#48 - Mastering Presentations: Three of My Favorite Tips

Welcome to the Talk to People Podcast.

This is take two, and I'm shooting this on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, because originally I shot this week's episode, and it just didn't capture, it didn't work out.

The audio, I was using these new mics, and the audio wasn't working.

So now, if you're watching the video, I have a microphone in hand, but then I also have a lapel mic on, because I'm gonna give the lapel mic another shot, but I'm not going to risk it, and I'm using a dynamic mic, the big mic, for the betterment of us all.

It was a terrible feeling to get to the point to where Monday rolled around, and I didn't have episode to drop.

This is episode 48.

I've gone 47 episodes and haven't missed a week.

So getting to that point to where I was like, ah, shoot, and I knew I needed to go to bed, because the next morning, I had responsibilities.

So I don't want to miss the mark there, mainly because consistency is important.

And if you want to build something great, then maybe you change directions, or maybe you completely reinvent ideas, or it may look completely different, but you need to remain consistent.

So this is a Thanksgiving episode.

So I wanted to talk a little bit about what I was thankful for, and then I want to talk about how to deliver a presentation and give you three different ways that you can deliver a great presentation that's going to keep your audience engaged, but it's also going to be fun for you.

I've learned that presentations are something a lot of people are incredibly afraid of.

It makes sense, us being vulnerable in front of a large group of people.

But if you don't present in a classroom or in a business setting, or at a church, or even at some civic community meeting, then more than likely there's going to be a chance where you presented a funeral, or you presented a family gathering.

There's always going to be presentations that we all are going to be called to give at one point in our life.

And I want you to feel more confident than anxious in that setting.

So we're going to talk a little bit about that.

But first, in Thanksgiving tradition, I'd love to know what you are thankful for.

And I'd love to share some things I'm thankful for.

One of the big things I'm so incredibly thankful for is the opportunity to promote this idea of the importance behind prioritizing human relationships.

I initially started with the phrase, life is better when you talk to people.

And I agree with that.

I think it's a general statement, and we can get a bit more nuanced if we want to, and we can be critical and say, well, talking to people won't build a relationship.

You have to listen, and you have two ears and one mouth.

So sometimes life is better when you don't talk to people.

I know it's nuanced, but on average, I feel pretty confident by saying life is better when you talk to people, and being able to create the content that all of us together, we've been able to create.

We've had some awesome, incredible guests.

Wow, it's really been an experience.

And I wanted to talk to each of you a little bit about the guests coming up in the future and how that's kind of shifted in my heart and in my brain, and just really what I'm experiencing.

So after we moved, I started the podcast in a place I was like...

Our first home after Annie and I got married, we were renting the house, and our studio was in the living room kitchen area.

So people would walk in, and right there, they'd see the round table.

And then after a while, I started to shoot, and just to the right in the living room, and these swirly chairs that are behind me.

If you're watching, you can see them, but if you're not, they're thinking like bucket chairs with, they're comfy, they're gray.

We got pillows next to them or inside of them.

And it was really easy to access.

So I had strangers come over.

There were people that I had never met in person.

I met with every single guest beforehand, but some of them I did virtual meetings.

So there were times where the first time I met someone was them walking in my house.

And then we'd proceed to sit down and have deep, multiple-hour conversations.

And it's wild to think about that because the more I learn about podcasting, the more I recognize successful podcasters, the ones who really make it long-term and are building something.

Essentially, it becomes a business because more people have to join.

And if you want to market a podcast, you have to work so hard.

If you want to produce a high-quality podcast, there's so much work that goes behind it.

And I'm seeing these podcasters create this level of art and seeing the level of their teams, how many people they have, in order to get the guests that fit their niche, the amount they have to travel.

So when I reflect on a year of doing this, and essentially doing a lot of it on my own, one, I'm blown away, and two, I'm also convinced I don't want to do it again.

So I don't want to get to that area to where I have so much pressure of finding that next new guest every week, and making sure this guest is going to be a great guest, and making sure this guest has ideas that are going to push the ball forward about social connection and young adults.

I'm called to that idea, to express that idea, and to continue creating content that helps young adults improve the levels of social connection because I know it's so important.

And I can't shake that.

I'm going to have to create content about that and talk about it.

