I’d rather be shot at dawn than play a game of Pictionary. Sure, it’s supposed to be a fun game, lighthearted and full of endless, squealing delight, but here’s the deal. I don’t draw. Not publicly, not privately. Not ever.

Why?

Because long ago and far away I decided that I was no good at drawing or painting or anything that resembled visual art. I’m not sure when or why I made this decision, but I did. And as a result, I don’t draw. Or, rather, I won’t draw.

Yet to this day, I envy people who can draw or paint. My friend, Jim, for example, and Tony Bennett, both who paint amazingly well and love doing so. And I’ve always thought it would be a blast to be a cartoonist. But there is no way that I will allow myself to even experiment, because my internal script says “Nope. No way. Can’t do it.”

We all have these internal scripts we’ve written for ourselves, scripts that define the character we call “I” or “me.” And from what I can tell, these scripts are based on certain decisions we’ve made about ourselves as we’ve bopped along on this journey of life. The longer we travel, the longer we recite our internal scripts without ever stopping to question if we like our lines or if this character is who we really are.

So, let me ask you now, what script have you written for yourself in regards to speaking or performing in public? Does your internal script say, “Oooo, I love to speak in front of groups! It’s a total blast! And I’m really good at it.” or does it say, “Public speaking sucks. I hate it. And besides, I’m no good at it.” Whatever your script is, it’s based on a decision you’ve made about yourself at some point along the way. Like my decision that I’m no good at drawing and therefore I can’t (won’t) do it.
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I hate it when I don’t take my own advice.

Last week my husband and I went to hear my friend Tom play jazz at Equus Restaurant in Santa Rosa. Tom plays bass in my jazz trio, but this night he was playing with his own trio made up of pianist, John Simon, and a drummer whose first name is Paul. I didn’t catch his last name.

As we were sitting there, listening, sipping Zinfandel and contemplating the menu, Tom asked me if I wanted to sit in and sing a few tunes. An invitation to sing! My favorite thing. So, of course, I said yes. I didn’t have my own music but this group knew "I Get A Kick Out of You" so we swung it in C major.

Great! Fabulous. What fun.

Well, then Tom asked me to come up and sing again in the second set. Sure, you betcha. As the pianist launched into "Skylark", I couldn’t really hear my first note from his introduction but I just opened my mouth and took a guess. A wrong guess. I started wrong, but quickly found my way to the right pitch, and the rest of the song went beautifully.

Ah, but that first note! The very first one! To screw that up. Ugh!

I went on to sing a very fun duet with Tom, which we had never done before, and it was great. The crowd loved it. My husband loved it. But I was back in the past, mulling over my previous mistake. Damn, that first note of Skylark.

In fact, I couldn’t let it go all night. Driving home. Going to bed. Even getting up the next day. That mistake haunted me.
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Danger!

There’s an epidemic infecting the majority of the population of America. Maybe the world.

No, I’m not talking about avian flu, or malaria or hyperopia.
I’m talking about the Epidemic of Not Enough.

The symptoms to watch for are:

1. a tendency to always think or feel that you are in some way not enough, that you are lacking some quality, skill, talent or characteristic.
2. the thought that others may be able to be, have or do what they want, but you don’t get to.
3. the feeling that you always need more of “something” (more money, more time, more training, more experience) before you can take action or succeed.
4. feeling stuck, like you can’t move ahead or follow an impulse because you either talk yourself out of it, postpone it or doubt your ability to create a satisfactory result.

If you recognize any of these symptoms, don’t call your doctor. Chances are he’s got the same disease and won’t have a clue as to how to cure you.

In my work with clients, when someone is feeling nervous, anxious, scared or stuck about expressing themselves in public, it is almost always associated with what Kim George calls, The Illusion of Not Enough. (Kim is the author of “Coaching Into Greatness,” an amazing book that I am eating up right now.) This is when you start feeling extremely nervous and scared because you hold some belief or thought that you’re simply not up to the task of speaking or performing in public.

You tell yourself you’re not smart enough. Not polished enough. Not interesting enough, not attractive enough, not articulate enough.  Or, that you don’t have enough of something. For instance, you can’t do it until you more training, more time, more practice, more experience, a better outfit, the right atmosphere.

Stop and think about it. Is this sounding at all familiar to you? Can you identify the ways you may be the victim of Not Enough?

The tragedy of this Illusion of Not Enough is two-fold. One, it keeps you small, silent, scared and frozen in place. It prevents you from moving towards what you want and what you deserve.

