分节阅读 Table of contents

• 1.Everyone is a performer on stage

  • Today, though many people rely on text and images for communication, there are still many occasions when you have to directly face dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of real people and speak. However, do you have a microphone phobia? Or are you afraid to speak on stage?
    
    Perhaps you have been low-key, not pushy. But the authors point out for just:  Everyone is a performer on stage, because every interaction with people is a show. You are actually constantly performing, no matter what kind of speaking you are giving—expressing views in meeting, reporting to the client, interviewing for a job, even dating with people, regardless of whether there is a microphone.
    
    Therefore, we must start with the performer’s mindset. This way, you’ll be prepared, psychologically and emotionally, to speak in ways that stir the heart and inspire action. In order to attain the performer’s mindset, your desire to perform needs to be stronger than your fear of criticism or failure, your voice must be powerful and in tune with your heart and beliefs, and you’ll need to know how to play the right role in every situation.
    
    Once you’ve adopted the performer’s mindset, you’ll see performance from a different perspective and you’ll be on your way to stealing the show during the most important high-stakes situations of your life. You will overcome stage fright and become comfortable in your own body, and then live in the moment during public presentations.

• 2.Step 1：To be yourself

  • One of the most important qualities of a good performer is his/her own unique characteristics. Too often, when people are given any opportunity to be in the spotlight, they get scared and lose their sense of being authentic and performing in the moment. Instead, they behave like what they think a person in that situation is supposed to be like. As a result, the audience believes that they’re imposters. How can they not mess it up?
    
    Moreover, most people want to show their professional side when they give talks, and thus they are ashamed to tell any part of their life story. Actually, by telling your own story, you can often increase your confidence and self-esteem and get rid of that feeling of apprehension and self-doubt.
    
    This strategy has worked for many of the author’s students, including Lori. Lori was a lady who did not possess a big charismatic performer’s personality at all. Rather, she was a quiet and reserved number cruncher.
    
    Lori was fearful of speaking in public and thus enrolled in the author’s class. During the seminar, Lori found it hard to hold center stage with confidence or project her voice more than a few feet. Her hands were shaking as she clutched her note cards. When the author snuck up on her and took the cards away, Lori cursed him under her breath.
    
    Without her cards to hide behind, Lori started to address her fears of public speaking and challenges with making herself heard, for what might have been the first time. She shared that she’d been hiding most of her life to others. The one time she tried to speak up as a child, her mother slapped her across the face and said, “No one wants to hear from you.” That one moment shut her up for over forty years.
    
    At last, in the seminar that included professional speakers, she was the only student who brought the room to tears with her speech. Lori overcame her fears by investing herself in a method that freed her from her past and allowed her to find her own voice in the present.
    
    You see, finding your voice isn’t necessarily a matter of adding things. It’s certainly not about becoming someone else. It’s about returning to who you were before you started believing other people’s stories about you. It’s you. It’s your core. In the right circumstances, when you’re open about your weaknesses, differences, or difficulties, people find you more approachable and they will connect at a deeper level with your message. Only if you are comfortable with yourself can you can become a powerful performer and speaker.

• 3.Step 2：To understand different roles

  • To become a performer, you also need to embrace the fact that you can be a chameleon who plays lots of different roles with different styles of behavior. It might seem like a contradiction—be yourself but also be a chameleon. F. Scott Fitzgerald saw “the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function” as the sign of a well-developed intelligence. So, please, for the time being, just hold this idea in your head: that you can play different roles and still be authentic.
    
    Many of the world’s greatest leaders, along with effective people from all walks of life, know how to play different yet still authentic roles that help them fit in with many diverse groups of people in scenarios of all kinds.
    
    For example, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, had already mastered a number of different roles as Steve Jobs’s Chief Operating Officer. When Cook became CEO of Apple, he had to learn new roles, particularly that of being the company’s public spokesperson and leader of its brand. These are roles Steve Jobs once played extremely well. On October 30, 2014, Cook did a brilliant take on a new role—a gesture that resonated worldwide.
    
    Cook did something quite rare for a CEO: he announced that he was gay and said it was “one of the greatest gifts God gave me.” He acknowledged that because so much of his life at Apple kept him in the spotlight, it was important for him to preserve a private sphere of his life. However, Cook saw that the prominence of his position, particularly as a white male CEO of a global technology brand, offered him the opportunity to serve as a role model that could inspire, comfort, and perhaps even protect others.
    
    And the responses from the LGBT community, investors, the business community, customers, vendors, fans, press, and even many political and religious leaders were overwhelmingly positive. And Cook wrote: “I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.”
    
    Cook was a perfect example of how a person can play different roles all in the right way. Playing the right role is about identifying how you fit into a given scenario—and stealing the show when you do. It’s about building on who you are, what you stand for, and what you already do. When you’re playing the right roles, you are persuasive in those roles because they’re authentic to you.
    
    This brings us to the next important question. What do you need to do to play the roles you aspire to? What kinds of performances will you be called upon to make in this role, and how will you prepare for those moments?

• 4.Step 3：What do you need to do to play the roles you aspire to?

  • The golden rule for learning how to play the right role is to emphasize some parts of your personality and de-emphasize other parts, depending on what the professional or personal circumstance calls for.
    
    Here’s an example from the author Michael Port’s previous career. When he left acting almost twenty years ago, he was searching for his next step. He was a fitness enthusiast. He heard there was an open position for a group fitness manager. He saw himself in this role. There was just one problem: He lacked any of the certifications or experience the position supposedly required.
    
