Speaking Out @ MindSay 
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Note from webmaster: One thing an actor has to have, walking into the audition room, is confidence and a sense of ease. This is your very first contact with the casting director and whomever else might be in the room, including writers, producers and directors. If you walk in looking nervous and insecure, you've already stacked the deck against you, no matter how brilliantly you then audition. Also, the first words out of your mouth are vital. If they don't come easily, if your voice is choked, over-enthusiastic or too low to be heard, you have already predisposed those with the power to hire you, to be concerned. A great tool for the actor, to become more comfortable in the room and in their own skin, is to attend a good public speaking class. I'd also recommend self-help programs geared toward creating a more genuine, relaxed presence in high-pressure situations because what they see then can color everything they see later. Recommended:
Cure your fear of public speaking
7 Public Speaking Survival Tips
I used to be terrified of public speaking - now it's natural and fun.
Dry mouth, fast heart, sweaty palms, blank mind - yeah I've been there! It's easy to fear public speaking. But I was never just content with overcoming fear. I wanted to be a great speaker. What I needed was a way of calming down and applying simple techniques and strategies to talk like a pro.
When I'd learned to relax (more of that later) I learned and applied the following four steps.
- Reassure your audience - they need to know you know your stuff and you are human!
- Hook them by being interesting and relevant. Tell them why what you are saying is relevant to them.
- Inspire them by giving them information and ways of seeing that are new and applicable.
- Leave them on a high by telling a story them encapsulates your central message.
How do you become confident enough to apply the four steps?
Here's some tips some of which are practical some of which are to do with the way you think about your public presentations and also how you can start to change the way you feel about them.
Public Speaking Tip One
Breath your way to calm. When you breath out you relax that's why people sigh when they're stressed.
Breathing in without breathing out causes hyperventilation and worsens anxiety. Just before your speech take five minutes breathing in to the count of seven and out to the count of eleven (quick count-not seconds!). On the out breath hold it a second before breathing in again. This will produce quick and lasting calm. Remember extending the out breath calms you down.
Public Speaking Tip Two
You have a responsibility as the presenter but relax you don't carry all the responsibility. Presenting is a team effort. Audiences are responsible for politeness, extending their attention and attempting to learn. It's not all you-it's a meeting of two halves. Never mind how they judge you. How do you judge them?
Public Speaking Tip Three
Use metaphor and stories. We all experience life metaphorically. The most technical logical person spends at least two hours a night dreaming! Talk detail if necessary but present patterns with metaphors. Folk from 4 to 104 love stories. Use em.
Public Speaking Tip four
Captivate attention by using words that evoke all the senses. Describe how things look, sound, feel, smell and taste. Paint pictures and sensations in their minds with your words.
Public Speaking Tip Five
Vary your voice tonality and speed of delivery. Keep them alert and engaged. Convey energy when need be and slow down when you need to 'draw them in close.' You are the conductor to their orchestra. And pepper your talk with humour. Your willingness to be funny shows personal confidence and confidence is contagious.
Public Speaking Tip Six
Tell them what they are going to get. What they are currently getting and then what they have got from you. Sell your sizzle!
Public Speaking Tip Seven
Watch and learn from other great speakers until compelling, relaxed speaking is a part of you.
Rehearse positively. You need to rehearse how your going to feel as well as what you are going to present.
Don't think about your forthcoming presentation whilst feeling nervous as this creates an instinctive association between fear and presenting. This natural negative self-hypnosis is very common with nervous speakers.
Hypnotically rehearse your speech whilst feeling relaxed. This produces the right 'blueprint' in your mind. In fact when you do this enough times it actually becomes hard to be nervous!
All great speakers know how to use great self-hypnotic rehearsal. Hypnosis changes attitudes and can bring emotion under control. I used hypnosis, to change my instincts around public speaking. Now I just can't get nervous whether it's 50 or 500 people. The world needs great communicators. Go for it!
Cure your fear of public speaking - if you want that extra boost of awareness and confidence the next time you have to speak in public, get the help you need with this fantastic hypnosis download.
Tonsillitis and sore throat information featured for actors: hypnosis for great acting
They'd like to leave Tommy in stitches
By CHRIS SMITH
PRESS DEMOCRAT COLUMNIST
Published: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 11:21 a.m.
A good many of the Emmy Awards viewers who've fired off blogs or e-mails about the acceptance speech by Kenwood's Tommy Smothers use some pretty ugly words.
