Rodenburg - The second circle: how to use positive energy for success in every situation: this book will transform your life, minute to minute

Many people have supported me in writing this book, both professionally and personally.

Many thanks to Kate Adams for her faith in the book and to Bob Weil for his clear direction; to Joe Spieler and Arabella Stein for their constant energy; to my dear manager and friend Rick Scott, particularly for his patience; to Tyne Rafaeli for her diligence and fierce intelligence.

To a wonderful ensemble of friends and colleagues who have carried me on parts of the journey: Wendy Allnutt, Sue Barnet, Mary Carter, Martin Connor, Ian Cutts, Gil Dove, Anna Garduno, John Harle, Jenny Harris, Barry Ife, Wyn Jones, Brigid Larmour, Katie LeOrisa, Simon Mainwaring, Kelly McEvenue, Larry Moss, Lesley Murdin, Ruth Padel, Lisa Robertson, Max Rodenburg, Alaknanda Samarth, Mischa Scorer, Christina Shewell, Eliot Shrimpton.

To the great educators; my students at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

And lastly, to my dear Antonia Franceschi.

This book will transform your life. This book will invigorate every aspect of your life. It will awaken your full human potential. It will change how you engage with others, how you look, listen, think, feel, learn, and do business. It will make you safer, challenge your compassion, your boredom, your negativity. You come into the world with hope and alivenessborn with positive presence. You will learn to remember and channel this vital energy into every aspect of your life.

To live life to its full Second Circle potential, you really need to allow yourself to return to the positive presence you were born with. This presence will make you more successful, more joyful and loving. It will change how you engage with others; how you look, listen, think, feel, and learn.

Heres the problem with the word presence. Many people believe it is something you have or dont have. Its God-given, so that the charisma you see shimmering around a famous actor is not tangible and cannot be accessed. I dont agree: you might not have the makeup, clothes, and lighting effects that enhance the stars, but you can learn to find your own full charisma. All it is is energy. Present energyclear, whole, and attentive energy.

This book and my quest for positive energy started thirty years ago. During those years, I have had the privilege to work with some of the most successful and famous performers on the planet. Perhaps more intriguingly, I have also worked not only with corporate leaders and those who serve society as teachers, doctors, and lawyers but with those who have fallen foul of it: prisoners. Let me explain.

Even when I was young, I loved the works of William Shakespeare and I feel blessed that Ive been able to spend many years working with him. The more I worked with him the more I realized that I really loved his writing, not only because of the brilliance of his language or his profound understanding of human beings, but because he liked us. He really cared about people, knowing that we are more connected through our sameness than divided by our differences. More important, he asked us to behave better than we sometimes want to behave. Crucially, he revealed to us that we can only love unconditionally, find intimacy, be equal with each other, use power well, if we are present to each other and the world. Through trauma and loss he guides his characters onto a plane of positive presence.

I have traveled and worked all over the world. If people I meet on my travels hear that I work with Shakespeare, they will often quote one of his most famous lines: To be or not to be: that is the question.

In this book Im going to explore To be or not to be and prove that you have a choice, that you can live and be present positively in Second Circle with yourself and others. If you wish.

In 1977, I began teaching actors in a variety of colleges and theatre companies. In those early days I worked with some stars, but mainly with inexperienced young students. My job was to teach them voice, speech, and language skills. I found that getting them technically prepared was relatively straightforward, as they only had to learn and repeat certain exercises. But helping them to understand what they were saying and why they were saying it was harder, though with diligence it was obtainable.

They became audible, coherent, and interesting to listen to; yet that wasnt enough. I would sit and listen to maybe two hundred actors a week. I couldnt understand why certain actors did everything right yet didnt engage me or make me clear. Some were very impressive; they were clever and displayed intricate skills; but after watching them, I forgot their workit didnt last in my memory. Some were very beautiful, but not connected enough to be sexually attractive. What was missing?

I questioned my elders, the more experienced teachers, about this, and they would smile and say something like, Its talent, or presence. So-and-so just hasnt got it. A tough notion, this it. My colleagues seemed to be suggesting that if one hadnt already got it, getting it was beyond their power or mine to teach. The ones without it would presumably drop through some crack in the street and disappear forever. The flotsam and jetsam of lifethe never-have-beens.

Now, what you should know about me at the beginning of this book is that Im stubborn and have a heightened sense of fairness. I found the other teachers reactions acutely unfair and I wasnt going to accept the inequality of human presence. Whats more, once in a while, a student in one of my classes who initially didnt seem to have it would suddenly get it. And if I acknowledged this transformation, some would keep it. Other teachers would notice and this failing student would start succeeding. Was this a miracle? I thought not. Even then I knew it wasnt a gift I was giving but an energy we all have; I had somehow enabled a student to find their true energy and this true energy was their presence. I set about searching how to define this presence and then how to enable my students to work with it.