    To impress the director of the human resource department, Michael used his acting training to imagine himself as the perfect group exercise manager with tons of fresh ideas. He chose parts of his backstory to support his theory as to why he would excel in this position. He rehearsed how he’d present his case, and he had a strong, clear motivation to share with them: he wanted to make group exercise the most profitable and fun division of the company. He also amped up his motivation to get that job by thinking:  If he didn’t get this, he would not be able to pay any of his bills, and no self-respecting woman would ever be willing to date him!
    
    As planned, Michael sat down with the director and asked her to look at what he had done in his acting career. He explained how he would use dramatic skills and theatrical know-how to make the classes more surprising and delightful.
    
    The director was impressed and Michael got the big job after his performance in the interview. Shortly thereafter, he was given the opportunity to add a second club to his roster along with a salary bump of $5,000.
    
    He thanked management for the offer but declined, explaining that the math didn’t make sense—it was double the work for a tiny increase in pay. This surprised them because people in the industry were usually motivated by status and were willing to sacrifice themselves to get it. But the author played the role of Deal-Maker: he wrote a simple script and made a counter offer—one with a huge risk for him.
    
    He asked his bosses: “Which three goals, if accomplished within the next three months, would make you the happiest?”  When they told him, he said, “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll take on this second club, and if I accomplish those goals within three months, you’ll double my salary. If I don’t accomplish the goals, I’ll take the five thousand.” First, there was silence in the room, followed by laughter and even a bit of snickering. But they agreed, clearly thinking he’d never succeed.
    
    You know it wouldn’t be told if the ending wasn’t a happy one. Michael ended up doubling his salary, and just three months after that, he was promoted to director of the division with yet another salary increase. That’s two promotions and almost three times his original salary within six months!
    
    So, here are the most important steps in that experience:
    ● He got clear on his main objective and his motivation to achieve it;
    ● He decided on the role he would play, then he thought and acted as if he already was the great manager he’d envisioned by using his imagination;
    ● Then he drew on his backstory to fill in the role and find his own voice, and he did research for the position;
    ● He took huge but achievable risks by making what seemed to be outsized promises while also getting things done under the radar.
    By following these steps, your performance and speaking should more or less succeed!

• 5.Step 4: How to crush your fears

  • After all is said and done, you may feel that you are not as skilled as the author; and, you still may feel scared when speaking in public and under stress.
    
    That’s very normal. According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death . . . does that sound about right?  In other words . . . if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.
    
    Our fears can be about looking stupid, making mistakes, failing, or even just showing others that we’re nervous; ultimately we’re afraid of being criticized or ridiculed by critics. But we don’t have to play that role ourselves and become our own worst critics. Let’s look at how the new pop star Bruno Mars dealt with this situation.
    
    The pop performer had been chosen to headline the halftime show at the 2014 Super Bowl. Prior to this most-watched event, a plethora of online media “discussions” emerged, bashing Mars as a baby-faced lightweight not ready for prime time. Never mind his immense popularity, or his recent Grammy win for best pop album.
    
    Critics pointed out that Mars wasn’t, after all, a universally celebrated music industry star on par with Beyoncé, Madonna, or McCartney. However, when asked about the controversy around his selection at a news conference, Bruno said, “No matter where I perform, it’s my job to uplift the people. So whether I’m performing at a graduation party, a wedding, a Bar Mitzvah, the Grammys, or the Super Bowl, I’m going to give it all I got. Whatever happens, happens.”
    
    That’s your job—to uplift the people. Let other people pontificate on whether what you’re doing is going to be a career breaker or career maker. The great performer knows that’s a false either/or. The performer knows how easy it is to criticize, so there is no point in sorting through it all. You’ll be well served if you simply do your best and care more about the quality of your work than pre-performance applause or the apoplectic antagonists.
    
    Therefore, whenever you feel anxious about an aspect of a performance, remember, always focus on the right thing—achieving your objective. Your job is simply to deliver on the promise built into the content of the speech you’ve created and rehearsed, the product launch you’ve shepherded through channels, or the annual strategic planning session you’ve designed and will facilitate. Always focus on the outcome you want to achieve in a meeting, interview, or negotiation rather than how you think you’re doing and what you think people will think of you. When you get focused enough, your desire crushes all your fears.

关于本书 About the book

In Steal the Show, New York Times best-selling author Michael Port draws on his experience as an actor and as a highly successful corporate speaker and trainer to teach readers how to make the most of every presentation and interaction. He demonstrates how the methods of successful actors can help you connect with, inspire, and persuade any audience. His key strategies for commanding an audience’s attention include developing a clear focus for every performance, making sure you engage with your listeners, and finding the best role for yourself in order to convey your message with maximum impact.

Michael Port is one of the most in-demand corporate speakers working today. His presentations are always powerful, engaging, and inspirational. And yes, audiences always give him a standing ovation.

本书金句 Key insights

● Everyone is a performer on stage, because every interaction with people is a show. You are actually constantly performing, no matter what kind of speaking you are giving—expressing views in meeting, reporting to the client, interviewing for a job, even dating with people, regardless of whether there is a microphone. And once you’ve adopted the performer’s mindset, you will overcome stage fright and become comfortable in your own body, and then live in the moment during public presentations.

● Many of the world’s greatest leaders, along with effective people from all walks of life, know how to play different yet still authentic roles that help them fit in with many diverse groups of people in scenarios of all kinds.

● According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death.