcome Public Speaking Anxiety

Erase The Preconceived Notions

                People typically associate the task of public speaking with stress! This is absolutely untrue! Public speaking is only stressful if you allow it to be! Ironically, if you shake off this incorrect belief, public speaking can be a very enjoyable and invigorating experience for you. Try to dig out the hidden cause for your fear, diagnose it and say hello to a new fun hobby! Knock off the fear of public humiliation! You’re overreacting! It’s purely psychological. Stage fright can be curbed with a smooth build up of self-confidence. The best way to start that process is by facing reality and accepting that public speaking is not as difficult as you once thought!

Capitalize On Three Good Points

              Stumble upon three relevant points and you’re ready to nail it. In other words, you have good potential to set the stage on fire! Maintain a calm and composed demeanor! You don’t have to be the funniest or smartest orator on the planet to receive a round of applause. Even if you make a couple of mistakes, skip a few important portions of your speech and pause for a minute, you haven’t necessarily failed! Stop focusing so much on your performance, it’s the value of the content effused that matters most. As long as audiences have something valuable to take back home (or with a smile on their faces), you will be remembered positively. Bear in mind that heaps of inconsequential facts does not augment your orator status. Stick to two or three clever points and render your speech interesting and genuine. Stress on one key point if you strongly believe in it. Diminish the number of quick notes and let words flow straight from the heart to the tip of your tongue! Avoid silly complexities for you will end up boring the crowd.

Prepare But Don’t Over-Prepare

                     Preparation is essential. More importantly, prepare well in advance and not overnight for anxiety will double and the outcome will be messy. Practice does indeed make a man perfect but never overdo it. A speech turns superficial when planned too far ahead. It should be natural! In fact, the more effort you put into it, the worse might be your performance. So, don’t over-prepare! Relax and take a deep breath! Just rehearse once and revise the key points along with a few good examples. Memorizing a speech verbatim only ruins the authenticity of a speech and implies that you don’t have a firm grasp over the subject. Try not to script the speech! Gain self confidence and you will soon begin to respect the natural public speaker hidden deep down inside of you.

Select A Topic That Interests You

                        It will make all the difference if you chose a topic that you feel strongly passionate about! You will feel excited to research the topic and make the overall speech as interesting as possible. As you immerse your heart into it, you will notice your phobia slip away. Even when you have no choice but to resort to a lackluster topic, you could make alterations to the technique or approach of speech making. For example, make a colorful PowerPoint presentation or screen a funny video! The surging enthusiasm will tranquilize the goosebumps.

Be Humble, If Not Humorous

                   While adding a glint of humor to your speech would earn you brownie points, it’s not mandatory. It is important to discover your style of speaking and work on improving that. However, it is important to maintain a fine sense of humility throughout your speech. When you stand up in front of the masses, share some of your weaknesses and frailties. This highlights your image as a credible, respectable and lovable speaker. Audiences will be able to connect with you and respect your honesty. If at all, humility isn’t your style, don’t feign it! The pretense of acting humble is easily detectable and this will trample your image in no time! You could hence make up for it by capitalizing on your good sense of humor! After all, who doesn’t enjoy a good hearty laugh! Start with a joke or narrate a bunch of anecdotes, just don’t digress from the actual topic. 

Don’t Let Hecklers Get To You!

                                  Hecklers are all over the place and most of the time, they do a pretty good job at tormenting speech makers! However, it is in your best interest that you master the art of turning a deaf ear to such obstacles or counter-attack their witty statements with a wittier one. This most definitely helps you overcome all fears. But if you are still battling with glossophobia, then you should try your best and ignore those silly sadists or respond with an “I really appreciate your comment”.