Because one, that's my strength, and two, it's going to make an impact.

But the guest grind has been tough.

And I think moving forward, I will be a bit more reflective on that.

And now we live in a different house, and the studio is upstairs, and you go through the hallway, and it feels more vulnerable to have people coming over that I haven't met and to have them come into the house.

And it's a weird thing because they were still coming into my house in the old house, but for some reason, this feels a bit more vulnerable.

So I wanted to be upfront with you all.

I'm still going to have guests.

I'll still have in-person episodes, but I'm also going to have virtual episodes, and I'm also going to have solo content.

So things that I want to talk about that I believe will help others.

So that's what I'm going to do later, is talk to you about three things you can do.

It's really bite-sized.

It's going to be helpful.

That will improve your confidence when it comes to any type of platform presentations.

So that's solo content.

I'm going to do a bit more YouTube-style stuff.

So Talking Head for the podcast, for those episodes, I'll have a podcast-only section at the beginning where I'm talking directly to all of you because this is a community.

And maybe touching on other things, and then we'll transition into the content.

But I wanted to talk about that because we did that four-week solo episode series, which was really cool.

And Logan got to be on all of those as the production assistant.

And I'm excited for him to be around more.

But after that, it's like, all right, let's get some guests.

And then the two guests we had were Annie and Sean.

And I knew both of them.

And they're both great guests.

They can talk about a ton.

But after that, I was like, I know there's so many people, and I always have people tell me like, hey, you should have this person as a guest on the show.

Or people will approach me directly and say, hey, I want to be a guest in your podcast.

Which I'm grateful for.

And I'll get emails and messages with that same intent.

But I am thinking, how can I use this platform to help people grow in social connection?

Because I believe that's what it's for.

And the best way I'll be able to do it is to do what I feel like doing.

To do what comes naturally to me.

I had the 2023 was a year of incredible guests.

And 2024 may be that as well.

But 2024 may also be exploring solo content.

OK, I've reflected on that a lot.

I want to talk about what I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful for you, for you listening.

I'm thankful for my wife supporting this podcast.

I'm thankful for my family who has contacted me and supported me because 2023 was a really wild year.

I'm thankful for my friends who constantly are giving me pats on the back, be it in person or virtually.

I'm thankful for the community that I've been able to build in the year 2023.

2021 and 2022, my community was aisle 1 through 10, seats ABC, because I lived life in the air.

I was constantly in the airport.

I was never around the same place.

But 2023, I was actually able to be in one place, stationary.

Did I travel?

Yeah, I traveled.

Did I have moments where I felt like a hermit?

For sure.

But it was about consistency.

I maintained consistency.

This morning, I woke up to go to soccer, even though I have a bum ankle, it's compromised.

And after the fact, I was sitting down thinking, I shouldn't have played soccer, but I'm glad I came.

Next time, I'm just going to show up and not play soccer.

My wife's calling.

Let me see what she's saying.

One big takeaway from 2023 is how important it is to lay roots if you want to have long-term contentment with life.

And that may just be my personal opinion, because I know, like, I have friends that are world travelers, and they want to see the world.

But I think you can only be energized to explore whenever you know you have a place to return to, and you know you have community that's going to provide that social net and backing.

If you are a bust, if it doesn't go well, you can come back.

So building that community has been one thing I'm incredibly thankful for in 2023.

I hope you all have enjoyed listening to the podcast.

I hope you've enjoyed watching it.

I know that it's changed, but that's how everything goes.

I say that as if it's a negative thing.

I think more than likely it's a positive thing because I've gotten better.

Shout out to the people who are still listening after episode one.

I did that episode two with Nate.

It was like two hours.

Then I had Nick Wilf on.

It was like, what, like three hours and still trying to figure out what exactly this is.

I haven't cracked the code, but I do think I've gotten closer to what fits best with me and my natural strengths and inclinations.

So we're gonna hop over, and I'm gonna quickly grab my whiteboard, hop into three tactics, applicable practices you can use in any presentation to develop a more effective and promote ideas.

And I'm gonna quickly grab a whiteboard because I wanna use a whiteboard right now.

I was a teacher for a couple years, and I think I learned this.

Our brains process information in the same amount of time as, like we can write on the chalkboard or the whiteboard.

So it's really helpful.

