Make Your Presentation Easy, Engaging, and Exciting
This article was adapted from Episode 27 of the Elevated Entrepreneur Podcast. Click here to listen.
In today’s episode, we are joined by Sarah Gershman. Sarah is a professional speaker and has spent the last 15 years coaching global executives in dozens of industries, whether preparing for a keynote address, briefing senior officials, or pitching a product. Sarah helps leaders find their core message and make that message stick. She works with executives in national organizations, companies, government agencies, and nonprofits.
In this article, you will learn more about how you can reframe and overcome anxiety during presentations and make public speaking more fun and engaging through storytelling, even in very technical fields, to create human connections and get people excited by your idea.
Read on!
Why It’s Hard to Present To An Audience
Do you feel anxious when the idea of presenting crosses your mind? You are not alone.
There is something about presenting in front of people or an audience that makes people all over the globe feel very exposed and threatened.
The Anxiety and fear around presenting is a universal phenomenon that goes back to the cave. When people stepped out of the cave, they would have a primal experience of being watched by predators who were going to eat them.
In the same way, when we get up in front of an audience, our brain tells us they are predators, and they are a thread and that we have to protect ourselves from them. So, our brain goes into a flight-or-fight mode, which is why we get so many jitters, butterflies, and panics symptoms before we get in front of an audience. The brain is programmed to think that presenting a scary experience.
Tip: Presenting shouldn’t be difficult, but when the brain thinks it’s a scary experience, it sends us into a flight-or-fight chain of reaction that makes it hard to communicate to our audience.
Why It’s Hard To Inspire And Engage People When Presentation
We tend to be fully engaged when we’re watching something interesting such as a movie or a TV show. Watching a good film is synonymous with watching a presentation; the only difference is that the movie or the show is telling you a story, and it’s bringing you into the drama of the story. There is intrigue, surprises, and conflicts that are scary, funny, dramatic, and fun, and it’s going somewhere, and we want to know what happens next. However, when watching a presentation, all of this flattens, and we become mere recipients of the information.
People often think of presentations as a form of communication designed to deliver information. However, our brains are not designed to just receive information like that.
The key to inspiring people is to turn your presentation into a story, and that doesn’t mean you have to invent drama where there is none. There is action part in every presentation. You just need to find it. The information you’re delivering to an audience is the answer or solution to a problem. So, if you get people intrigued about the problem and feel the pain of a problem first, they will want to know how to solve it, and they will allow you to teach them how to solve the problem.
Tip: When you’re constantly moving up from tension to redemption in your presentation, it will be more like a movie.
Turning Your Information Into A Story
The culture of many organizations does not think about presentations as stories because they want the presentation to have gravitas or to deliver complex data. Additionally, when you have a lot of information to convey, sometimes, even if you want to turn it into a story, it can take a lot of work to do it.
Storytelling is easier said than done, but it’s possible to incorporate it into your company culture. For some companies, hiring outside consultants to help them cultivate storytelling in their brand has been the best option. When you’re inside the information and live it daily, it’s hard to step outside the information and become the writer who sees the story within it. You need someone from the outside to coach and help you to capture your story in an authentic way.
Tip: If you can turn your information into a story, the outcome is that people will remember the information, not just the story.
How To Overcome Anxiety When Presenting
One of the main reasons why we get so anxious when presenting to an audience is that we feel the sensation of eyes watching us, and we feel very exposed. This creates a self-focused experience of thought processes like “do they like me, or ” I’m going to make a mistake,” or “what is everyone thinking of me.” The experience focuses on the eyes that are watching you, which is not what you want to be doing when trying to help an audience.
What you want to be doing is focusing on your audience because they are the ones who need your information. As a presenter, you are not important, Rather, you’re there to give the information, and the audience is the one who needs to do something with the information.
Shifting your brain from performance to helping mode enables you to harness your generosity. Once you’re in helping mode, you are not thinking about yourself anymore, and you become much less nervous and a better speaker.
Tip: When presenting, shift your energy from what people are thinking about you and put it on how you can help the person in the room, and you will be a better speaker.
Reframing Anxiety To Create An Engaging Presentation
The reframe from everyone is looking at you to helping your audience start from the moment you start preparing for the presentation. As you prepare, everything you do is focused on helping your audience.
So, when the time for the presentation comes, and you feel nervous because your brain is used to experiencing presenting in a scary way, you remind yourself that it’s not about you, it’s about helping your audience. This is the peace that comes with reframing anxiety.
Sarah shares that though she has been doing this for so many years, she still has to remind herself that “It’s not about me, it’s about helping my audience” every time she gets up to speak because her brain still tells her it’s about her.
Tip: Don’t present to impress but to meet the unspoken need of your audience; this will save you a lot of time and be helpful to your audience.
-Raylen
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