University of Houston professor,  Dr. Brene Brown debutes The Gifts of Imperfection: Living with Courage, Compassion & Connection on Houstons PBS TV station Channel 8 Monday night November 29th at 7 and 8:30 PM. I hope that Dr. Brown will do for authenticity what Dr. John Bradshaw  did for family systems theory when he aired his PBS programs.  [...]

Many thanks to Kathy Reiffenstein who writes the popular Professionally Speaking Blog on Creating Confident, Persuasive Speakers!   Kathy wrote a superb review of my book, It’s Your Time to Shine: How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking, Develop Authentic Presence and Speak from Your Heart.   For many valuable ideas on public speaking, visit [...]

  Beverly Dracos, a writer for business communications and owner of Genuine Communications.com, astonished me with her understanding of the use of words “authenticity” and being “genuine.”  Bev loves language and has made a serious study of the meaning of various words that relate to genuineness. I have always used authentic and genuine interchangeably, but [...]

I just read a great series of articles by Andrew Dlugan of Six Minutes Blog fame.  Andrew has reminded us that Aristotle wrote the definitive work on what it takes to be persuasive over 2300 years ago. He defines the three aspects of persuasion, Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Then he writes an article about each [...]

Presence is also an external quality that others sense and to which they respond.  Other people perceive your presence as a magnetic force and they are drawn to you, because presence is actually a radiation of psycho-physical energy emitted from your body.  It is your life force emanating from your body, and it occurs when [...]

  The opposite of stage fright is presence, the powerful state of being integrated.  When you are integrated, all of your human energies, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, are working together, with no part of you split off or dis-integrated.  You are connected to your whole Self*, and able to express yourself fully.  Athletes know [...]

  Seth Godin, author of Tribes, writes a blog on leadership at sethsblog.com.  He quotes his book, “Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.” He continues with:  “It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers. It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail. It’s [...]

  “Jump right into the middle” and “open the shoot and let the bucking bronco out of the pin” are my mottos for opening talks, speeches and communications to groups.  I don’t like to hear speakers mumble phrases like “I am so honored to be here” or “Thanks for inviting me.”  No one is listening [...]

  My Zimmer Method approach to helping people to transform stage fright and fear of public speaking has been evolving since 1984.  It began by asking people to stand quietly in front of my acting classes to see if they could just be there at the center of attention.  Most people had great difficulty simply [...]

  Over several years, I developed a pattern for the process that guides people safely and slowly into healing stage fright so they feel free to share their thoughts and feelings in all kinds of situations.  Even more remarkably, this process awakens in people a powerful and authentic presence that radiates from them.  However, this [...]