Present Beyond Measure

31Master Your Mind and Body

“If you think you're too small to be anything, you have never been in the dark with a mosquito.”

—Betty Reese

I hope you now understand that preparation is a game-changer in defusing that sweaty-palm bomb waiting to go off the moment you lose your train of thought while presenting. Yet even the most prepared presenter can lose their cool during a meeting for a seemingly endless array of worries or “thought forms”, such as these:

• I'm terrified before even going in the room!
• Ack, I can't remember what comes next!
• I'm an imposter, and they'll realize I'm a fraud!
• They're asking me difficult questions!
• They don't get me! They don't get what I do!
• Why are they looking at me like that?
• Why isn't my clicker working?

Experiencing just one of these thoughts can scramble your egg yolk; imagine the compound effect of multiple, and you have a frantic frittata in your brain. Thankfully, there are strategies to prevent this death spiral. I'm going to unpack some of these pests and empower you with a new mental survival kit.

I'm Terrified Before Even Going in There!

This is a big one, yet are several solutions to this problem.

Solution: A Pre-presentation Ritual or Routine

If you aren't already familiar with the term state mastery, now is the time. State mastery is the act of pursuing practices that enable you to master your emotional “state” during stressful moments.

One of the most helpful things I learned from watching the world's great speakers was ...