Visualize Success

PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY

Your palms are sweaty, your knees are wobbly. The enormous crowd in front of you dissolves into a thick cloud of darkness as anxiety gets the better of you. You are most probably one of the numerous victims of Glossophobia, a strong fear of public speaking. Don’t fret! Public speaking anxiety haunts multitudes that cannot evade the task of orating on stage. However, if you wish to make it big as a successful leader, you must conquer your innate fear of giving public speeches. A Glossophobic person will try his/her level best to escape the burden of a public speech. He/She perceives this task as a threat and dreads failure or being ridiculed by audiences. For such a person, the heart rate begins to race, thus triggering a rise in blood pressure and irregular breathing. Uncontrollable perspiration, unrelenting quivering and irrepressible stammering are embarrassing symptoms that inevitably follow. If all this sound similar to you and you have finally made up your mind that public speaking isn’t your forte and that you should elude the prospect at all times, wait in for a surprise. Can you imagine a thriving business of the present generation obeying the futile pleas of aerophobia? Hence, you should be thoroughly convinced that your public speaking phobia must be conquered for the sake of achieving all your endeavors, professional or personal! Explore this article and learn a few reliable ways to combat fear of public speaking.

 

Ways To Overcome Public Speaking Anxiety

 

Erase The Preconceived Notions

People typically associate the task of public speaking with stress! This is absolutely untrue! Public speaking is only stressful if you allow it to be! Ironically, if you shake off this incorrect belief, public speaking can be a very enjoyable and invigorating experience for you. Try to dig out the hidden cause for your fear, diagnose it and say hello to a new fun hobby! Knock off the fear of public humiliation! You’re overreacting! It’s purely psychological. Stage fright can be curbed with a smooth build up of self-confidence. The best way to start that process is by facing reality and accepting that public speaking is not as difficult as you once thought!

 

Capitalize On Three Good Points

Stumble upon three relevant points and you’re ready to nail it. In other words, you have good potential to set the stage on fire! Maintain a calm and composed demeanor! You don’t have to be the funniest or smartest orator on the planet to receive a round of applause. Even if you make a couple of mistakes, skip a few important portions of your speech and pause for a minute, you haven’t necessarily failed! Stop focusing so much on your performance, it’s the value of the content effused that matters most. As long as audiences have something valuable to take back home (or with a smile on their faces), you will be remembered positively. Bear in mind that heaps of inconsequential facts does not augment your orator status. Stick to two or three clever points and render your speech interesting and genuine. Stress on one key point if you strongly believe in it. Diminish the number of quick notes and let words flow straight from the heart to the tip of your tongue! Avoid silly complexities for you will end up boring the crowd.

 

Prepare But Don’t Over-Prepare

Preparation is essential. More importantly, prepare well in advance and not overnight for anxiety will double and the outcome will be messy. Practice does indeed make a man perfect but never overdo it. A speech turns superficial when planned too far ahead. It should be natural! In fact, the more effort you put into it, the worse might be your performance. So, don’t over-prepare! Relax and take a deep breath! Just rehearse once and revise the key points along with a few good examples. Memorizing a speech verbatim only ruins the authenticity of a speech and implies that you don’t have a firm grasp over the subject. Try not to script the speech! Gain self confidence and you will soon begin to respect the natural public speaker hidden deep down inside of you.

 

Select A Topic That Interests You

It will make all the difference if you chose a topic that you feel strongly passionate about! You will feel excited to research the topic and make the overall speech as interesting as possible. As you immerse your heart into it, you will notice your phobia slip away. Even when you have no choice but to resort to a lackluster topic, you could make alterations to the technique or approach of speech making. For example, make a colorful PowerPoint presentation or screen a funny video! The surging enthusiasm will tranquilize the goosebumps.

 

Be Humble, If Not Humorous

While adding a glint of humor to your speech would earn you brownie points, it’s not mandatory. It is important to discover your style of speaking and work on improving that. However, it is important to maintain a fine sense of humility throughout your speech. When you stand up in front of the masses, share some of your weaknesses and frailties. This highlights your image as a credible, respectable and lovable speaker. Audiences will be able to connect with you and respect your honesty. If at all, humility isn’t your style, don’t feign it! The pretense of acting humble is easily detectable and this will trample your image in no time! You could hence make up for it by capitalizing on your good sense of humor! After all, who doesn’t enjoy a good hearty laugh! Start with a joke or narrate a bunch of anecdotes, just don’t digress from the actual topic. 

