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Elizabeth Liebow, VP of Clinical Business Development
at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
©2009, RiverWays Enterprises
All rights reserve
As the Vice President of Clinical Business Development at Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute, Elizabeth Liebow has frequent meetings with 10 to 12
colleagues, sometimes speaks with groups twice that size, and very occasionally
addresses an audience as large as 200.
A dozen years ago, any of those situations would set off extreme anxiety and nervousness, even when Elizabeth was more than adequately prepared. "I would get up in front of a group and my mind would go blank," she recalls. Elizabeth's fear of public speaking was so great that when her mother died in 1994, she wasn't able to speak at the funeral.
Ten years ago, Elizabeth began working with RiverWays, attending drop-in classes and one-day programs and eventually working one-on-one with Carla to fine-tune presentations.
"I had never met someone with Carla's mix of being very business-oriented and understanding the hard and fast business world, in combination with a natural calm, accepting approach focused on what each person does well and helping them to bring that out," Elizabeth says.
Carla's use of the five elements—air, earth, space, water, and fire—to symbolize the elements of public speaking has been especially powerful for Elizabeth. She often writes those five words down on paper before beginning a presentation.
"It's easy to remember and it taps into the key things very quickly—remembering to breathe and to feel your feet on the floor, remembering the connection between you and the audience, your passion for what you're speaking about, and the fluidity of being able to go in different directions and not having to stick to a rigid plan," Elizabeth says.
When Elizabeth's father died recently, she was able to speak at his funeral, in front of some 300 people. "Previously I would have been so emotional and anxious about speaking in front of all these people who had known me my whole life," she recalls. "But I knew what I wanted to say about my dad and it came very easily. I left feeling so grateful to Carla. She has given me a sense of confidence in myself, in my contribution and my skills, that I knew conceptually was there but wasn't able to tap into."
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