Grace Under Pressure

Grace Under Pressure:  A Masterclass in Public Speaking, by Lisa Wentz, LID Publishing 2019 

Cold hands, jittery movement, losing your place in the speech,

Is it ever possible to take the fear out of public speaking?  This book provides detailed approaches and training techniques for this fearsome task.  "These are not skills we are taught at school or at home.  Speaking in front of a live audience is filled with pressure, so the natural physiological response is to become nervous.  However, with training you can polish your speaking skills," says author Lisa Wentz.

Think of this as your prep coach, an invisible resource by your side, helping you get ready for the big speech and all the others that will follow.  Grace Under Pressure more than adequately addresses these challenges:

    *  dealing with anxiety

    *  discovering physical unconscious habits

    *  posture and coordination

    *  breathing

    *  articulation

    *  purpose

    *  structure and storytelling

    *  pacing

    *  body language

    *  presence

Best of all, this book offers exercises to back up new lessons and on-going improvement.  Of the 35 exercises, Exercise 6, Say It Out Loud, is a practice in acknowledging and replacing self-defeating thought that hold us back.  Exercise 9 deals with holding an unhealthy posture, which signals lack of confidence, doubt, etc.  Posture, says Wentz, affects message, but it is, as the author shows us in Exercise 12, key to reading others' body language.

Mill Girl Verdict: useful volume filled with insight and applicable improvement exercises.  Applies to public speaking as well as interview dialogue and on-going relationship building. .

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers, pemoody@aol.com, patriciaemoody@gmail.com, tricia@patriciaemoody.com,