If you're watching, if you're listening on audio, no worries.

I'm gonna say everything that I write.

But if you're watching on video, give me one second because I'm gonna grab the whiteboard.

Okay, here we are, whiteboard and hand.

So if you are giving a presentation, let's quickly talk about communication and the four different types of communication.

We have interpersonal communication.

We have intrapersonal communication.

We have small group communication.

We have platform presentation or public speaking.

So interpersonal, often think about one-to-one.

Intrapersonal, think about you and yourself.

This is a self-talk.

Small group, think about class discussion.

Often this is what brainstorming, a lot of exchange.

Same thing with interpersonal, a lot of exchange.

Then platform, public speaking is much more like idea promotion, one person speaking to many.

And in that case, I want to talk to you about that.

What is one person speaking to many, and how can you do it?

But we have to start with, how do you start?

How does one person start giving a presentation?

I like to start here because it's the beginning, and people say, maybe I'll use a question or a joke.

Now, I've watched this over an hour video with Patrick Winston from MIT who was a professor, and he gave this awesome seminar, and he said that questions and jokes are often used as starting points, but it's not the best practice on average because people aren't settled yet.

And in order for people to get a joke, they need to know your cadence, because oftentimes your punchline is a bit different.

It's like offbeat.

Think of jazz instead of the two and the four.

It's the one and the three, right?

Or I said that backwards.

But your cadence is different with your punchline.

So people need to get adjusted to who you are, to figure out your humor, and in order for people to actually answer a question, then they need to be settled.

So people say, or not people, myself and the Professor Winston talks about An Empowerment Promise.

Talks Empowerment Promise.

What an empowerment promise is, is saying, I promise you by the end of this presentation, this is what you're going to be empowered to be able to do.

I had a professor in communication who called it the WIFM.

WIFM is W-I-I-F-M, meaning what's in it for me.

So the audience is always asking this question, what is in it for me?

And you may be able to articulate the answer, or they may not articulate the question, they may not ask you upfront, but they're thinking it.

So if you can articulate the answer, it's going to help you out a lot, and it's also gonna have people buy in.

So my empowerment promise here is by the end of this presentation, you will be able to deliver a more effective presentation, be more confident in social settings, and whenever you find yourself speaking as one person to many, you're gonna be more relaxed.

So the first big thing that I wanna talk to you about is the importance of circles.

Circles are...

Hmm, let me think.

Okay, whenever I say circles, I'm talking about circling an idea.

So I have one idea, and that idea is life is better when you talk to people and prioritize human relationships.

So I'm going to say that idea, and I'll just say like life, better, people.

And when I say it once, I draw a little circle around it.

But the best ideas are pretty simple, but even the best ones, they may not get caught immediately.

Like the best ideas are sticky.

So you'll hear someone say something, you're like, ooh, that sticks.

Like if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That's sticky.

It'll stick.

You don't have to really think hard on that for it to memorize it.

But some ideas aren't as sticky.

And on average, 20% of your audience is not going to be paying attention.

No matter how good of a speaker you are, no matter how attractive you are, no matter how funny you are, it's psychological noise.

In the communication model, we have a sender encoding a message, sending it to a receiver.

The receiver decodes the message.

In between the sender and the receiver is all of this noise, and noise busts up the transmission of the message.

And noise can be actual physical noise, like static or someone snapping, but it could also be you have gas and you don't want to fart in class, or you have a headache, or someone just texts you saying that it's over and I'm dumping you, and you're in despair.

All of that is noise that your audience may be experiencing.

So no matter how good of a speaker you are, more than likely, at least 20% of them are checked out at one time.

So you have to circle an idea, which means you say it again in a different way.

And you keep circling.

People say three times is a good one.

So I could say life is better when you talk to people and to prioritize human relationships.

But another way I could say that is let's look at what happens when people don't prioritize human relationships.

I could look at the body side.

They experience inflammation and high levels of cortisol, higher risks of dementia.

They don't live as long.

Or I could look at, let's look at how it affects your career.

If you are connected at work, you are going to be more productive and have higher job satisfaction.

You're also three times less likely to feel like you need to move to a different company.

So I just circled this one idea of prioritizing human relationships, but I did it in different ways.

And I think that drawing circles around things is going to help you promote an idea.

