Follow Mark’s Tyrrell’s journey from a presentation panic attack to confidently speaking to an audience of 500…
I had been worried about the upcoming presentation, but nothing had prepared me for this. Suddenly my audience was a wall of critical silence, intent on exposing me. Logically I knew that was nonsense but my emotional mind had stopped listening.
My name is Mark Tyrrell, I’m the co-founder of Hypnosis Downloads and this public speaking nightmare I’m about to reveal is a true story about one of our very first hypnosis workshops.
When panic swamps thought
So now it was time to start my speech. But the level of panic I was feeling not only made speaking impossible, the only option I felt was open to me was running away. I was experiencing an ‘emotional hijacking’, which as someone experienced in psychology I knew fine well, but that made not a jot of difference.
So my urge to leave was on the same level as awaking to find your bed on fire, but there were thirty people waiting for me to educate and entertain them. For two whole days! What was I to do?
I’d done some public speaking before, given a few small workshops, so why now was I swamped with out-of-the-blue, gut-wrenching fear? If I was honest with myself I’d never been entirely comfortable standing up and speaking to more than, well, one person, but sheer panic was new to me.
I have never felt so much like fleeing from anywhere. It took all my willpower to stay in the room, and steadily, bit by bit, my anxiety levels lessened to the point where I became a thinking, communicating human again. But what had happened? And even more worryingly, what if it happened again?
How I made sure I never again got presentation panic
I knew that if I was to carve out a career as a trainer, I had to change myself. So I set out to master both public speaking fear and presentation technique. I didn’t just want to be confident, I wanted to be inspiring. I studied presentation expertise by watching the best over and over until the patterns of their success sank deep into my mind.
I used every hypnotic technique in the book to detraumatize the experience of panicking in front of an audience, and to create a new roadmap for being relaxed, spontaneous and humorous when presenting. I rehearsed presentations hypnotically, ensuring I both knew my material inside out, and prepared myself emotionally.
And although before the next workshop I presented, I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t panic again, I felt that something had changed. And indeed, when I stood up on that first day I had the mild performance-enhancing nerves that even seasoned presenters can feel. (Without those I can come across a bit bored 
Since that horrendous day I’ve given presentations to tens of thousands, at hundreds of events; once to 500 people for 8 hours straight. And enjoyed it. In fact, I would go so far as to say that these days I get the biggest buzz possible from public speaking – I love it. There have been times when I’ve forgotten my notes, when the powerpoint presentation didn’t work, when unsolvable technical hitches occurred and I still presented confidently. Heck I’ve even temporarily forgotten what I was going to say and still relaxed and given an overall great speech.
How a glass of water showed me how calm I’d become
I remember once when I invited audience questions a man put up his hand and asked: “Tell me, because I’m amazed, how can you lift a glass of water to your mouth in front of 400 people without your hand shaking?” That wasn’t really the sort of question I had in mind but it did make me realize just how far I’d come.
Now admitting in public that I, as a hypnotherapist, had a panic attack while presenting is not my idea of making myself look good, but I’m telling you this because it’s important you know you can overcome fear of public speaking, no matter how severe it is.
The blueprint of how I achieved this is written into the pages of this 10-step course. Everything I learned during that process, and a lot I’ve learned since during thousands of hours of presentations, are included. The hypnotic experiences I used for myself are contained within the course’s hypnosis downloads.
I want you to believe that we can all learn to master fears and present more creatively to amuse, inspire, even captivate any audience. At one time I couldn’t even imagine presenting with confidence; now I can’t imagine presenting without feeling supremely self assured. You can too.
The 10 Steps
1) Public Speaking Confidence – respond to presentations with confidence, energy and enthusiasm instead of anxiety and nerves
2) Presentation Anxiety (Long Term) – reduce anxiety about presenting or speaking in public way before the event is due.
3) Overcome Self Consciousness – train your brain to keep your focus off yourself in social situations so you can relax and enjoy it.
4) 7:11 Breathing – learn a simple yet powerful breathing technique you can use anywhere, to quickly bring down anxiety levels.
5) Control Your Emotions – learn to distinguish between real and perceived threats and calm your ‘primitive’ emotional brain
6) Be Funny – relax deeply and let your inner comedian loose.
7) Speaking Clearly – learn to take full control of your powers of verbal communication
8) Questions from Hell in Presentations – hypnotically rehearse skillfully dealing with difficult questions.
9) Speak Without Notes – master the art of remembering what you want to say to your audience.
10) Powerful Public Speaking – prime your brain to get into presentation ‘flow’ quickly, so that each presentation is a improvement on its predecessor.
How to monitor your improvements – the Progress Checker
Each Step of the course includes a Progress Checker sheet, with a checklist that lets you assess how far you’ve come on that step. This is important for your self confidence, and for an effective learning experience. And as you gain more experience presenting, you may find that repeating the course offers another layer of insight and learning, pushing your skills further and higher.
When you purchase this course, you will get instant access to the workbook and the 10 hypnosis audio downloads, so you can begin immediately. Go here to purchase: 10 Steps to Powerful Public Speaking
Begin your journey to powerful presentations today – you can be a charismatic, memorable, confident presenter sooner than you think. Good luck!
If you’d like to get an idea of what’s in the course first, here’s a free eBook containing extracts from the program workbook.
