How to be an excellent presenter?
LET GO! Be PRESENT and get out of your Worrying or Thinking CLOUD.
Imagine Ronald. While, presenting Ronald was a bit stiff, frozen almost. Feet glued to the floor, hands on his back, a bit of a monotonous voice and his eyes were turned up to the ceiling most of the time.
Once seated, his animated twin brother suddenly popped up. Answering a question from the audience.
He looked at us (whereas he hardly did so half a minute ago), his whole body was active in a supporting manner. There was energy and his voice was melodious and lively. And not wholly unimportant, we understood what he was trying to explain so much better. And all of this in an effortless manner, whereas a minute ag0 it all had felt a bit strenuous.
What was going on here?
While presenting and standing, Ronald was too much in “his head”. As if he had gone up the stairs of a tall medieval castle tower, went into the attic chamber, locked the door, and threw the keys away. It seemed like he was somewhere else, not quite there with us, not quite there in the moment.
But, once he sat down, looked us in the eyes, it seemed like he had taken the key and in a matter of split seconds, flew down the stairs, hopped over the castles’ moat and was again among us. Present!
He both literally and figuratively speaking, went down to eventually meet us.
Instead of being in “his head” Ronald touched the sweet spot.
The sweet spot, where you connect with your audience, where it seems effortless when you present and where you automatically embody your story.
It feels like what you present is not coming from a place outside of you (that you need to gather first), but it seems to come from within, pouring straight out to the audience. And the effect is incredible involving and persuasive.
It seems that everything is in sync. What you say and how you say it and all the while you connect with you audience.
In order to touch that sweet pot, you have to “let go”. Like a topsporter has to let go and be in the moment to have a good performance.
Let us have a look at this sweet spot and how you could arrive there.
Often, people are on the left-hand side of the spectrum are too pre-occupied with their emotions when they present. “Ohhh, am I doing well enough?”, “What is this person thinking”, “He is looking rather grumpy, did I say something wrong?” Or they want to please the audience too much and are too preoccupied with that.
How to let go of this?
Because this dialogue (noise/clutter) prevents you from being in the here and now. It is keeping you from enjoying your presentation and it is keeping you from connecting. It will also wear you out, a lot of energy is seeping away like this and it makes you less persuasive.
Kamala Harris, the US Vice president solves this with the following mantra. “It is not about you”.
By having this mantra, Kamala can refocus and put her focus on her story and her audience, instead of preoccupying herself with how she sounds, or what she looks like or what the audience might think. This brings her out of her distracting over worrying cloud and brings her in the here and now, it puts her in the sweet spot. It makes her present!
Now, in the case of Ronald, people like him that do not prepare that well or in the right manner. Those are the people that find themselves in the graphical pictures on the right-hand side of the spectrum.
Because they did not prepare well, all lot of energy needs to go to gathering the information before they speak (in the thinking cloud). Or they lock themselves in their heads when they speak, trying to retrieve word for word what they wanted to say instead of the essence in their own words. Thereby having no energy left to connect with the audience, or on how to bring their information across.
In this case, we can learn from Carice van Houten (Dutch Actress) to let go and move to the sweet spot. “I prepare for my scenes in a way, that when we start a scene, I can completely let go of my preparation and be in the moment”.
Instead of first gathering her text, it pours right out of her, while still being able to connect to her fellow actors around her. She does not need to come down from her thinking cloud first. She is immediately there, present.
So, what happened to Ronald?
Once he sat down, he did not realize it, but it seems like teleportation. In split seconds he went out of his castle tower, thinking cloud and was down with us, present. Sharing his information, instead of telling it from the head.
He looked to us in the eye and in his own words, connected with the content (from within) embodying his story. Without realizing it, he was 50% more effective and persuasive in bringing his information across. Without realizing he was sitting on his sweet spot, the whole while…… And he did so effortlessly. In short: he had let go!
To be a good presenter, you need to let go, in order to be present! Get out of your thinking and worrying cloud.
Do you want to learn, what YOU need to move and be in your sweet presenting spot?
Do you want to find out what keeping you from unlocking yourself and become an effective speaker?
Then apply for my open trainings or coaching trajectories. Find more information here.
Kind regards,
