My Leadership Solutions

lead·er·ship: not only for those with a fancy title. High doses can lead to success. Side effects include courage and confidence

Are You Holding Yourself Back From Being a Great Presenter?

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Imagine giving a great presentation that accomplishes your goal, keeps the audience’s attention, and causes them to take action.  You’re capable of giving this type of presentation, but may not know it yet.

You may be holding yourself back from giving the type of successful presentation that you’re capable of.  You may not have the time.  You may be afraid of the success you’ll achieve.  You may be too shy or too scared.  You may be afraid you won’t have any excuses if it goes wrong and you put in a lot of effort preparing.

The truth is you won’t know what you’re capable of if you don’t do the best you can.  And your best should be tailored to your level of skill.  It means putting in enough preparation time based on how comfortable or uncomfortable you currently feel with your public speaking skills.  It means researching your audience and understanding the needs of the participants.  It means knowing the purpose or goal of your presentation and knowing how you’re going achieve that goal.

Sound complicated?  Now you can see why being capable of giving a presentation isn’t the tough part.  Actually putting in the necessary work to do what you’re capable of is the tough part.

What are you holding back for?  There’s no better time than the present to do the best that you can on this presentation.  Waiting for the next presentation or the one after it to do your best puts you in a consistent holding pattern and being in a “holding back” pattern is only going to hamper your chances of success.

So stop holding back and start showing yourself what a great presenter you can be.

Public Speaking Takes Courage and Builds Courage

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Which comes first–the courage or the public speaking?  Do you first need the courage to speak in public?  Do you need to speak in public first to build courage?

Courage

There is no right answer.   It depends on your own individual situation, but finding your voice and doing what you’re afraid of doing can help you build courage.   As I’ve mentioned before, public speaking is the top fear in this country.  It’s not easy to get up in front of an audience, especially if you’re a beginner speaker.

However, once you muster up enough courage to get up there, you’ll gain more courage for the next time you do it.  It also helps you build confidence in other areas of your life.  I spoke to a woman who was a freshman in college and had to give a speech in one of her classes.  She was terrified, but after she did it, she said her confidence in her abilities rose.  It gave her the encouragement she needed to start selling her photography.  She had wanted to do it for a long time, but always backed out because she was afraid of failure.

Most of us do have the courage, but for many of us, it remains hidden.  If we don’t put ourselves in challenging situations that call for us to use it, then we assume we don’t have it.  It’s up to you to put yourself in the situations that will help you find and build your courage.

If you’re terrified of public speaking, join Toastmasters or offer to give the next presentation at work or take a presentation class at school.  If you’re past the beginner public-speaking stage and want to spice up your presentation, look for new ideas that you can use in your presentations.  Then find the courage to use those new ideas.

Building courage will help you be more successful in public-speaking and in life.  Henry Ford once said, “One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.”

ABC Model for Successful Presentations – Step 2 Brainstorm

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ABC Model for Successful Presentations – Step 2 Brainstorm

As I wrote in my previous article, I’m going to write a separate article for each step of the ABC Model for building your presentation skills. This article is on the second step, which is Brainstorm.  If you missed the article on the first step, Assess, you can view it here.

Figuring out how to get started on your presentation can be difficult.  It’ll save you a lot of time if you ask and answer three questions before writing the presentation.  Brainstorm ideas to answer the following questions.

What is the purpose of this presentation?

Set a goal for the presentation.  In other words, why do you want to achieve by giving the presentation?  What is the ideal outcome?  What would you like to happen as a result of the presentation?

If you don’t know the purpose of the presentation, the audience sure won’t either.  Don’t confuse personal goals with presentation goals.  The purpose of your presentation should not be to “give a good presentation” or “get through the presentation in one piece.”  You shouldn’t be giving a presentation just for the sake of giving a presentation.

The purpose needs to be simple and specific.  What do you want to tell your audience and what do you want them to do after the presentation?  For example:  You may want to inform the audience of the risks of not without a seat belt and persuade the audience members to wear a seat belt every time they get into a car.”  You’re informing them of the risks of not wearing a seat belt and then using that information to persuade them to take action by wearing a seat belt.

Who is the audience?

In order to catch your audience’s interest, you need to understand your audience and their needs.  People aren’t going to do something or buy something for your benefit.  They’re going to act if it benefits them.  Do as much research as you can on your audience.  Sometimes, there may not be an obvious shared characteristic among the people who will be in the audience and you may have to search a bit more to find what they have in common.  Finding that common thread will help you determine how to best deliver the message.

How am I going to package the presentation?