But the even bigger tragedy is that it’s all a lot of hooey! It just isn’t true. It is, in fact, an Illusion. You ARE enough. Who says otherwise? As Kim George says, “Who’s holding the measuring tape?” And against what standard of measurement are they holding it?
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This concludes the Special Report, "The Diva’s 7 Secrets to Speaking or Performing With Confidence, Ease and Charisma." A quick Summary, and a new definition.

In Summary

So, there you go! The Diva’s 7 Secrets to Speaking or Performing in Public With Confidence, Ease and Your Own Kind of Creative Charisma.

How do they feel to you? Do you feel you’re ready to start integrating these Secrets into your expressive life? Can you feel how they could transform your communication and public self-expression?

If you’re ready to go for it, I suggest you start by focusing on one or two of the Secrets that really resonate with you now. Let yourself play with them in your daily life. All of these Secrets apply to all aspects of your life, not just when you’re speaking or performing for an audience. Then, play with a few more of the Secrets. You’ll discover the ones that are perfect for you.
 
These Secrets are explored and integrated in the advanced Unconditional Confidence® trainings, so if you want some coaching around these Secrets, please feel free to contact me through this blog or website. I offer several teleclasses, teleclinics and individual coaching programs that will allow you to fully integrate and expand upon these Diva Secrets.

Now, I promised to share with you my new definition of the word, Diva. 

A Diva is anyone who is connected to their own divine, creative source and true spirit AND is able to freely express themselves from that state of connection, in their life, work or art.

That’s my new definition. How do you like it? I know, it’s a bit nebulous. It’s a work in progress. As you will read in the Appendix below, I tried to use the best of the original definition yet make “Divahood” available to everyone. Because everyone has the ability to connect with one’s divine, creative self, one’s true self, and express oneself from that place of connection. Don’t you think?
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Thus continues the Special Report, "The Diva’s 7 Secrets to Speaking or Performing With Confidence, Ease and Charisma." I am posting these Secrets one by one over every week.
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Secret #4
You Can’t Make A Mistake

Oh, we’re so afraid of making a mistake! Especially publicly.

You were taught to fear mistakes at a very early age. You learned that if you made a mistake, you could be punished, either by your parents, your school or your society. If you did anything that was displeasing or judged as inappropriate by the adults around you, you were admonished, sometimes ever humiliated in front of others. You figured out that there must be appropriate ways to behave and that if you “misbehaved,” you were “bad” and subject to rejection, isolation and pain.

Now, that can really screw up a person’s sense of self-confidence in their own self-expression, don’t you think?

Even now, as adults, our fear of mistakes cripples so much of our potential creativity and confident self-expression. We’re afraid of saying the wrong thing, of forgetting what we mean to say, of doing something “wrong.”  Huge chunks of our creative, expressive selves have been strangled because we long ago decided these parts of who we are might not meet the approval of others.

A day doesn’t go by without someone telling me a horror story about how they were humiliated or made to feel “wrong” or unworthy by either a teacher or some authority figure. These humiliations and the habits we’ve formed around them continue to haunt us. In an attempt to stay safe, we’ve stopped owning and expressing our true voice. We’ve allowed ourselves to become silent and small.

But here’s the good news.

When it comes to self-expression, there are no mistakes. There are only spontaneous, unplanned opportunities for connection.

Keep reading…
(more…)

I recently wrote a Special Report that I’d like to share with you. It’s called "The Diva’s 7 Secrets to Speaking or Performing With Confidence, Ease and Charisma." I’ll be posting these Secrets one by one over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

__________________

Secret #3:
Be Yourself

Tell me the truth. Can you just be yourself when you’re speaking or performing?

Can you just show up and be who you are without feeling that you should be someone who is more articulate, more talented, more experienced, more dynamic, more interesting, more funny, more SOMETHING?

The reason I’m asking is that most people feel that if they are going to stand up and speak in front of an audience, they need to be MORE than who they are. They need to be like that electrifying, laugh-a-minute speaker they saw last week. Or they need to be an extraordinary, super-duper, high-gloss version of themselves.

Well, that’s nuts.

You get to just be who you are. As you are. Not some better-than-ever version of who you are, but who you are right now. In this moment.

You get to talk the way you talk everyday to your friends and colleagues. Really. Just talk to your audience as if you were talking to a friend over a cup of coffee. Be present and available and just talk like you talk. Not only will you feel natural and at ease but your audience will, too. They will find it easy to connect and engage with you because you are just being you. In fact, all your audience really wants is to be with someone who is real, authentic, and genuine.