 

Don’t Let Hecklers Get To You!

Hecklers are all over the place and most of the time, they do a pretty good job at tormenting speech makers! However, it is in your best interest that you master the art of turning a deaf ear to such obstacles or counter-attack their witty statements with a wittier one. This most definitely helps you overcome all fears. But if you are still battling with glossophobia, then you should try your best and ignore those silly sadists or respond with an “I really appreciate your comment”.

 

Visualize Success

How To Be Yourself ?

posted by srikanth tarang

                                            You’re only a drop in the ocean but every drop counts. However, unlike tiny water drops, we as respectful individuals are unique beings in so many diverse aspects. To be yourself, you need to  discover yourself! By impersonating the  latest movie star or the most popular kid in school, you are being a disgrace to none another than yourself. When you find yourself and learn to be yourself, one fine day you will fall madly in love with yourself and then, nobody in the whole world can ever let you down. Remember how miserable you felt while sporting that mini skirt at the high school ball? All you wanted was to jump into your track pants and play football with the boys. Yes, you’re not just another sheep in the flock! You’re the rainbow colored one that stands out in the crowd! On seeing somebody else prosper and triumph in all, we assume that by emulating him, we are paving our way to success! One may say that a mask of gold hides all deformities but do note that no mask remains! The façade will soon be revealed. So don’t waste your time masquerading as strangers when we can  invest the given time in developing a pure and genuine personality. 

Tips For Being Yourself

So you might be compelled to conform to societal or esoteric norms to be granted certain privileges and bask in the sense of belonging. You ought to connect with your inner self and liberate yourself from all bondages created by society. Discovering the “real you” is the gradual but therapeutic process which is going to be worth your time.

Who Are You?

There’s no possible way you can be yourself without knowing who you really are. You pretend to idolize football player David Beckham because your neighbor does and you want to gain his approval. Soon enough you will realize that you don’t know what interests you because you’ve been whiling away time with what least interests you. Understand yourself, figure out where your deepest passion lies and be proud of your qualities. Contemplate your life and the choices you’ve made. Take personality tests and you will eventually disentangle the buried mesh of what had been your true interests and hobbies all along! Accept it with pride!

Forget The World!

So what if the person besides you passed a nasty comment on your outfit. As long as you’re comfortable, does it really make a difference to your welfare? Or do you hesitate to raise your hand in class to ask the question that’s persistently been pestering you simply because you fear your classmates might find it silly and doubt your intelligence. Why is their opinion even worth it? You should feel stupid for putting their opinions before your clarity on the subject! Forget the world, live your life and be yourself. Happiness will be right behind you!

Breathe & Be Honest

Why do you want to live through the rest of your life safeguarding your sticky web of lies? Life is never rosy for anybody. Maybe at the beginning, you might not be as fortunate as certain other coveted beings. Nevertheless, if you hold your breath and take each day as it comes, life’s delicate balance will soon manifest itself. There is no good reason to be ashamed of who you are. Whether it’s a physical or mental shortcoming, the most trusted way to overcoming it is by acknowledging it with courage. We are all blighted with flaws and by hiding them, we are only adding to that list!

Express Your Individuality

The moment self-confidence is on your side, a beautiful and unique personality will blossom! Standing out isn’t easy but it usually comes from within. It might be a skill, or a manner of speaking or infectious charisma. Build up on a character that singles you out from everybody in your planet. Be yourself. Even oddly colored slippers might accentuate your eccentric character after which you might garner admiration from different sides. Don’t be a prototype, be a proud unique individual.