Brands rely on the aesthetics of their product and their product’s packaging to capture the consumer’s attention.  It helps to apply this concept of packaging to your presentation as well.

Packaging your presentation means coming up with a desirable way to present the message.  It doesn’t matter if your presentation is about polar bears, nuclear fission, or video games.  Make it interesting for your audience.  They’re sharing their time with you, so make the experience worthwhile for you and for them.

Next Step

Now that you are finished with the first step, Assess, and second step, Brainstorm, you can move on to the next step, Create.

Stay tuned for details in my next article!

 

 

ABC Model for Successful Presentations – Step 1 Assess

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ABC Model for Successful Presetations

As I wrote in my previous article, I’m going to write a separate article for each step of the ABC Model for building your presentation skills.  The first step in the model is “Assess.”  It refers to assessing your feelings about the presentation.

Many people jump write into writing the content and preparing what they’re going to say.  Then the night before or right before they have to speak or worse yet, when they’re in front of the audience, they experience a rush of the negative feelings and fears that they haven’t dealt with and they panic.

Before you jump into the presentation, you want to do an assessment of your feelings around giving the presentation including any fears, anxieties, negative thoughts, or excitement you are experiencing.  The reason that the first step is about assessing the feelings you have around giving presentations is because by doing so, you’ll have the maximum amount of time to deal with these feelings and any obstacles they may bring about.

It’s much better to acknowledge these feelings early on so that you don’t go into panic mode right before the presentation.  It’s normal to still feel nervous no matter how much you have prepared, but you’ll have strategies to deal with the nerves so that they don’t leave you paralyzed.

Examine fears and anxieties, negative thoughts and labels you’ve given yourself that relate to giving presentations or speaking in public.

Fears and Anxieties

  • Write down fears and anxieties you have about giving the presentation.
  • Break down the reasons that you’re feeling the fear and put together a plan to help you overcome it.
  • Visualize the presentation being very successful.
  • Turn your fear into energy.  Take that adrenaline that you’re experiencing from the fear and use it to energize your presentation.
  • Anticipate what may (realistically) go wrong so that you can better prepare for it.
  • Find ways to relax before the presentation.  Tactics such as deep breathing, exercise, or meditation may help.

Negative Thoughts

You may be experiencing negative thoughts that don’t have anything to do with fears or anxiety.  Maybe, your manager is making you do the presentation or your teacher assigned it for homework.  Perhaps you don’t care about the topic or feel pressed for time in preparing for it.  Now is the time to let go of these negative thoughts, because they will affect the way that you prepare and deliver the presentation.  Then, you’ll give a less than stellar presentation, which may hurt your reputation, your grade, or your view of public speaking.

  • First write down the negative thought(s).
  • Ask yourself “Why am I experiencing these thoughts?”  If there is a valid reason why you are experiencing the thought and there’s something you can do about it, write down the action you can take.  For example, if you don’t have enough information about the topic, the action you can take is to conduct research on (blank).
  • Write one to three benefits you’ll gain by giving the presentation.  It could be as simple as “I’ll improve my speaking abilities” or “I’ll get face time with the employees in XYZ department, which is the department I eventually want to work in.”  You can use those benefits as your “positive thoughts.”
  • Start focusing on the positive thought as you begin to prepare.  The negative thought may creep up and that’s okay.  When you see it coming, replace it with the positive thought.

Labeling

  • By labeling yourself as “shy” or a “bad public speaker” or telling yourself you’ll never be a great speaker, you’re holding yourself back.  Labeling yourself a “great speaker who doesn’t need practice” can also hurt you by holding you back from putting valuable time into preparing for the presentation.
  • In order to rid yourself of these labels, you first need to write them down.
  • Write down specific examples of why you’ve given yourself that label.  If you have no examples, then that should tell you that the label is false.  Cross it out.
  • If you do have examples, look at each example separately.  Ask yourself if the example is related to public speaking and if it is not related, cross it out.  If it is related, ask yourself what you are going to do differently this time so that this presentation is more successful.

Here’s an example:

Label:  Bad public speaker

Reason for giving myself that label:  I turned red and forgot my lines in the school play in the 6th grade.

Is it related to public speaking?  Yes, I was speaking in front of an audience.

What is different this time?  15 years have passed.  I wasn’t aware of my fears before going on stage during that time.  Now I’m dealing with it before hand and will have strategies for overcoming stage fright before my presentation. Also, I’m not memorizing lines.  I know and understand the topic I’ll be speaking about.

Next Step

Now that you are finished with the first step, Assess, you can move on to the next step, Brainstorm.  Stay tuned for details in my next article!