interpretation.
If you live your life believing that yours is the right interpretation, then you are saying that your reality is correct and everybody else’s reality is wrong. This is not a very satisfying strategy to use to play the game of life because your beliefs (i.e., truths) will end up conflicting with other people’s beliefs, which creates a state of disharmony for you.
How does this understanding of the I, me, mind, etc. affect your ability to be a successful IT presenter? The firewall is created by the I, me, mind to protect itself from harm. It views the audience as a threat to its survival, which reduces the quality and effectiveness of your throughput.
It has often been said that most people’s number one fear is not death but public speaking. What you often find in presenters is a deep psychological concern for safety and survival. These fears arise out of putting the I, the me, the little story of me, the ego, the mind, my database, my point of view, etc. on display in front of other people. Being on display makes one vulnerable to attack, ridicule, embarrassment, and psychological annihilation.
When asked to describe these fears and barriers, one often hears words such as “I will be embarrassed,” “I will look stupid,” “I will do something weird, strange, or odd,” “I will be nervous, anxious, go crazy, or lose control,” “I will die (ego),” “I will be uncomfortable,” “I will do something unnatural, which will not be me,” “I will look unprofessional, inappropriate, and be rejected.”
All these thoughts evolve from an underlying unconscious fear that if the I lets go of control, if the I lets go of its firewall, the I will be annihilated. And, in one sense, this is true. The I will be annihilated. And yet, as stated in The Way of Transformation, “It is only by exposing oneself over and over again to annihilation that the indestructible Being within each person can arise.” This is a wonderful quote that was given to me by one of my teachers, Werner Erhard, and I pass it on to you.
When you have the courage to risk being open, authentic, and vulnerable in front of the audience, you are given the key that releases you from the prison of your mind. What is on the other side of those prison walls? What is on the other side of your firewall? There, you’ll find the freedom from suppression and the freedom to express yourself fully with power, commitment, and clarity.
In taking this risk you are shifting from a 56k connection to a full-duplex, present-time, broadband connection to the audience. This is the direction to go in order to expand your ability to be an effective presenter in front of an IT audience.
The fear has its origin in what you suspect the audience will think about you when you are talking in front of the group. When you present a piece of data from your internal database, you are presenting a little piece of what you consider yourself to be. You worry, “Does the audience like me or does the audience not like me?” You care about what the audience thinks, which blocks the broadband flow of energy. Every time you speak, you wait for an echo to come back from the audience saying, “We still love you.”
This psychological consternation lasts until you eventually say to yourself, “I don’t care anymore about what the audience thinks about me.” When you don’t care anymore, you are no longer inhibited by the audience. You are free and move, as George Bernard Shaw said, from being “a feverish, selfish little clog of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy” to the broadband world of present time, love, and compassion.
The conversation inside your head now begins to shift from you to the purpose of the conversation, which is to be of service and make a contribution to the audience. When this breakthrough occurs, the firewall disappears and you go from a 56k dial-up connection to a broadband connection to the space in the room.
Now, your attention is focused on manifesting your intention in the space of the room. You no longer have to maintain the defenses of the firewall. All your CPU power is on offense, which then maximizes your ability to conduct the conversation in the room effectively.
The vast majority of people, when faced with the prospect of annihilation, never risk entering the arena of public speaking. They spend their entire career just watching the show rather than being the show. IT professionals cannot retreat to their chairs and watch the show. Their responsibility requires them to stand up and deliver presentations to the customers.
When IT presenters stand in front of the audience, they usually hide behind their firewalls. They are in Data Land and, when they deliver their communication, they are both verbally and physically invisible. The audience then gets to watch an unconscious, uncommitted, invisible data dumper. Anyone wonder why IT presentations are so ineffective?
There is an old joke about IT presentations: “What is the difference between an IT presentation and a funeral?” The answer is: “You know why you’re at the funeral.”
The psychological blocks and barriers common to IT presenters are unconscious. Unconscious means you are not aware of them or of the fact that they stop the flow of your power and limit your full self-expression. Through training, coaching, and exercises, you can become conscious of the barriers within yourself and release the power of your speaking.
My coaching goal is to free IT presenters from these psychological constraints and help them find the courage to face their fears. The old saying, “Face your fear and the death of fear is certain” makes sense to me.
In my own life, the psychological block that imprisoned me was the fear of rejection. The little voice inside my head said, “Alan, if you really reached out, opened up, and expressed yourself, people would realize that you are just a shy little boy from Bergen County, New Jersey.” This thought of exposure kept me trapped in the prison of my mind.
Then one day I was faced with an uncomfortable choice. I could either stay in the hellhole of my suffering or jump into the Zone of Annihilation. I made the choice to jump. And, in that moment, I escaped from the prison of my mind and experienced freedom for the first time in my life. Let me share that story with you.
It was in 1974. I was in a hotel ballroom with about 200 people taking a training course on public speaking and self-expression in San Francisco. Part of the training included standing up and taking a microphone and sharing yourself with the other trainees.
After you shared, people would acknowledge your effort by clapping. A great share, one that “moved the room,” would receive a robust applause; a so-so share would receive polite applause. Thus, you got immediate feedback about the quality of your sharing. And, for someone who had never publicly opened up and was concerned about rejection, it couldn’t get any more terrifying than this.
The program had been ongoing for six weeks and I hadn’t yet shared. It seemed just about everybody except me had shared. I felt an internal pressure to stand up and share myself. I told myself the next time the trainer asked if anyone wanted to share I was going to raise my hand. I remember preparing what I would say and rehearsing it in my head because I certainly didn’t want to make a mistake and look like a fool. And then the moment arrived. It was around 10:30 in the morning at the Holiday Inn® on Fisherman’s Wharf.
Marcia, the trainer, asked if anybody would like to share. A number of people raised their hands. I didn’t. I sat in my chair and listened to the voices inside my head. One voice said, “Raise your hand,” and the other voice said, “You are not ready; you don’t want to embarrass yourself, especially in front of the women in the room.”
Back and forth the voices spoke, one saying “Do it now” and the other saying “Wait.” Finally, I thought, “Screw it, just do it,” and I raised my hand and took the biggest,
