Presenting Magically: Transforming Your Stage Presence With NLP

Tad James and David Shephard

Hardback: 244 pages

4.5/5

With this book James and Shephard have produced a tidy volume packed with the kind of insight that only experience can bring. Although already familiar with many of the concepts, there was plenty of fresh information and perspective to make the book well worthwhile - and I do believe my presenting has improved as a result of reading and applying the material.

The book covers:

Frame setting
Relevant NLP basics
State management
Presenting to the unconscious mind
Giving feedback effectively
Rapport
Tapping into your natural assets
Using 'energy' effectively
Using language across rep systems
Using space and spatial anchoring
Non-verbal communication and Satir categories
The 4MAT system
Embedded metaphors (nested loops)

For me, the ideas around 'energy' and the 4MAT system were the things that I taken away and added to my game, though it was also good to revisit many of the ideas covered on my NLP trainer training.

On another level, I found this book to be excellently written. I suspect that it has been adapted from transcripts of live trainings (somewhat of an NLP tradition). If so, it has been edited excellently to suit the written word. The sections are well ordered and the writing style is simple and straight to the point. The word 'fresh' kept coming to mind as I was reading it.

While I enjoyed this book, learned a lot and would recommend it without qualification it stopped short of totally blowing me away, so for that reason I give it 4.5 out of 5.