In front of an audience

Being in front of an audience - whether it's doing a presentation, giving a paper at a seminar, pitching for business or facing a recruitment panel - is often when we need to draw on special reserves of energy.

NLP shows us that our bodies and minds do not distinguish between an imagined event and a real one. We can rehearse our successes in our minds. This positive rehearsal helps build neural links and pathways that reinforce our sense of well-being and competence. We can literally build our success in our heads, before we experience it.

Part of the positive rehearsal can go beyond imagining the paper well-given, the audience applauding, shaking hands over the successful sale and so on. We can also imagine tapping into the energies that flow through our centres of energy so that this too becomes part of what we experience in reality on the day.

We can command presence in front of others by doing the following simple energy exercise, rehearsing it before the event and then doing it on the important day:

• breathe deeply and slowly, using our lower ribs, so that we lower our centre of gravity
• imagine a beam of light, like a spotlight shining down on to the place where we will be in front of our audience: on the podium, in the boardroom, or the seat in front of a potential customer. This beam of light is our successful future
• step into the beam of light and feel bathed in its energy - feel the energy flowing through as well as around the body
• feel the energy move down through the ground going deep, deep into the earth. So that we feel totally solid and secure

Practising and using this exercise, we literally grow in stature and confidence. We stand more erect and at the same time are more relaxed. Our energy increases. The voice tends to deepen and grow stronger. And as a result we become more effective, more credible and more persuasive communicators to our audience.