Overcoming Stage Fright + Special Operations Forces Industry Conference
GROUP SHOT
Under Siege
As a meeting professional, you can play a key role in helping your speakers overcome their stage fright. How? In a recent interview with the Hufington Post website (read the full article at convn.org/jill-foster), Jill Foster — speechwriter, presentation coach, and CEO of Live Your Talk — offered this advice:
› Create energy outlets relationally and physically.
› About one hour before your talk, create allegiance and meet your audience. Are conference-goers hanging out at the coffee stand? Arriving early in your session room? Meet them and shake their hand. Look them in the eye if you can at all invest that time, or certainly engage with them online before the day arrives.
› Then 20 minutes before you present: Be alone and quiet. Breathe deeply a few times. Then stand in your most confident, shoulders-back stance and punch the air, like a boxer. Breathe, box, breathe, box. And finally, close your eyes, envision standing on stage and saying your first lines to the audience. In that mental moment, look ’em in the eyes. Give and receive this attention in your mind.
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For more information: liveyourtalk .com
2012 Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) U.S. and international special-forces teams offered a “joint capabilities demonstration” at SOFIC 2012, organized by the National Defense Industrial Association at the Tampa Convention Center on May 22–24. During the excercise, the teams staged a mock rescue of Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, arriving by air, land, and sea, then storming ashore outside the convention center to overrun a terrorist outpost.