 You're a research student, hard enough that you've had to narrow your grand idea down to a specific manageable research problem. Now you're in 3MT and you've got to get it down to a single page, impossible you say, and pitch it in public. Wasn't at Winston Churchill that great orator who said there's only two things harder than speaking in public, climbing a wall that's leaning towards you or kissing someone leaning away? What chance a mere mortal like you, well, better than you might think? How? Stop thinking 3MT thesis and start thinking 3MT theatre, a one-person show, a dramatic monologue. This opens up fertile connections via theories of narrative and drama with the rich traditions of theatrical script writing and presentation, and with the techniques that actors use to maximise impact and minimise terror. My research opens up those connections for you. Let's look at the script. Forget academic writing, tell a story. You already know how stories work, you've heard them all your life. Somebody's stable world gets disturbed. And they make plans to restore stability. These plans are blocked by obstacles which mount and compound until it seems like there's no way out, but through resilience and creativity and sacrifice, our hero prevails and stability is restored, often better than before. Stories play on our deep-seated fear of being unable to hold a semblance of order in an essentially indifferent chaotic universe. But your research, by telling the world a bit more about itself, can help buttress against that chaos. Write that story, share your passion to calm our fear. And the more you do passionately believe in the usefulness of your research, the less scary it'll be to pitch it in public. After all, if you have to leap into a room full of strangers and tell them there's a fire and they've got to get out, you're hardly likely to turn to jelly and forget what to say, because you know how important it is that they know. The greater fear overrides your lesser one, so let your research problem be the fire. And your findings, what will save us all from it. Tell your story like it's a matter of life and death. My research shows that three MT winners tend to do just this. Well, well-crafted, gripping stories with irresistible conviction. It also shows that the ability to do that is not innate but can be learned, borrowing from the catalogue of conscious crafts that actors use to maximise impact and minimise terror. You even have an advantage over actors. They portray other people, tell other people's stories. Your story is yours and your hero is you. But you can still borrow from their techniques to maximise your impact with the audience. And it works. Three MT contenders who attend my workshops and assiduously apply the techniques, return from their three MT adventure with the boon of transferable skills, newfound self-knowledge and a new equilibrium that helps buttress against the chaos in their lives just a bit longer.