The Price of Not Being There

In last week's Washington Post Sports section, Amy Shipley recounts swimmer Katie Hoff's surprisingly disappointing race, "more than 10 seconds off her personal best."

The article groups together a number unfortunate circumstance including her recent illness, missed training time, and the fact that she is working on her stroke.

But at the end of this list, she quotes Hoff's coach, Bob Bowman. (who incidentally is also Michael Phelps coach)

"Physical problems are not her only ones," he said, "She was just not there, probably psychologically and physically."

What can speakers learn from this?

No matter what baggage you bring to the table, take a few moments before you speak to get yourself present.

Do your Green Room Trigger.
Take deep breaths.
Feel your feet firmly planted on the ground.

Do whatever it takes for you to get in the here and now.

Simply being there - being present - can be the difference between stumbling over your stumbling blocks, or as the saying goes, using them as stepping stones - and thus reaching to even greater heights.

Find Your Green Room Trigger

In this week's New Yorker, Alex Ross writes about Marlboro Music, an elite summer music program at Marlboro college in Vermont "where artists could forget about commerce and escape into a purely musical realm."

The summer seems to give the musicians a formative and utopian musical experience that carries them through the year:

"One musician after another says the same thing: from September to May, when they sit down to play in an antiseptic postwar performing arts center after an hour or two of rehearsal, they close their eyes and think of Marlboro."

Take a moment and think of a memory, an experience, a place where you felt in the zone. It could be a moment from childhood or an experience you had this week; an athletic or artistic or travel experience - just a moment when you were at your best and everything seemed to click.

Think of a word, a mantra, a motion that represents that experience for you and use it each time before you get up to speak.

I call this the Green Room Trigger. For the musicians in Ross's piece, their summer at Marlboro is that trigger - a memory that enables them to feel present and in the zone - even at potentially disheartening and unfulfilling moments.

From the Green Room: Find your Green Room Trigger - a word, mantra or motion that takes you back to a moment in your life where you were fully present. Then use this trigger before you get up to speak. Over time, this exercise will help you get in zone and be at your best each time you speak.

Freddy Mercury and the Art of Public Speaking

The key to a great presentation is making each person in the audience actually believe that you are talking directly to him or her.

Take a look at this 1985 video of Freddy Mercury singing Radio Ga-Ga at the Live- Aid concert. It is an immensely powerful performance. You can feel the energy and connection between Mercury and the audience at Wembley Stadium.

Let’s unpack some of what makes his performance so brilliant and so compelling:

1. Presence. Freddy Mercury is 100% in the song and with the audience.

2. Bold movements. He walks with confidence and direction. You can tell that knows exactly where he is going and why.

3. Open body. Notice how he holds his arms out. His body is completely open to the audience.

4. Sustained Eye Contact. Mercury looks out into different sections of the audience as though he were focusing on just one individual face. The result? Each person in the section (and even those of us watching on our computers) feels that he is looking only at him or her.

5. Generosity of Spirit. His eyes, his body, his voice all feel like a gift to the audience.

From the Green Room: Having presence is the difference between making an audience of 1 feel overlooked and ignored and an audience of 100,000 feel seen and heard.