The Broadband Connection. Alan Carroll
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begins to shift from you to the purpose of the conversation, which is to be of service and make a contribution to the audience. When this breakthrough occurs, the firewall disappears and you go from a 56k dial-up connection to a broadband connection to the space in the room.
Now, your attention is focused on manifesting your intention in the space of the room. You no longer have to maintain the defenses of the firewall. All your CPU power is on offense, which then maximizes your ability to conduct the conversation in the room effectively.
The vast majority of people, when faced with the prospect of annihilation, never risk entering the arena of public speaking. They spend their entire career just watching the show rather than being the show. IT professionals cannot retreat to their chairs and watch the show. Their responsibility requires them to stand up and deliver presentations to the customers.
When IT presenters stand in front of the audience, they usually hide behind their firewalls. They are in Data Land and, when they deliver their communication, they are both verbally and physically invisible. The audience then gets to watch an unconscious, uncommitted, invisible data dumper. Anyone wonder why IT presentations are so ineffective?
There is an old joke about IT presentations: “What is the difference between an IT presentation and a funeral?” The answer is: “You know why you’re at the funeral.”
The psychological blocks and barriers common to IT presenters are unconscious. Unconscious means you are not aware of them or of the fact that they stop the flow of your power and limit your full self-expression. Through training, coaching, and exercises, you can become conscious of the barriers within yourself and release the power of your speaking.
My coaching goal is to free IT presenters from these psychological constraints and help them find the courage to face their fears. The old saying, “Face your fear and the death of fear is certain” makes sense to me.
In my own life, the psychological block that imprisoned me was the fear of rejection. The little voice inside my head said, “Alan, if you really reached out, opened up, and expressed yourself, people would realize that you are just a shy little boy from Bergen County, New Jersey.” This thought of exposure kept me trapped in the prison of my mind.
Then one day I was faced with an uncomfortable choice. I could either stay in the hellhole of my suffering or jump into the Zone of Annihilation. I made the choice to jump. And, in that moment, I escaped from the prison of my mind and experienced freedom for the first time in my life. Let me share that story with you.
It was in 1974. I was in a hotel ballroom with about 200 people taking a training course on public speaking and self-expression in San Francisco. Part of the training included standing up and taking a microphone and sharing yourself with the other trainees.
After you shared, people would acknowledge your effort by clapping. A great share, one that “moved the room,” would receive a robust applause; a so-so share would receive polite applause. Thus, you got immediate feedback about the quality of your sharing. And, for someone who had never publicly opened up and was concerned about rejection, it couldn’t get any more terrifying than this.
The program had been ongoing for six weeks and I hadn’t yet shared. It seemed just about everybody except me had shared. I felt an internal pressure to stand up and share myself. I told myself the next time the trainer asked if anyone wanted to share I was going to raise my hand. I remember preparing what I would say and rehearsing it in my head because I certainly didn’t want to make a mistake and look like a fool. And then the moment arrived. It was around 10:30 in the morning at the Holiday Inn® on Fisherman’s Wharf.
Marcia, the trainer, asked if anybody would like to share. A number of people raised their hands. I didn’t. I sat in my chair and listened to the voices inside my head. One voice said, “Raise your hand,” and the other voice said, “You are not ready; you don’t want to embarrass yourself, especially in front of the women in the room.”
Back and forth the voices spoke, one saying “Do it now” and the other saying “Wait.” Finally, I thought, “Screw it, just do it,” and I raised my hand and took the biggest, scariest leap of faith in my life. I gave up control and the constant attempt to look good.
I knew being suppressed and stewing in my mental cauldron of thoughts was not working. So, leaping into the unknown seemed like the only option to take. I raised my hand and the voices inside my head stopped.
As I raised my hand, Marcia saw me and immediately called my name. In the following two minutes, my experience of living life was forever altered. The microphone was passed to me. I leaped out of my chair and for fifteen seconds in a loud and fast voice I blurted out: “Good morning. My name is Alan Carroll and I have voices inside my head. One voice says to do this and the other voice says don’t do this. All I want you to know is it is Saturday morning and I am here. Thank you.”
So much for preparation, wanting to move the room and impress the women. The applause was polite. But what was transforming for me was that I experienced something I had never experienced before: I tasted the space of freedom from the suppressive inner voice of my mind. I had let go of wanting to look good and given up the need to be in control. I had risked annihilation. I had risked looking like a fool. I had risked not looking cool and not having my act together. And, in return for this risk, I was given a profound gift, an awareness of my true self, and the experience of my Being, which is beyond the ego. I woke up from a mental dream and became present to the space.
The trainer drew the attention of everyone, then pointed to me and said, “That is what it looks like when you break through.”
It was like being in an egg. You don’t come out of the egg as an eagle with a twelve-foot wingspan. You come out of the egg a tiny eaglet, very vulnerable and easily injured. By having the courage to give up wanting to look good, I had unknowingly climbed out of the hellhole of my unconscious mind and moved into a more open, lighter, and conscious space. I was no longer concerned about what the audience thought of me. I was willing just to be myself. It was wonderful and continues to this day to be wonderful, just being myself in front of the audience. The unconscious firewalls I had in place to protect myself dissolved and I escaped from a mental prison I hadn’t even known I was in.
To be an effective presenter, you must discover the psychological barriers and fears blocking your full self-expression. Find these blocks that stand in the way and, rather than move away from them, move toward them. There is an old Zen saying: “That which stands in the way is the way.” For example, if you are afraid of being silly, then do something silly. If you are afraid of looking like a fool, do something you think would be regarded as foolish. Silly and foolish is what you erroneously think the audience will think about you when you act a certain way. Therefore, you don’t act out of fear of how you think the audience will respond. You are being controlled by what you think the audience will think about you. You are not free just to be yourself.
Being controlled by how you think the audience will respond makes you a puppet or a doormat. You are being pulled around by the strings and stepped on by the feet of the audience. In chapter four, which is titled “Own the Room,” we will address this issue and begin to switch from being dominated to doing the domination. You will learn that by becoming more assertive, the audience, rather than being upset, becomes more respectful and interested in the conversation.
If you have the opportunity to watch yourself on videotape being silly and foolish, you will see it doesn’t look nearly as bad as you thought. In fact, it looks like a self-assured human being with power, confidence, and clarity. You’ll discover that you were basing your behavior on a mind-created delusion.
Now, let us explore the steps necessary to dismantle the firewalls and the benefits that you will accrue. To maximize the data throughput and increase your effectiveness, you need to create a presentation strategy that gives you access past the firewalls and into the private network of your audience.
The firewall is a psychological entity whose design function is survival. It is put in place by the mind to protect itself from harm. The firewall is analogous to a wall built of bricks.