A study in the Journal of Sports Sciences established that pro-basketball players who had a rigid pre-shot routine were 17% more accurate foul shooters than those who did not.

The rigid pre-shot routine is believed to help transfer control of the activity away from the cerebral cortex (good for learning new things) to the cerebellum (good for performing complicated tasks under pressure.)

This shift is also documented in an article in Scientific American. However, there are two complicating factors: 1.) The cerebellum is not accessible through conscious thought, and 2.) If we over-monitor our own performance in real time, we run the risk of choking.

So how do you get to the zone of peak performance and overcome your stage fright?  Research suggests that giving yourself one-word instruction (e.g., “smooth,” or, “calm.”) is a good way to go.

“If you use one word, it prevents you from regressing into conscious control, but it’s still strong enough to activate the schematic cue to get that motor program running,” says researcher Daniel Gucciardi.

A good presenter has a routine for preparing early, rehearsing often, and giving herself effective instruction in order to transfer content from her cerebral cortex to her cerebellum.

My advice: Get a routine.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact. 

Robert Selander, the former CEO of MasterCard, had a thing for “presence.”

When asked what he looked for in those he hired, he said, “Leadership, results, and presence.”

About presence he said, “At varying levels of the company you deal with different stakeholders.  Having somebody spend time with a member of Congress is very different than having somebody go downstairs and see that they were appropriately replacing a torn carpet.

As I’ve gone through my career, I’ve been challenged to deal with different stakeholders.  Internally when I was younger and more junior, I probably did pretty well with peers.  But how do you credibly communicate with more senior people, who are not as concerned about details, but want a bigger picture?

So it’s a combination of how you convey things and what you convey to various stakeholders.  Presence is learning to deal with different audiences in a way that allows them to get what they need out of interactions and ensures that the well-being of the company is looked after.

I think you can be a good communicator and you still may not have presence.  There may be someone who is very articulate on a subject and they know levels of detail.  When you get with a particular audience it may not be appropriate to go into those levels of detail, or you may create doubt by even going into the subject matter.

Some people are not very good communicators, but boy, when you get them into their subject matter, they know exactly where and how far to go.

Others are brilliant communicators, but because of the connection between their thoughts and the synapses firing and the words coming out, there isn’t enough time and introspection.  Therefore, they brilliantly communicate something that they shouldn’t be talking about.

Presence is knowing what to communicate, and how.”

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

This from Body Odd:

Before now, those with performance jitters have had to contend with the nausea and the nerves on their own, or take beta blockers to battle the symptoms.  New research has come up with another way to fight stage fright:  biofeedback.

“Our research looks at both the psychological and physiological effect of stage fright,”  says Dr. Myron Thurber, a counselor, physical therapist and biofeedback expert from Spokane, Wash.  “It raises our conscious awareness of our heart rhythms by allowing us to see them on a screen.”

In the study, anxiety-ridden musicians were trained in the use of a small biofeedback machine to “train” their body’s emotional response to stress.  After being hooked to the device with an ear clip or finger monitor, the musicians could see their heart’s responses to both anxiety or stress (typified by a jerky, edgy pattern) as well as feelings of joy or appreciation (a smooth, coherent pattern).  After four sessions, the subjects were able to shift their emotional response – holding onto the feelings of joy even while performing – successfully keeping the stage fright out of the limelight.

“After we trained them, people reported on average about a 70 percent improvement in playing ability as well as the same decrease in their sense of stress or performance anxiety,” says Thurber.

In other words, no more flubbed notes, flushed faces or tossed cookies in the recital hall restroom.

Even better, Thurber says the biofeedback machine is both versatile – it can be used for other types of anxiety such as test taking or public speaking – and unobtrusive (about the size of an iPod).

“Some people would practice using it in the recital hall before a performance,” he says.  “People are used to seeing little handheld devices so we hardly notice them any more.”

Have you ever gotten nervous before performing or speaking in public?  What happened?

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.