Believe In Yourself

Take off that hideous mask and unleash the beauty hidden underneath its eternal ugliness! If you try to be what you’re not, you’re going to be unhappy through the remainder of your fake life. Thrive on solitude, engage in soul searching and you will soon be well acquainted with your new best friend- The Real You. Life will soon turn into a elongated party interspersed with memorable episodes of sadness, joy, laughter, bitterness and all the emotions experienced in the life that is worth living!

See, there’s no reason to fear being yourself! We will all be adored for who we really are but it has to start with us accepting ourselves! Good Luck!

carrier support: KEY IDEAS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP QUALITIES

carrier support: KEY IDEAS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP QUALITIES: "Key Ideas Ulysses is the innovative leadership development program for the partners at Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) that is based on ..."

KEY IDEAS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP QUALITIES

Key Ideas 
Ulysses is the innovative leadership development program for the partners at Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) that is based on the idea that experiencing the positive impact of one’s contribution to environment and community generates sensitivity and learning that are carried forth in other aspects of work. Ulysses is a leadership development program designed to build a network of global leaders for PWC. The main aim of this experiential leadership development program is to develop an understanding in future PWC leaders of the firm’s responsibility toward planet and people, and then to integrate this sensitivity in the firm’s strategic business focus. 

Innovation 
Ulysses was born in 2000 out of a business need to develop an ongoing ‘leadership bench’ that can effectively operate in a changing global economy. It was also aimed at attuning the future leaders toward more sustainable business models. The following objectives were defined for the program:
• Develop responsible leaders who can take leadership positions in a high performing global organization.
• Build a global network of PwC leadership who understand value-based relationships with diverse stakeholders and create a sustainable brand for the firm by the quality of these relationships 
• Help the leaders understand changing role of business in influencing well-being of economic, political and social environment and collaborate with stakeholders to create sustainable success through responsible worldwide practices
• To develop a model of leadership that will create responsible next generation leaders and make this model a framework for all developmental initiatives across the firm.

Ulysses comprises of five learning modules including an eight week project assignment where the participants work in multi-cultural teams in developing countries in collaboration with social organizations in these countries. The five learning modules are preparation and selection (on the job), foundation (residential), in the field projects (fieldwork), review (residential), follow-up and network (on the job). 

An eight-week field project is selected based on geographic location, scope of the project, skills contribution, learning environment and available support. The success stories for these projects are plenty and are testimonies to the positive impact of the program. 


Impact 
The impact is wide spread and is visible at the individual and organizational level. The impact is also felt by the positive changes made in the community. All who go through this program define the experience as ‘life changing’. Broadening sensitivity toward different cultures and diversity, desire to make a positive impact in the world, and empathy toward others are some of the immediate benefits.

 

At the organizational level the impact is visible in the alignment of the ‘transformation’ and ‘learning’ of the future leaders with the strategic focus adopted by the firm. Participant stories delineate many take-aways like understanding the global nature of issues such as gender diversity in organizations, understanding of cultural differences in approach to problem solving, learning to communicate clearly in a global context, importance of actions and walking your talk, believing in one’s potential to make a valuable change and most importantly building a network within the firm by working on projects with participants from all over the world.

A direct impact is also experienced in the communities in which these leaders work. Whether it is reviewing a UN development project in East Timor to provide community stability and employment in the war–torn nation, or living for two months in a tent in Zambia to work on a local economic development project, each story changes the community and changes the executive teams going through this experience. Some of the participants continue their contribution toward community development even after the completion of the program. 


Inspiration 

              Ulysses was inspired by the hope to chart a continual journey of learning for the future leaders of the firm. The formal program is the first trigger of a personal transformation in the participants. The metamorphosis in the leaders is an on-going process, encouraged by the firm in the form of the Ulysses Network- a global network of Ulysses participants that share, reflect and support each other toward responsible leadership. The investment in building a cadre of global leaders and sustainable communities is more than justified for the firm. Through learning how to create shared values, understanding and collaboration with multiple stakeholders and sectors these leaders are able to deliver responsible and sustainable business solutions.