Stress Seminars for Public Speaking
For the past nineteen years we have been conducting Stress Seminars for Public Speaking, designed to eliminate the effects of mild to severe public-speaking phobia.
These programs are for people who avoid speaking before groups, or participating at meetings, conferences, in classrooms, etc., because of rapid heartbeat, thought-blocking, unbearable anxiety, dread, trembling, shame, panic reaction, breathing difficulty (hyperventilation), or other effects of loss of physical and mental control.
Participants are a high-functioning population from the corporate sector, as well as people in politics, the healing arts, and academia. Each group consists of no more than twelve participants per trainer. There is ample opportunity to speak with instructors about specific problems. Natalie H. Rogers conducts every seminar with an assistant.
Skill Building
Spanning an array of skill-building procedures, a unique mind/body program for public-speaking phobia has been formulated and clinically tested so that a powerful therapeutic technology has emerged for the elimination of this previously unmanageable yet universal phobia.
Comparable to the systematic training athletes receive when preparing for competitive events, the success of the TalkPower programs lies in our innovative system for training the mind and body to develop and integrate permanent performance habits and skills that ensure physical, mental, and emotional self-control of an effective speaker.
TalkPower uses a four-pronged training system:
1. Learning Inner Control
2. Thinking and Speaking
3. Speech Crafting
4. Leadership Training
This approach is based upon our long-term observation that public-speaking fearfulness is a learned behavior that is reinforced by a lack of performance skills. This results in: (1) Loss of physical control. (2) Impaired ability to concentrate. (3) Negative, self-critical thoughts. (4) Avoidance.
Learning Inner Control
For the first three hours of the class, there are no presentations. Instead, the fear response is thoroughly and systematically addressed as participants practice the step-by-step exercises that train the brain to slow down the inner response system by reducing rapid heartbeat and racing pulse, and lowering adrenaline and sugar production.
These exercises, derived from the acting repertoire identified with Constantin Stanislavski, blend his moment-by-moment approach with behavioral schedules and relaxation training that even the most fearful person can follow. As a result, the brain develops the necessary neural patterning for basic performance behavior and a sense of mastery and control is restored. When participants have mastered these techniques and feel the comfort and calming effects of self-control, individual presentations can begin.
Thinking and Speaking
Part two of this four-pronged program trains the anxious speaker to use the TalkPower Action Formula to organize his thoughts systematically in a form that is clear and pleasing to the listening audience.
Initially students are only on their feet for a short period of time. By training with very small units of time that grow longer as the participant progresses through the various sections of the presentation, new feelings of comfort and control are learned and the sense of being overwhelmed or lost is diminished, and finally extinguished.
Speech Crafting
The program provides a simple system that is easy to follow for breaking the presentation down into short, discrete sections. Each section is worked upon separately, first with a partner, then in front of the group. This speechcrafting system creates such inner clarity and order that the mental chaos that plagues the fearful speaker, causing thought-blocking and memory loss, is totally eliminated.
For future presentations, participants can use this organizational template as the basis for a written text or an improvised presentation.
Speakers learn professional techniques for reading from a written script, thereby eliminating the need for memorization.
In addition, participants are walked through unique rehearsal techniques for reinforcing skills and practicing new presentations. Question and Answer periods are covered in depth, and techniques and drills for participating at meetings are thoroughly reviewed.
Leadership Training
When the basic performance techniques are in place, participants are ready to begin the leadership training. This segment examines the negative core beliefs that interfere with the speaker's ability to speak in front of an audience with confidence and poise.
We have found that these negative beliefs arise from early childhood conditioning by critical or authoritarian parents, jealous siblings, cruel and shaming teachers, etc. For example, the admonition "children should be seen and not heard" can seriously inhibit a child and then the adult from expressing himself publicly.
Leadership Training includes techniques for learning to change these negative messages with powerful self-empowering thoughts; for example: "I have the right to inform others,", "I have the right to be a leader," and "I have the right to my speech time." Included is the idea that others have the right to disagree. This notion trains the student to master the skill of appropriate detachment, so that in the event of a hostile question or response, angry or fearful reaction patterns do not appear.
Why We Are Different
Traditional public-speaking courses do not recognize the fact that most of the people who attend are suffering from various stages of fear, distress, and loss of control. These classes offer tips, hints, gimmicks, and fragmented pieces of information that focus upon the presentation, with very little attention given to the comfort, control, and concentration of the presenter.
In addition, great importance is placed upon strategies for persuasiveness, projection, positive thinking, selling yourself, and videotaping, none of which are helpful for the fearful speaker. The speaker with a serious fear of speaking in public cannot respond to such a superficial approach.
The key to successful treatment lies in the understanding that the fear of speaking in public is not just a simple phobia that can be overcome with positive thinking, psychological treatment, or repetitive exposure. Years of observation tells us that, unlike other phobias, public-speaking phobia is a complex condition arising from one's past history, low self-esteem, lack of performance skill, inexperience in organizing ideas for a listening audience, and a professional identity that is threatened because of the high visibility of the public-speaking situation. TalkPower successfully addresses every one of these issues by offering a state-of-the-art program that incorporates the procedures of neuroscience, behavior modification, acting technique, speech crafting, and leadership skills. This transformative approach makes TalkPower training the most effective remedy for permanently overcoming the fear of speaking in public.
For twenty years this innovative and original program has proven to be 95% successful for all participants who have completed the training, including severely phobic individuals who had not responded successfully to other methods.
In the words of Chris Marley, a head of personnel of a Fortune 500 company, "I have spent thousands of dollars and years of my life trying psychotherapy, hypnosis, dropping out of major training programs, to overcome a problem that TalkPower eliminated in one weekend. I wish I had heard about Natalie Rogers years ago -- this is not just a course -- this is a gift for life."
Guaranteed Results
If after the first half day a participant feels that the TalkPower program is not working, we will refund the complete fee.
Payment plan, student discounts, and corporate seminars available.
Criteria for Success
1. All phobic behaviors, i.e., rapid heartbeat, thought-blocking, trembling, panic reaction, breathing difficulty, avoidance, etc., are eliminated or in the advanced stages of change.
2. New coping behaviors (skills) have become permanently available to the participant.
3. All participants are able, at the completion of the program, to speak successfully in public, either in their professional setting or in a support setting, like "Toastmasters."
Refresher Course
Open to graduates of the Stress Seminar for Public Speaking, refresher courses are full one-day sessions held on the Sunday of each monthly scheduled TalkPower seminar. For a small fee you can join a group and become a full participant in the second half of the workshop. Call for current schedule and register on the phone.
Give the gift of speech
Clients include: Chase Investors Management Corporation, IBM, J.C. Penney, Baruch College, The National Organization for Women, Air France, MCI Communications, and American Express.
If you wish to speak with Ms. Rogers to find out whether this workshop answers your needs, call 1-800-525-3718 or in New York call 212-684-1711 for a COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER ONLINE