Communist, elitist, traitor -- they're some of the more printable terms flung at him by people incensed that he used his minute and 10 seconds at Sunday night's Emmys to encourage speaking out against war and untruths and to lament the damage done by "ignorance in action."
"I really struggled with that speech," said Tommy, who went to the Emmys with his wife, Marcy, and brother-partner, Dick, to receive a commemorative award for the writing he did 40 years ago for "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour."
That short-lived show was "The Colbert Report" of its time, the Vietnam/civil-rights era of the late 1960s. The Smothers were funny but also pointedly political.
Tommy, 71, said he knew that in L.A. on Sunday night he couldn't offer the standard thanks for an Emmy acknowledging his writing for a TV show that was silenced by a network fearful it was too controversial.
He decided that in his Emmy speech he'd advocate speaking the truth and opposing war as the only path to peace, but avoid naming names or referring to specific issues or wars.
"I thought it was a philosophical speech," he said Monday. "I didn't mention politics at all."
Tommy said about half of the viewer comments he's seen are positive and thank him. As for the other half, some of the gentler ones suggest he pack up and leave the country he obviously hates.
"I love America," he said. "I just hate our government."
Even if half of the country today hates the veteran funnyman, musician, yo-yo master, satirist and rabblerouser, he said, "I'm happy with what I said because it was what I felt in my heart."
(You can view Tommy Smothers' acceptance speech, and Steve Martin's introduction, here on YouTube -- Eds.)
On the Emmy Awards, which I did not watch, Tommy Smothers received a commemorative writing award for "The Smothers Brother's Comedy Hour" on TV in the late 60s. He replied:
"It's hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. And there's nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action." He dedicated his award to "all people who feel compelled to speak out, and are not afraid t speak to power, and won't shut up, and refuse to be silenced." HEAR HEAR!!!!
This is so surreal. Not only that, but of the people quoted, the bit about what I said was the longest. holy shit.
I actually don't like that picture so much because it's just a collage of a bunch of pictures of different parts of the Quad during the rally. I'm in one of them, and if you remember where I was in the other one it shouldn't be too hard to find me. This whole thing has been so crazy, and now that i've read it, i'm not that afraid anymore.
The highlighted part is what I said, although oddly enough two people were quoted after me who spoke before me, and reading over what they said and thinking about it now after everything...i wasn't shaking and in tears this time. I was remembering that and remembering how I was, and I don't want to be like that anymore. Anyway, I don't know how many of you can read that, so here's what the highlighted part in that picture says:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The crowd listened as HSU freshman Jennifer Ruiz gave details of her encounter with her high school boyfriend, who she said was given six months probation after repeatedly raping her. Her main concern was the Counseling Center, [that's actually not true, but I can live with it] which she said turned her away when she sought help last September.
Ruiz said they turned her away for being 'too sick,' because they don't deal with long-term psychological problems. However, throughout the walkout, organizers announced that the Counseling Center was offering services for those who needed help.
'Why did it take for another person to get fucked up for the rest of their lives to realize that maybe they shouldn't be turning people away?' she asked the crowd in tears. [I actually wasn't crying, but i was pretty close.]
'You want to know how to make change? Start with legislation and bureaucracy like the one over there,' she said, pointing at the Health Center.
The Counseling Center wasn't able to comment by deadline."
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Luckily, it turns out that the Lumberjack does have a website, so here are the links to both that article and that section in gray that you see off to the right in that top picture incase you want to read that and the whole article. It won't let me just copy and past them. It's crazy, I remember how Willa saying that we should talk about our experiences filled me with such fear and I started crying, and then not even an hour later that's just what I did.
I really recomend that you read both. I don't know how many people actually read the Lumberjack, but I don't think that many I know do. Anyway, I have some things I need to accomplish today. Thanx for being there. <3
Write WS article analysis for Thursday- Work on English portfolio
Order more birth control(Before you say anything, it's for my period.)Call/set up appointment with Jennifer Sanford at Psyc. ServicesGo to NORML meeting Wednesday- Go to Psyc. appointmnet on Thursday the 13th @ 1:00pm
- Go to job interview Thursday the 13th @ 2:40pm
- Do interview with that guy on Thursday the 13th @ 3:30pm
- Go to Meeting in Multi-Cultural Center Thursday the 13th @ 5:00pm
- Go to Criminal Justice Workshop Friday the 14th @ 1:00pm
- Find book for History ASAP
- Meet Jennifer Sanford on Monday at 11:00am
- DO LISTENING LOGS!!! DO FRIDAY!!!
- Take midterm Friday morning @ 9:00am
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