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• Presence Point: Prime your Central Nervous System (CNS) for Peak Communication Performance with an Audience of 1 or 1,000
• Are You Communicating Your Vision? (And Summer Mentoring Made Easier)
• Avoiding Stress Can Lead to Mental Atrophy

Presence Point: Prime your Central Nervous System (CNS) for Peak Communication Performance with an Audience of 1 or 1,000 Posted: 31 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT  In day-to-day life we are always surprised. We are stressed, short on time and now more than ever being called on for mastery and to "show up" powerfully in a meeting, an interview, a date, a difficult conversation, a performance review or on a stage. How well do you handle the surprise, the stress? How well do you "show up"? Here are some research-based, practical tools for priming your CNS for peak performance. 1.  At the Outset: Be as prepared as possible with your content. Every audience member is asking the same question: So What? (or "what's in it for me?") so clearly placing the focus on your particular audience answers that question and takes the focus off of you. Rehearse well before the due date – not just in your head, although that helps, in addition to rehearsing with your full body. No more than once, if at all, on the day of the event. Practice/rehearse in a variety of locations (bathroom, kitchen, car, office) to embed in long term memory – then you won't have to memorize it – it will just be familiar conversation. Tape and watch yourself. See what really works for you in terms of your nonverbal language and your words. 2. Weeks/Days before leading up to the event: Get as much information as possible about the venue – visit the room and "own the space", check out the equipment, meet as many people ahead of time as possible. Delve into your feelings of discomfort. When you feel anxious, nervous, tense, say so. Label your feelings out loud. That one act alone will move you significantly more forward than trying to suppress or deny them (which only makes them loom larger), by focusing your mind on one thing vs. freeform anxiety and keeping you very present to what is happening in the moment. Responsibility Transfer: In The Charisma Myth, Olivia Fox Cabane describes a highly effective practice called the Responsibility Transfer: Sit or lie comfortably, relax, close your eyes. Take 2 or 3 deep breaths. Inhale, imagining you are drawing clean air toward the top of your head. Exhale and let the air whoosh through you, washing away all worries and concerns. Pick an entity (God, Fate, the Universe) that you can imagine as benevolent. Imagine lifting the weight of the concerns you have right now and placing it on the shoulders of your chosen one. They are in charge now. Visually lift everything off your shoulders and "feel" the difference as you are no longer responsible for the outcome. Everything is taken care of and you can now relax. 3. Immediately before a communication event to "prime" your system: Befriend your adrenaline. Actors report that if they don't feel a surge of adrenaline before a performance, they worry they have lost their "edge". Adrenaline, the fight or flight chemical, can be used to literally flee the scene, or in the right amounts actually infuses us with enthusiasm, animation and power. To regulate your adrenaline and make it work for you: Bounce on a large exercise ball for 15 – 20 minutes, or a rebounder, or stability disc  – you can use this in a car while driving, on a plane etc. (when traveling, check with the hotel gym – they always let me borrow balls). One client told me that she received 4 different emails from participants in her teleclass raving about the change in her voice from the first class – before the  second class, she bounced on the ball for 15 minutes. Squeeze a stress ball, or press fingertips into center of palms of hands. Knead "worry" stones, doodle, knit: small fine motor movements of the fingers are all calming. Deep belly breathing: You have to breathe anyway, why not leverage it?  Brain research shows that deep belly breathing is the 1st most powerful thing you can do as you face your audience, before you begin to speak. It slows your heart rate, focuses your mind and instantly interrupts the fight or flight chemicals in your CNS, allowing you to be calm and responsive vs. reactive and anxious. Your voice becomes deeper and more resonant. And, most importantly it allows silence, which fosters connection and powerful listening. To do it correctly, put your hands on your navel and take a deep breath in, expanding your abdomen as you fill your trunk with air. Breathe out, tightening your stomach muscles as you empty your trunk. This is the opposite of how we normally breathe when upright, but it's the same way we breathe when we are lying down. "Get down" and get the hang of it! Visualization practice of previous, highly successful experience immediately before the communication – particularly for the phone, virtual events, etc. Your neurons fire as if you have already achieved the same success for this new event. Look at a picture of a loved one or imagine you are going to have a conversation with your favorite person. This  changes your CNS by secreting oxytocin and endorphins, creating a warm, open posture and voice. Looking a pictures of funny, happy kids/people. Research shows that doing this immediately before taking standardized tests significantly raises test scores. Meet and greet as many audience members before the actual presentation starts. Smile  What are some of the things that work for you to prime your CNS for Peak Performance?

