The company behind the Spotlight Planner, PerformZen, we help performers from all walks of life (from sales people in enterprise sales nervous about their next call to TV stars seeking alternatives to prescription drugs for their performance anxiety) to overcome their fears and anxieties so that they can get on stage or in front of the camera and knock their performance out of the park. We do this day in, day out.
In the process we have spoken to thousands of customers who share their worst-case scenario fears about an upcoming performance and want solutions. They ask “what am I missing?”, “what one thing trips up most performers when they get on stage that they could have solved for beforehand?” and, the most common question: “HOW DO I PREPARE FOR THIS PERFORMANCE?”
Jane Nguyen, founder of PerformZen & co-author of the Spotlight Planner, works with these people to help them create customized structured plans to make sure they cover every detail of preparation necessary to make their final performance, presentation or show be as stress-free as possible.
Jane excels at this because this is exactly what she did as an orchestra violinist during her long career: planning every detail she could before every performance in order to help with her debilitating performance anxiety issues that were threatening to end her career.
By planning out and covering every detail of her performance before getting on stage, from working with stage engineers to determine lighting positions & angles where she would be seated, to testing different clothing materials so that she was comfortable and stage appropriate; Jane broke down every detail of her performances into checklists, prep sheets and “don’t forget about this key detail…” indicators.
The result? Her mind was quiet whenever she stepped on the stage. Everything was taken care of. Now all that was left to do was the easy part. The part she actually loved and cherished: performing.
Fast forward several years, and we have compiled all of this collected knowledge about the art of presenting, and compiled it into the best preparation tool available to a performer attempting to get ready to get in the spotlight for a speech/keynote, podcast, in-person meeting, webinar, radio show or livestream appearance: The Spotlight Planner.