"So how you feel about and treat others has more to do with you than with them, is that right?"

"Yeah, I think that’s right! I never thought about that before!"

"What if someone was trying really hard to get you to like them - like giving you a lot of compliments - would that make you like them?"

"Actually, I don’t like it when people butter up to me. I just feel manipulated by it."

"So things they do to try to control how you feel about them don’t necessarily work, is that right?"

"Right."

"So what makes you think that doing things right will have control over others liking you? Don’t you think everyone is like you - that they decide for themselves to be accepting or rejecting and that it’s often based on how they’re feeling rather than on anything to do with you?"

"Oh my God! So why am I trying so hard to do everything right? It’s a waste of time and energy, isn’t it?"

"Yes, it is. It’s not that we can’t influence people, but ultimately we have no control over them. Each of us decides, in any given moment, to be loving or unloving, accepting or rejecting, open or closed. No one decides for us who we are going to be, and we don’t decide that for others. When you really accept that, you will stop trying so hard and just be yourself. And if you’re not trying to do everything "right" you might be more accepting of yourself as well."

"So what does all this have to do with my anger and clutter?"

"How it relates to that is that you are trying to change yourself in order to do things right, and one way you think you can change yourself is to judge yourself. You are trying to control yourself just as you try to control others. And what happens when you judge yourself? How do you feel?"

"Awful. I feel just awful, with a big black hole inside."

"And is judging yourself working to get you to stop being angry and to clean up clutter?"

"It’s not working at all."

"Right. When you judge yourself, you create an inner resistance. The way through this resistance is to move out of judgment and into compassion for yourself. Compassion open door to awareness and choice. It gives you safe inner arena to see what you are doing - such as getting angry or creating clutter - and to decide what you really want to do differently. Compassion for yourself is essential to moving out of a stuck place. What you judge won’t budge!

4. Do not bring food, drink, smoking materials or drugs, gum, candy, other work, books, cell phones, radios or palmtops, small children, drunk in-laws, or live animals into presentation room with you, or anything that lights up, dings, whistles, rings, spins, smells, emits something, is a fire hazard, or needs to be fed.

You are there to listen to speaker.

5. Be an attentive listener.

6. Do not talk or whisper during presentation.

But stay with speaker. If something’s funny, laugh. If speaker asks for questions, have one. If something great happens, applaud. If you enjoyed presentation, applaud at end.

7. Dress appropriately and respectfully.

All professional audiences know to dress comfortably (you don’t want your belt jackknifing into your waist whole time), and to wear layers so you don’t get too hot or too cold, and ‘act out’ because you’re miserable. Few rooms are ventilated to any two people’s satisfaction.

“Appropriately”? When in doubt, wear nice slacks and a shirt, skirt or dress. Avoid jeans, a tux, don’t wear a cocktail dress, and save your cleavage, hairy chest and other sexual displays for another scenario.

8. Do not do anything that distracts either speaker or audience.

This would include but is not limited to: talking, whispering, wearing strong cologne, coughing, joking, shuffling your feet, rustling papers, tapping your pencil, humming, heckling, allowing your cell phone to ring (or, God forbid, talking on it), The presentation is not about YOU. If you have an uncontrollable need to attract attention to yourself, please get some coaching on Emotional Intelligence and give us all a break.

9. Keep your hands and feet to yourself.

And just like in grade school, if you tend to ‘get in trouble’ when you’re with Dougie, don’t sit beside Dougie.

10. Come prepared to make your contribution as "the audience."

It's an active role, not passive. It means arriving alert (skip double cheeseburger for lunch); having a positive attitude’ and doing what you can to make this possible for yourself, speaker, and others in audience.

©Susan Dunn, MA, Clinical Psychology, http://www.susandunn.cc . Author of “Presenting with Emotional Intelligence,” and “Nonverbal Communication,” to help you become a pro speaker – http://www.webstrategies.cc/ebooklibrary.html . Individual coaching, distance learning, the innovative EQ Learning Lab™, and the EQ ebook Library. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc for FREE eZine.