Training in acting can enhance your leadership presence through learning to embody gravitas! Acting teaches you how to become something new.  To “become” means to be comfortable with new qualities, behaviors and skills. I taught acting for many years to adults who were mostly professionals. Many of them came to acting classes because they thought […]

Story Telling is a powerful way to open up presentations, leadership messages and meetings of all kinds.  Telling the right story produces astonishing results for you as a speaker and leader. If you’re not sure what a story is, it’s just what happened. That means it involves human beings doing or experiencing something. In case you don’t […]

Breathing to manage public speaking fear really works. However, it only works if you practice it regularly and integrate conscious deep breathing into daily activities. It is often called mindful breathing. Every article you read on managing fear and anxiety for public speaking will suggest learning to breathe deeply and diaphragmatically. I concur that breathing is helpful, but […]

I made a decision this morning to listen only to people who speak with gravitas. The last couple days I have been watching the news on CBS This Morning.   Yesterday Samantha Powers sat with the CBS This Morning hosts, Charlie Rose, Nora O’Donnell and Gayle King.  Ms. Powers is the outgoing US Ambassador to […]

About Gravitas Gravitas is about using your personal power in service to others and giving up the pleasure of asserting your power with a sharp voice tone. J.S. contacted me and shared that he is strong technically, reports to the highest leaders in his company and gets great feedback that his expertise is valuable. He has […]

Executive presence is at play when a person walks into a board room, a staff meeting, or a negotiations session and the room goes quiet. This quiet reception is a sign of respect which is the demonstration of high regard for an individual due to his or her personal qualities and achievements. Executive presence earns […]

The great presentation guru Garr Reynolds wrote a blog post in which he shows a video of Frank Sinatra singing “You Make Me Feel So Young.” Garr quotes Sinatra saying, “When I sing, I believe. I’m honest. If you want to get an audience with you, there’s only one way. You have to reach out […]

Developing executive presence is much like being an actor working to develop a character. The process is basically the same. You must step into the skin of a leader and embody the physical, mental and emotional characteristics so that you behave as an executive. As Constantine Stanislavski, the father of modern acting technique often said, […]

By Sandra Zimmer How would you respond if you were accused of incompetence in a media interview? Could you stay calm and open? Could you handle it with grace and dignity? Currently, there is a big media bruhaha around General Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of Veteran Affairs. He has been accused of allowing veteran’s hospitals […]

We can alchemically transform performance anxiety into presence in our physical body.  Alchemy is a term for turning a less valuable substance into a more valuable one. The human body is a laboratory for transformation of consciousness. Performance anxiety is a distressful reaction to energy trying to flow through the body when we become the […]