Present Like Nobody’s Watching

Imagine your favorite Ted Talk. What emotions does it evoke that makes you love it? Think about the speaker’s message and what it meant to you to receive that information. We all have something to share described best by Maya Angelou, “When you get, give. When you learn, teach.” But how do you master the art of giving, teaching, or sharing in a public forum?  According to Psychology Today, public speaking is at the top of the list of things that people fear more than death.  Absent years of cognitive therapy, here are some practical tips to up your game as a presenter.

1. Watch others present as often as possible and keep a list of qualities you can emulate.
2. Monitor tone, pace, volume, content, energy level and eye contact to get started.
3. Record your practice sessions and use a scoring system to track progress to improve your impact.
4. Lose the script by replacing it with keywords that prompt you to speak from the heart.
5. Think improv and incorporate the audience in your presentation.
6. Use the element of surprise by staging the information in a suspenseful way and incorporating stories to illustrate your point.

Learn from the Best

With the search bar at your fingertips, let the world be your classroom to establish best practices for your speaking endeavors. The more you customize the technique to match your personality, the more authentic and effective you can be as an influencer. Instead of relying on a slide deck, create and practice your address without a visual aid. Once you have established a powerful physical presence, then go back and add images that match the direction and flow of what you are trying to express.  Avoid putting too much written content up on the screen because no one wants to watch a speaker read bullets from the slide.

Paying it forward by sharing our expertise and talent with the world is a driving force for Xavier Creative House. If even one person’s life is changed for the better by what is shared, then it is worth every effort is takes to master public speaking. Please reach out when you need some creative collaboration to make your message stand out.

References: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0pxo-dS9Hc

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-real-story-risk/201211/the-thing-we-fear-more-death