The biggest problem for most people when it comes to presentation?

How to Practise🙄

The problem for most people when it comes to presentation? How to Practise…

The dread of the event itself puts them off rehearsal. They find it easier to go into deep denial. Yet practice is your greatest ally when it comes to overcoming nerves. It allows you to get the content learnt so deeply that you can relax and – yes – enjoy the experience of presenting.

The speakers that you admire rehearse. They rehearse to the point that they make it look easy. Steve Jobs used to rehearse for hours on his big speeches. He knew that it was the secret to easy authority on stage.

What fine-distinction actors understand about rehearsal is that its aim is exploration. Yes, you learn what comes in what order so you can move smoothly through your content. But it’s also about learning more about what you want to say, finding the expressions that really work for you and the stories that bring your presentation alive.

Treat rehearsal as exploration and it becomes far more enjoyable. Practice really needn’t be a big deal. It can happen in lots of ways and in lots of places. Practice means saying it or thinking about saying it. This can be anywhere, any time. Refine and Record Start gently. Take your one page of bullet points and a device that you can record yourself on. Record yourself speaking your introduction. Listen back to it. Tweak your written text until it is what you actually want to say (often surprisingly different to what you wrote down at first.) Record yourself again. Listen to it as if you were in the audience and add any missing pieces.

Do the same set of steps with the core content and the wrap. By the time you have recorded and listened back to yourself a few times you start to find that the content is in the muscle. It’s a deceptively easy way to rehearse because you can do it sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea. But by the time you’ve finished you have a presentation that is really yours. In the muscle. It’s a fantastic foundation for confidence.

Walk Your Talk 🚶

The next stage is to – literally – walk your talk. To learn it to the point where it is conversational it can help to walk around the house and speak it until it feels smooth. Or if time is tight walk the talk through in your mind as you go to work. Above all what you’re refining are the segues. Smooth links between ideas show a real mastery of your thinking. They also keep you calm and graceful as you don’t have to fumble around in your memory for the next point. You can be really flexible, dynamic and immediate in your delivery: stop to answer a question, start a story, digress (digressio – a favourite trick of Cicero’s) and then come back to the end, with the audience hanging on your every word. Of course, delivery this pithy and powerful requires you to have your thinking ordered, sequenced and memorised.

A Note About Slides 👩‍💻

This is not a post about good presentation slides – look at Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds (New Riders, 2007) and slideology (O’Reilly Media, 2008) by Nancy Duarte if you want to know more about this.

My sole message to you with regards to slides is that the audience came to see you, not your slides. Your slides will help them to understand and remember your words but they are in service to you and should be clear and simple and kept to a minimum. Arguably if you want true gravitas you can do without them. If you do decide to use them make sure you practise how you present them. Never, never, never read off your slides. They are for the audience not you. Your script must be clear in your head so that you can present without them. Indeed you should cue each slide verbally.

In news the audio always comes slightly before the visual. If you want gravitas follow the same principle. It makes you seem clear and ordered in your thinking and on top of your brief.

Be Your Own Coach 💡

As you start to feel like you have the material at your fingertips practise in front of the mirror so you can see yourself. The Greek orator Demos thenes swore by it. Or record yourself on video. Then you can be your own coach. If you can bear it, it gives you good feedback. You’ll see exactly what works and what needs to be changed. Chances are you’ll also be pleasantly surprised by how much better it looks than it seems inside your head. You may feel that watching yourself isn’t particularly helpful. These days I’m more comfortable running the talk and recording my voice. I can get enough feedback from the audio to tweak the presentation. Another option is to ask someone you know and trust to watch the presentation for you. My advice is to find what works for you and then do two complete run-throughs before the presentation.

Some of us shy away from practice. We think it’s better to go straight in and just do it. Mistake. If you practise you will automatically give yourself more confidence. You know what you want to say. Now you need to focus on how you want to say it and practise it until you can say it well under pressure.

Here are some tips to help you be your own coach – whether you watch yourself back on video or in the mirror.

• Feet Are they grounded? Keep them as still as you can and only move between ideas otherwise you’ll distract the audience. To help, imagine your feet have roots in the ground or that you’re standing in warm, yielding sand.

• Knees Keep them soft and not locked as that sends tension through the body. • Spine It should be straight and long. Don’t slump. To ensure you have an upright posture practise with a book on your head. Don’t laugh, it works!

• Shoulders Keep them relaxed and heavy. Try to imagine you have very heavy angel wings – it will help you to drop your shoulders.

• Arms Use them. Imagine air under the armpits. Clamping them makes them tense. Use open and relaxed gestures.

• Head Keep a check on nodding. People who nod a lot lack credibility so keep it to a minimum.

• Eye contact Make sure you look up and out when you’re speaking. When you practise put a few cushions round the room as imaginary people. Direct one line of your presentation at each person and imagine seeing them think about what you’re saying. It helps on the day to imagine you’re talking to one person at a time.

• Speech Short thoughts. Lots of full stops and emphasis.

Above all remember to have fun trying this out!

Have a great week

Caroline x