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Public speaking is one of the most common fears that people face in the corporate or academic sphere.
However, presenting your ideas effectively is key to business. You don’t have to think of “presenting” as something that only happens on a stage in front of an audience. Any time you are sharing ideas verbally you are presenting.
In this episode, we will give you some actionable tips that will help you to present ideas more effectively.
In the last episode, we talked about the importance of engaging in ongoing dialogue and interaction with your audience, with the people you are communicating with. In order to leverage nonverbal feedback to improve your communication. In this episode, we’re going to focus on the particular challenges that you have when it’s your turn to present your turn, to communicate to the information.
Michel Shah:
Welcome to upSkill Talks brought to you by McGraw Hill. I’m your host, Michel Shah lead UpSkiller at UpSkill Community. UpSkill Talks is a podcast for leaders, leaders who are actively seeking innovative and creative ways to interact lead themselves and others. In every episode, through real life stories and enlightening conversations, we will explore the challenge. And opportunities real leaders face in today’s everchanging workplace. We will present you with real strategies for you to leverage your soft skills and produce transformative results. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let us begin.
Michel Shah:
We’re going to join a conversation happening live inside the UpSkill Community, facilitated by Colleen Stewart, the author of “The Story Compass.” She’s talking with Upskillers about the struggles that they have when it’s their turn to present. I know you have yours. And so do I please come on, join us in the conversation.
Colleen Stewart:
So when you have to present an idea, and that could be in a conversation, it’s not necessarily always in a formal presentation with an audience, let’s say. But if you have to present an idea about your business or your work, what piece of that do you struggle with the most? And I think what you’ve really correctly identified is there are two parts of that. There’s the preparation part where you think about, okay, what is it that I wanna say? But then there’s the delivery part. When you’re in the moment, you’re in the conversation or you’re in the presentation.
Michel Shah:
I think I can go first. Colleen. I think two things I typically struggle with when I’m presenting and one is ensuring that I’m garnering the interest, of the audience in what I’m, in my ideas or in my approach to the ideas. Mm-hmm. and pitching at the right level, particularly when you don’t know the audience, to know sort of what is the level that you should be pitching this to, especially if it’s a mixed audience, how do you pitch it so that, diverse understandings and so on can actually still gain value from it.
Colleen Stewart:
Yeah, absolutely. I’m sure a lot, uh, can relate. Katherine, I’m gonna let you go next.
Katherine:
Thank you, Michelle. The issue I have is I’ll ad lib and sometimes I’ll get off track. if I don’t practice, that’s an issue and then I’ll trip up on words and stuff like that so I do a lot of prep and have like things all over the place so that I can try and read through it
Colleen Stewart
And to be a little bit more relaxed, sometimes when we over prepare and gather too much information, you have too many places to look. It’s hard to relax, thank you. Katherine. Tiffany?
Tiffany
For me, it’s just identifying what is the appropriate scope of information. Like how much is too much, how much is too little, what’s the right amount? And thinking through the presentation and thinking of all the things that I want to include, but looking at the time period I have and not, not being sure what I can include, what will give the value, that’s usually what I struggle with.
Colleen Stewart
Okay, great. And I think that kind of relates to a little bit of what Michelle said, where she’s talking about the diversity of an audience, but then that ties right into what you’ve just said. How much detail do I actually go into? How much depth? Opal, what were you thinking?
Opal
A few things I struggle with. one being eye contact. I tend to have roaming eyes and my eyes tend to shut all the times, So, I’ve often caught myself being recorded the way my eyes are closed. And I think I probably do that when I’m thinking as well as, not wanting to talk too much, so sometimes I talk too concise because I just wanna get the message over and there’s also the fear of forgetting what I need to say, the point that I need to bring across.
Colleen Stewart
So eye contact. Here’s a little tip cuz I’m not gonna spend a huge amount of time, but the roaming eyes is pretty common. A technique to try is to look at someone’s eyes until you know the colour and then move on. And it’s not as though you’re trying to memorize the colour of everybody’s eyes. It’s a length of time that is appropriate to look at one person if you’re delivering to an audience. And then you move on to the next. So if you can force yourself and be very intentional, you know, I’m gonna look at this person, but now I’m gonna move it, It can help. And once you start practicing that, it will just become second nature to do it. I think it’s okay to close your eyes while you think, ultimately it has to be opal up there and not somebody else, right? So you’re gonna have your own, mannerisms and gestures and unique behaviours. So don’t worry too much about that. Let it go. Just don’t fall asleep.
