3 Ways to Improve Your Presentation Skills

Have you ever noticed the way certain principles in life mirror nature? When we approach life with an intent to get better each day, inspiration is all around us. The whole world seems to validate our pursuits, and it seems as if one need only look around to find the answers to the next big problem.

Granted, this is the way things look in hindsight. At the start of our efforts, we can often feel overwhelmed with what we don’t know. We hear this a lot from our clients and presenters: “I want to improve, but I don’t know where to start.” We’re accustomed to saying that the journey starts with desire and if they really mean it, they’ll start seeing the path to better stage presence, more dynamic presentations, and more persuasive storytelling.

But just how do you improve? What is that process like? We’ve noticed 3 distinct stages of growth that all presenters go through on the way to becoming great at what they do, and believe it or not, the process mimics nature:

1. Plant: Like sowing seeds in a field, the first step is desire and exposure. At some point, delivering exceptional presentations becomes so vital to the presenter’s vision of where they’re going personally and professionally that they just start to notice great examples of design, storytelling and content. These tiny seeds take root and foster a general cognizance of style that begins to transform their preconceived notions of what a great presentation is, and what they’re capable of doing.

2. Cultivate: With the seeds of exposure taking root, the presenter starts to explore, experiment, and train. They’re suddenly a little unsatisfied with those bullet points; then the bullet points become outright unacceptable. They start tinkering with new ways of arranging content, and they start developing and organizing slides according to a picture in their mind of how the elements of the presentation will come together. Tweaking, improving, and upgrading become the natural process for every deck.

3. Harvest: Then, the presenter starts getting results, praise, and recognition for their efforts. They become known for their efforts, style and approach to communications, and this yields more opportunities and, thus, more occasions to explore and experiment and improve. The process starts anew, with new sources of inspiration driving the presenter forward.

The only thing that keeps this process from playing out in everyone’s life (and in areas unrelated to presentations, even) is a closed mind. Like barren land, if we are not open to new sources of ideas and inspiration, those tiny seeds never take root and we never invest ourselves in the process. Our presentations stay the same, we receive little reinforcement when we deliver them, which in turn hardens our hearts and makes us hate rather than embrace the opportunity to present and improve.





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