Chapter 2: Essential Skills

You know you’re really afraid of speaking in front of people. And you know that because you’re the one person that has been with you all your life without any exception. And you know YOU better than anybody else.

Maybe you have been invited as a keynote speaker at an important event, but you shy away because you know YOU, and you know you cannot put up with facing that situation. Since you lived with yourself all your life, you know better than anyone else that you’re terrified of public speaking. Everything but that!

You may be really good at what you do; in fact, you may even be an expert in your field, and yet…you know you will make a fool of yourself if you were to speak in front of other people. Or at least this is what you think…

You have that knot in your throat, your knees may be shaking, you cannot find your words, everything seems to have disappeared right out of your mind and if it is still there, it does not seem to come out right…and surely “they” will think you’re a fool.

In your mind, one thing keeps rumbling again and again: what will they say about me?

What was I thinking about?

To be able to speak publicly? Me?

In front of 250 people?

And yet, one of your dreams is to become a purposeful influencer, a beneficial and powerful voice in your industry, or in your community at large. You have skills, knowledge, you’re creative and have great ideas and you want to put them at good use, and yet, how would you be able to do that when you’re not finding yourself at ease even to have a short speech in front of your mother-in-law, other family members or even your friends?

In NLP, Presenting Magically is not a dream. It is reality. We teach it every year to hundreds of people during the NLP Trainer’s Training

First of all, with NLP and Time Line Therapy®, we eliminate stage fright and nervousness. After that we show you how to develop your personal charisma (we even call it the Charisma Pattern).

In the NLP Trainer’s Training, there are 30 different skills installed via exercises so you can do them automatically whenever you are in front of an audience - be it of three or 3,000 people. The “automatic” part includes energy, determination, and commitment, allowing your personality to shine through. This is being done by installation of behavioral habits that kick in automatically (literally) every time you’re speaking in front of people. This means you don’t have to think about them. They’re simply there as part of your “in-front-of-group” successful behavior. We call that the “Trainer or Presenter State” and we do that by using NLP and Time Line Therapy® techniques from the Fastrack NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner Trainings, some of which are described below.

One of the skills necessary for a masterful presenter acquired during the NLP Trainers’ Training is how to be genuinely concerned with your audience and their needs; when you forget to be busy with yourself and how you look or sound like and are truly interested in serving your audience, you’re a fantastic presenter.

Another skill resolves the issue of being capable of shifting your focus from your internal world (how you feel about yourself) to the external world (your audience). It sounds easier said than done, but with the help of NLP, you will know how to do just that - how to connect with each and every member in the group you’re addressing; moreover, how to do that in a way which builds rapport, trust and cooperation.

NLP Trainers’ Training allows you to also have full awareness of the state of the group and the changes happening from moment to moment which leads you to have the power to influence the audience not only positively but “magically.” You will know and be able to feel whether they’re with you or somewhere else in their minds and what to do to bring your audience into compliance. You will be able to see and feel whether they agree or disagree with your message regardless of the polite smiles, and most importantly how to deliver your speech so that everyone agrees and is excited about it.

Another key element for a great presenter is how to create that deep connection with every member of your audience in such a way that they want to hear more from you. This will provide for you the opportunity to not only communicate your message easily and elegantly, but in a way which makes it acceptable and easy to understand. Audiences shy away from complicated presentations - they love those that are easy to understand.

In the NLP Trainers’ Training, we use a way of structuring your presentations called the 4Mat system, which allows every person in your audience to learn based on their particular learning style and yet be successful and comprehending the message and information you put through.

Every group of people is made out of collection of individuals. They all come with their own learning style, they may have had a good experience in acquiring something new or not; they all come with their personal history and ability to grasp new information…or not. The NLP Trainer’s Training gives you the skill set to manage group dynamics and to structure your presentations in a way which makes it easy to understand by everyone regardless of their past learning experience.

In conclusion, to become a great presenter, free of fear of public speaking, there are skills and techniques which NLP Trainers’ Training makes available to you in an easy and fun way tested by generations of successful graduates. Then public speaking is not only not frightening anymore, but it become delightful, empowering, and fun. You and your audience will achieve your outcomes and goals in the most win-win possible situation.