Winning Strategies for Power Presentations: Jerry Weissman Delivers Lessons from the World’s Best Presenters

48. Stage Fright

A Close Cousin of Writer’s Block

In Chapter 12, “Writer’s Block,” you read about how the hero of the Hollywood film Limitless cured his writer’s block with a drug that stimulated his creative capabilities. Concurrent with the film’s opening, a related article about creative paralysis appeared in the New Yorker magazine. Staff writer Dana Goodyear profiled Barry Michels, a real life therapist who treats blocked Hollywood screenwriters with his own unique methodology derived from the concepts of Jungian psychology.

Mr. Michels, whose starting rate is $365 an hour, also treats the stage fright that movie colony writers and other creative people face when they have to pitch their ideas—a subject near and dear to the solar plexus ...