We judge you by how well you can speak. Do you mumble, lurch from on random thought to another, or are you clear, concise and convincing. We not only judge you, we base our impression of your entire organization on you. Given this is important you would think we all would really work on communication skills. We can but we don’t. Find out about altering ypur mindset in order to master this critical professional kill.
Our mental approach to our activities determines our success. We know this in sports and in business, but when it comes to speaking in public, we somehow manage to forget this vital point. In fact, when it comes to presenting in front of other people we often have a negative mindset about the activity. We may be reliving humiliations from elementary school or high school, when we had to make a presentation and were teased about it.
As we get older and advance in our careers, we cannot avoid public speaking and giving presentations, whether we like doing them or not. We know we have to make a presentation, the date has been set and there is no escape. How do we approach it? We get straight into the details, mechanics and logistics, without spending even a moment on our proper mindset for the activity.
The mindset game is a critical one, especially if we are nervous about giving presentations. Confidence is paired with credibility in the presentation game and we have to exude both. We may be very unsure, nervous, even petrified but we must never show that side to our audience. Hesitation kills the message delivery and therefore the impact.
Often when we are anticipating the presentation, we imagine that our wondrous content will carry the day. We justify our ineptitude by that presuming that we can be hopeless presenters, but somehow because of the quality of our material, it won't matter. This is pretty delusional and basically it is folly.
Normally, we are competing for the attention of our audience. Social media has made a hell for presenters, because within two seconds our audience can escape to any number of other more interesting worlds.
We need to have a powerful presentation and speaking faculty to compete with the wonders of the Internet. A big part of our appeal is our message’s worth and the delivery of that worth. We need to understand that both are required. To get the right combination, we need to sell that we are confident in what we're saying and that our content is valuable.
Start with a powerful opening, including the key message captured in your conclusion. Isolate out 3-5 key points so make your argument and support them with evidence. Design both your first close and your second close for after the Q&A.
In the weeks leading up to the talk we are the thinking about what we want to say and how we might say it, we are combing the media and books for juicy quotes and examples to back up what we are saying. We are playing it out in our mind's eye. During this mental imagining, we see ourselves as very confident and successful - we are predicting our success by seeing it before we even do it. We are seeing the audience nodding and agreeing with what we say. We can see ourselves enjoying the moment and feel in full control.
When we have rehearsed, we know the timing, the cadence of the talk. We know where to pause, which words to hit harder than other to emphasize our key points. We are confident on the flow of our talk and with this knowledge we can now relax and enjoy the process rather than dreading it. We have to work on our mindset toward what we are doing. We have to change our self-talk around how we approach the talk. We have to focus on the benefits of building our personal and professional brands. We have to look for every opportunity to talk, because that is how we become better and better. If we can change our mindset, we can change our starting point and that will bring the results we know we need to generate.