Are You Communicating Your Vision? (And Summer Mentoring Made Easier) Posted: 31 May 2012 05:00 AM PDT One of the most important things you can do as a mentor is communicate your vision of what you are trying to achieve with your company. From your vision, your mentee should be able to accomplish something similar. Take Jen Yih, for example. Here is what Jen has to say about her experience working with me as a mentor. I am sharing this for you to see mentoring, not just from my perspective, but, more importantly, from the perspective of the mentee: My first year of college at Loyola University Chicago I was given a unique opportunity to work side by side with the President of Networlding, Melissa G. Wilson. In the first few instances of meeting Melissa her passion and drive towards her work is contagious. This alone made my experiences at Networlding the most rewarding. My time at Networlding has not been any average paid internship. In my first year, Melissa took me under her wing by showing me the ropes in various areas of social media, opening my eyes to the world of publishing and marketing.  After building a professional relationship and friendship we were easily able to work from project to project. Melissa has a strong vision and by communicating it clearly and effectively everyday is an exciting step towards turning her ideas into reality. Her expertise and knowledge gave me the ability and confidence I have today to hit the ground running as a young professional and to create my own vision. Jen has been a paid intern and mentee now for two years. Every time she leaves (she was just recently in Italy for the last 6 months), she comes back with more energy, focus and new insights that add value to my organization. My team and I experience an upward spiral of success from her support. What has also occurred is a better contribution to the vision I hold for my organization. With multimedia becoming more and more a cornerstone of social media, my vision has grown to include a new location where I turn the books that I help authors write, publish and market into movies. It will be awhile before I realize my vision but I do know that visions are realized through our relationships. Working with Jen as a mentor has created a stronger awareness of how much one person's input can make such a powerful ripple effect. This summer I will have two interns working for me, assisting my authors in all aspects of book creation and marketing. My plan is to have Jen "peer mentor" these two college interns who want to learn as much as possible, the nuances of successful publishing. I'll keep you posted as to how that works. What I know currently is that the more I trust the mentoring process and stay dedicated to it, the more it expands. It's been a tradition for me to have at least one intern every summer. It's a lot of work but the rewards outweigh the effort tenfold. If you have the chance, seek out at least one young professional to mentor this summer. You won't regret it and you might even make it a tradition, as I have. Photo Credit: Chandra Marsono

Avoiding Stress Can Lead to Mental Atrophy Posted: 31 May 2012 02:00 AM PDT Most entrepreneurs are stressed out. You probably are, too. You have so many items on your to-do list that you feel like you’re going to burst. How nice it would be to tear up your list and take off to live the rest of your life on a sunny island away from all your pressing tasks! Right? Actually, if you did that you would probably find that getting away from all forms of stress wouldn’t make you happy. And you would find that new, seemingly trivial concerns, like how to keep the sand out of all your belongings, would suddenly become very irritating and important to you. Why is that? It’s because stress can be good for you. It exercises your mind just as physical stress exercises your body. For example, if you never exercise at all (to the point of never leaving your bed to walk around) your body will undergo a condition known as disuse atrophy. Your muscles will get weaker and weaker. Then if you suddenly decide to do something as simple as stand up, you won’t be able to. You would have to slowly strengthen your muscles a little at a time by gradually increasing the stress on them until you are strong enough to stand upon again. Well, if you avoid all forms of mental and emotional stress, the same thing happens. Your mind becomes so weak that you freak out at even small obstacles. That’s not to say that you should seek out the most stressful activities that you can find and keep at them for long periods of time. Everyone is aware that prolonged stress can lead to serious mental and emotional problems as well as physical problems like high blood pressure and heart disease. Again, the exercise analogy fits here. If you conclude that since physical stress is good for you, and you should force yourself to bench 300 pounds when you were struggling with 100 pounds, you’re going to get hurt. But if you lift 100 pounds ten times, rest and then do it again for about three sets twice each week, you’ll get stronger. After several weeks or perhaps a month you’ll be able to lift 105 pounds. The key factor is resting your muscles and then stressing them out again. Get the picture? Just like physical stress, activities that cause mental and emotional stress can be good for you. They strengthen your mind so that you can handle more stress at another time. It also gives you a feeling of accomplishment. But the more intense the stress, the more rest and relaxation you need in between the stressful events. Stress isn’t the evil enemy that it is made out to be. It can be a good friend. Engage with it and then get away from it. Rinse and repeat. Photo Credit: isafmedia

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