Sometimes, when I tell people they can just be who they are, I get this objection. “But I can’t be myself! No one would want to listen to me. Who I am is a very shy, quiet person!” Listen, what choice do you have? You are who you are. So, if you’re shy, then be shy and speak from that shyness. It’s okay. You don’t have to be explosive, aggressive and loud. You don’t have to be any certain way. Just be real. Be who you are.

Secondly, if you try to pretend to be someone you’re not, it’s not going to work. You will be so busy trying to pull of a charade that you are going to feel even more panicked and nervous. Besides, people can smell a fraud and a fake from a mile away. And as soon as they get a whiff, they retract, get suspicious and choose not to pay attention.
(more…)

I recently wrote a Special Report that I’d like to share with you.
It’s called "The Diva’s 7 Secrets to Speaking or Performing With Confidence, Ease and Charisma." I’ll be posting these Secrets one by one over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

___________
Secret #2
Focus on the Fabulous

What are you thinking about right now?

Whatever it is, it’s effecting your experience and creating your future.

According to the Law of Attraction, whatever you think about, give your attention to and focus upon is what is created, or attracted into, your life. There is an energy and vibration in your thoughts, and that energy attracts more of the same. In other words, whatever you feed with your thought and energy, grows and expands into your experience.

So, what are you thinking about when you’re about to speak in public or perform onstage?

If you’re like most of my clients, you’re worrying about all the things that can go wrong. “What if I mess up? What if my body shakes uncontrollably? What if I forget what I’m saying? What if I trip? What if…”

Stop it!

This kind of thinking is not helping you. It’s only scaring you and making you feel more anxious. And, this kind of thinking is feeding what you don’t want.

When you catch your mind spinning with all the disasters that may befall you, just stop and choose to start thinking about what you DO want. “I want to feel relaxed and at ease. I want everything to go smoothly. I want to make a great connection with my audience. I want to express myself freely. I want to tell people what I know. I want to really enjoy this opportunity.”

By thinking about what you do want, you get your mind working for you rather than against you and you start attracting those things you want into your experience.
(more…)

I recently wrote a Special Report that I’d like to share with you.
It’s called "The Diva’s 7 Secrets to Speaking or Performing With Confidence, Ease and Charisma." I’ll be posting these Secrets one by one over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

Several years ago I was singing in a small nightclub in San Francisco called Piaf’s. The host of the evening , Wayne, would introduce me to audience as “The Diva of the North Bay.” This title would make me cringe.

The title of “Diva” didn’t sit well with me because the word had come to mean “a narcissitic, self-absorbed, conceited whiner with more attitude than talent.” But I also knew that the original term was given to true Divas, singers who’s ability to be so connected to the divine, to something larger than themselves, that they sang with the ease, power and beauty of the heavens.

In order to find peace with my new title, I had to redefine the word “Diva.” And in doing so, I realized that a true Diva has valuable secrets to share, secrets about how to be powerfully present, completely confident, connected and charismatic when presenting, speaking or performing.  These are the Secrets I’m about to share with you. The Diva’s 7 Secrets to Speaking or Performing in Public With Confidence, Ease and Your Own Kind of Creative Charisma.

You will find these Secrets exciting but challenging because they ask you to change the way you think about yourself, your value and your relationship to speaking or performing in public. They may rub up against some old concepts and beliefs you have about what it means to express yourself in public. This is good.

Because if you are reading this, chances are that you want a change, yes? A change that allows you to feel completely confident, authentic and free in your self-expression? A change that allows you to break free of all the fear and anxiety and self-sabotage that has been keeping you from the joy of expressing yourself fully and fearlessly?

Well then, let’s get to it!

As for my new definition of the word Diva, I will share it with you in the Appendix of this report. It can wait because I know you’re anxious to dig in to these Secrets right now. Just read through them and imagine how it would feel to fully integrate these Secrets into your life and your self-expression. If it feels good, go for it!
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I wrote this entry a while ago and set it to be posted, but somehow, it just didn’t happen. Better late than never, I guess!

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Every now and then, Graham English offers some very cool tips and tools over on his blog.
His focus is primarily on helping musicians and songwriters, but some of the tools he offers are great for speakers and performers of all kinds.

Like his most recent post on Mental Rehearsal. Now, I love mental rehearsal! When I am creating a new show or getting ready for a singing gig, I lie on the couch and rehearse the whole show in my mind. Not only does this help me prepare, it also tends to spark new ideas that I hadn’t considered before.

 But Graham is giving us a technique I’ve never heard of before: The Swoosh Technique. I like the sound of that, don’t you. SWOOSH!

Check it out. Give it a try. Let me know what you think.