And 20% of your audience may not be listening at one time, but there's a chance, an increased chance, that the more you say it, the more likely they're going to be able to listen.

The second thing is to draw fences.

So when I say draw fences, instead of a circle, think of a square.

And a square is, or the beauty of a fence, is it separates other things from other things.

And it provides a boundary, and it helps you understand what this is and what it isn't.

And when I say draw a fence around an idea, I want you to talk about what your idea isn't.

So if you're presenting about how your law firm is the best law firm in Kansas, you can say that by saying, what we're not going to be is someone who prioritizes profit over people.

What we're not going to be is someone who wants the best search engine optimization for our website, but we never respond to your messages that you send in.

So you're still promoting your idea that you're the best law firm in the country, but the way you're doing it is saying, here's why we're the best, because we're not this.

So for my message of prioritize human relationships, I could say, what I'm not saying is to prioritize your girlfriend over everything, you still need to work and spend time with your family, right?

What I'm not saying is that relationships are going to be better than competence.

What I'm not saying is that you need to make sure you never ever get alone time, because I think solitude is really helpful.

So here are all the things it's not, and in your presentation, you can do this as well.

So you circle your idea, you say it often, you say it different ways.

Then you draw a fence around it, and you say, here's specifically what I'm saying, and here's what it isn't.

And then the last thing, it's called verbal punctuation.

So we'll say VP.

Kamala Harris is currently the VP.

But VP is just the way to think of it.

Verbal punctuation, and verbal punctuation gives your audience checkpoints.

So as you're giving your presentation, you want to give moments for your audience to check back in when they check out, because they are going to check out.

This is something you have to come to terms with.

Anytime you do public speaking, you'll be able to see the people who are dialed in.

I was speaking at an event to a club last week, and I could tell there was one person who was really dialed in.

But guess what?

There's like six who weren't, and that's okay.

But that one person who was dialed in, that was the reason why I was giving that message.

And in your speech, you're going to have some people who aren't dialed in, so you need to make sure to give them open doors to come back in.

You'll see this when people say things like, if you haven't written anything down yet, write this one thing down.

Or if you want to get one thing from the speech, get this.

Or now let me talk to you about something you've probably never heard before.

Or moving on.

Or this may be the last thing I'm going to tell you.

Like, things, cues that give our brains, okay, we can hop back in.

You punctuate your content.

You give it chapters.

Now, you can intentionally not give it chapters, like a filibuster, and just keep talking and talking and talking.

And if you want to bore people, that's how to do it.

But if you want people to be engaged, you need to be a gracious speaker and recognize that there are moments where listening can be hard and being present and tapped in with all the psychological noise is a challenge.

So we need as many carrots, as many treats to get back in.

And as the speaker or presenter, we have to give our audience all of those treats and all of those things to help them.

So those are three different things that you can do for any presentation.

You can circle your ideas, do it at least three times, and each circle gives your audience more exposure to the idea.

I remember whenever I was in sales, I worked at Radio Shack selling phones, and they always told me every no is 11% closer to a yes.

So if you get eight nos, that means you're about to get a yes, which is bonkers when you think about it.

And that probably gives agency to a lot of bad salesman tactics.

But I do think that if you're not trying to push people to buy a phone, if you're trying to promote an idea that you believe is going to help them, there's crafty ways you can do that.

The other thing is you draw a fence around it, and you talk about what it isn't.

And in doing that, it creates a bit of distance, but it also gives, it stakes a claim to this idea.

And then the last thing is to give verbal punctuation.

Give checkpoints for your audience to come back in.

Think of your presentation or your speech much less as one big thing, but more as segmented items that work all together in a story.

Think of the Bible, 66 books, but whenever you look at it, you can see continuity throughout it all.

If it was just one big thing, people would be less likely to engage with it, but because it's broken into books and chapters, it's much easier to digest, to talk about, to educate people on.

So you have to use verbal punctuation.

Those are three things that are going to help you with any presentation.

Thank you all for watching or listening wherever you're at.

I'm excited to keep doing some things that will help you grow in social connection.

If there's anything you want me to touch on, maybe I can bring the whiteboard out and really explain or expose ideas.

Shoot them in.

Thanks all for being here.

And as always, we'll see you next time.