Three Things to Avoid

When you're preparing a presentation of any kind, there are three things that you really must try to avoid:

1. Jargon. Even when you are going to be presenting to people in your own industry or in your own company - it's important that you leave out the acronyms, and specialist language. Even when people KNOW the meaning of a string of initials, they still have to do a quick translation in their head, and so, for a few brief moments, you lose them. If they have to do this translation several times during your talk you may well find you've failed to have the desired impact.
2. Cliche. Using hackneyed old cliches and phrases won't do you any favours. If, at the end of the day you find you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater and your audience can't see the wood for the trees, how seriously will they take you? Lose the cliche - find your own way to say the same thing!
3. Fillers. Most of us use little verbal fillers when we speak. Things like 'like, sort of, y'know, kinda, emmm, I mean, kinda, that sort of thing'. In conversation these get filtered out and don't usually have too much of an impact, but in a presentation situation there are going to be some people in your audience who will spend the whole time you're speaking counting the number of times you say 'like' or whatever. Don't risk it. Iron out the fillers and if you need thinking time leave a pause.

If you don't think you can manage any or all of these, give me a call and we'll see what I can do to help.

Can you change it?

Recognise that there are things in your life that are out of your hands. Fretting about these gets you nowhere and can undermine your confidence. Focus instead on the things over which you have influence and make those work for you.

This morning I went to a networking breakfast.
Nothing unusual in that - I often go to these events. It's a great way to meet people and to learn about what other businesses are doing (as well as to promote one's own business of course).
At this meeting everyone had a chance to deliver their business message in 60 seconds, and there were some stand-out performances in amongst those short presentations, but there were also quite a few who didn't really get the job done.
The thing is - it can be hard to create a compelling message in such a short time, and so we find people either trying to cram every detail into the time, and so failing to hold attention, or apparently believing that the world can read their minds, so they speak in a kind of shorthand, which can leave their audience wondering what the message was.
I believe it's better to get a smaller chunk of your message over clearly than to deliver an obscure or boring monologue.
Get people interested. Get them curious to know more, and let them come to you and ask. That way, you'll have all the time you need to give them the whole story!

Get Real

Time is a river. Stand in it, feel its power pull at you...and remember, you can't touch the same river twice!

New Year - and No Resolutions!

We are faced with choices all day every day. Small or large; trivial or vital, we are obliged to decide on our path at every turning and crossroads.
A new year  is - or maybe just seems - an excellent time to make decisions about our lives, our work, our place in the world or maybe just our own state of health and well-being. Hence the notion of the New Year's Resolution.
But what happens to those resolutions when it stops being New Year, and it's just another year?
How motivated are you to continue going to the gym; donating money to good causes; giving up a bad habit; spending time with elderly relatives...whatever?
Chances are the resolution slips and fades. The motivation of the New Year has disappeared, and all that's left are good intentions - and Samuel Johnson is often quoted as saying that road to Hell is paved with good intentions!
The New Year's Resolution is a less than obvious example of a 'push' motivator: something that pushes away from a fixed point. A classic 'push' motivator might be "I don't want to be fat any more", which is great...for as long as you remain fat, but become redundant as a motivator as soon as you stop being fat, which can in turn lead you to stop all the good habits you adopted to lose weight, and typically see you putting on the pounds again.
A 'pull' motivator for the same scenario might be "I want to be fit." You then adopt techniques that start the process of getting fit (like losing excess weight, joining a gym, etc.), but because your inner voice is telling you you want to BE fit, once you ARE fit there's nothing dragging you back into bad habits.In other words, there's nothing saying "I want to be unfit again now" or "I'd like to be a slob again".
So...back to the New Year's Resolution...

Don't make any!

Instead, make a December 31st 2012 Resolution, to see you through the whole year, or even better, make a New Life Resolution, and make sure it is phrased in POSITIVE language - 'I WILL become fitter', I WILL spend more time with my elderly relatives', 'I WILL give up smoking'...

Have a great and productive year. Enjoy what you do, and do what you enjoy.

And do yourself a little favour for 2012 - pick up a copy of The Sticking Point. Read it, share it, use it. It'll enhance your life - I promise!