Why Presenting to Your Best Friend Works in Your Business

I’ve been getting emails about my previous video blog about imagining that you are presenting to your best friend asking me can it be that simple? how does it work? is it as easy as that? …… well……
Einstein said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge” and it’s our imagination that gets us to feel nervous, anxious and fearful in the first place. In fact I’ve heard anxiety desribed as “being worried about what might not happen” and that is so true when presenting  in a formal business presentation, or in a 1-2-1 business meeting with your boss or at a business networking event. Whatever the situation your imagination will determine your results.
People generally are not fearful of speaking, because we do it all the time ( some do it even when they’re asleep!).
It’s not a fear of speaking – it’s nerves about looking foolish, or sounding stupid, or feeling embarrassed ( or lots of other things) and that leads to anxiety and tension because we imagine those things happening. And because our behaviours depend upon our state  when we are anxious it’s reflected in what we do. We fidget,we blush,we go blank, we tremble…… and give a less than good presentation beacuse we get the results we expect to get! We’re in a negative loop of  anxiety producing the nervous state which produces the results we don’t want.

There are many strategies and techniques that I teach my clients that will change this permanently  and they take a bit of time to learn.

A really quick and easy way to change this is to change your internal state.

And that’s where your best friend comes in….

When we are with our best friends we tend to be confident, relaxed, have fun, feel at ease and this is reflected in how we behave. So when you are imagining that you are speaking to your best friend you automatically become calmer and more relaxed. Your voice loosens up, your heart rate goes down, tension disappears and you are much more confident and this means that you communicate much more fluently and are able to present yourself and your business much better. ( It’s a variation of an NLP  technique called behaving “as if”).

It’s about using your imagination in a way that will give you the positive outcome you want to get.

So yes, it is as easy as thinking about your best friend!

until next time,

with best wishes for your success,

Cath