Bruce
Where I was going with that is, the audience that we get. numerous people that are trying to get their attention, that are trying to stand out and, and show up differently. And so that’s one of the areas that I try to challenge myself with is to say, well, what is gonna make this interaction memorable from perhaps other dozens that they’ve had that month? And am I just another guy in a white dress shirt that they see as one of many? Yeah, so, that’s why I put that sort of distinction in. How do you separate yourself?
Colleen Stewart
Yeah. Well, people will forget what you say. They’ll forget what you do, but they never forget how you make them feel. That’s Maya Angelou. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful quote, but it’s absolutely true. So when you say you want to ignite your audience, you know, showing up with your emotional, gear at the ready to use is, is important. You know, it’s, it is a little bit of performance when you’re pitching to an audience. It’s performance time, so you might be a little quieter and more diminutive, and that, that’s fine, but you have to up it up the energy a little bit, to a point where you’re, you’re showing emotions. I’ll take one more. That’s what we have time for. Cadeem?
Colleen Stewart
I guess, um, for me, one of the things I struggle with most is actually just the speed of talking. That’s one very important part of the presentation and I feel like can overshadow anything that’s well researched, anything that’s relevant and so forth, because people literally can’t hear what you’re saying.
Colleen Stewart
Yeah. So another important thing, make the eye contact and then breathe. Breathing is essential, I kind of say it humorously, but sometimes when we have adrenaline, when you’re nervous before a presentation, that’s basically what’s happened. Your brain is reacting as though a saber-toothed tiger is coming at you. There’s no physiological difference between the reaction presentation, saber-toothed tiger. So the adrenaline goes to your arms and your. And that’s because you’re either gonna fight that tiger or you’re gonna run like heck. And so the same thing happens during a presentation. So you wanna set yourself up for success in this virtual environment. I never sit down, so I’m standing right now because I need to burn the energy, outta my legs. I gesture. So if you’re doing a big pitch and you’re in a virtual setting, you know, pile the book. Do what you have to, to get your camera up and stand up. Do yourselves a favour, to burn off that nervousness. That was a great suggestion because I’m really good when I’m standing and talking. I can look around and actually I’m looking at all of you. there you go. Yeah. The video is where I struggle. It’s not in. Right. It’s, it’s, it’s tricky, right? I mean, we have some cameras on, some cameras off, but you know, you just, someone, someone asked me in, in a course just last week, well, what do I, what happens when I can’t see any of them when all their cameras are off and I have no idea? Are they getting it? Are they enjoying it? And I said, well, there’s only one thing you can do in that situation. You just tell yourself they are getting it and they are enjoying it. I mean, why Tell yourself the opposite, right? So just have fun up there. Chances are they’re enjoying it. They’re already, they’re at 40% delighted because it isn’t them presenting.
Colleen Stewart
You don’t want to miss the next episode because we’re going to continue and to Colleen is going to take us into the DNA of a story, and we’re going to walk through what it takes to make your stories effective. And to engage your audience, whether that’s facilitating a meeting. Presented on the big stage, talking at your child’s school. Sharon stories at the country club on the golf course at the tennis match On the football field at the club. Any where you go and everywhere you go, just hanging out with your friends or in the most critical meetings. You’ll want to know that your story has the impact that you want it to have. That’s what we’re going to do next. Identify your struggles as Colleen has led us through here. Figure out strategies for that and then now let’s go on and look at how we develop that story.
Michel Shah:
Thank you for listening to this episode of UpSkill Talks brought to you by McGraw Hill. We bring you new episodes every Monday. Please take a moment to subscribe, leave a five star rating and a written review at apple podcast. Or follow us on. By Google podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, don’t forget to share UpSkill talks with other leaders like yourself. So they too may gain the skills and insights to produce amazing results. Please go to UpSkillCommunity.com to review show notes and learn how you can join a community of leaders from across the globe. Collaborating to lead in a more meaningful and impactful way. I’m your host, Michel Shah. And again, thank you for joining me on this episode of UpSkill Talks.
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