Take a look into the mirror.

When training Presentation Skills I often emphasize the importance of “practicing out loud”.

Sometimes, the participants can experience the deep value of it themselves during a training, as was the case last week.

The first time that Iwan does the exercise, giving a very small 1-minute presentation, it takes great effort. There are a lot of “ehhs”, he looks up with his eyes to the ceiling, since a lot of thinking energy needs to go to “assemble” the information and he stands a bit frozen on the spot. All perfectly natural.

On purpose, I let Iwan do the same exercise 3 times on a row. Since, in this process of repeating the same one-minute exercise, the participant experiences how the content gets internalized by the power of repetition and doing it out loud and what this does to how Iwan brings the content across.

Before our eyes, we see how his presenting becomes stronger each time. Slowly, Iwan starts looking at us, his body starts to take part and is no longer frozen, the tone in his voice changes, there are hardly any “ehhs” anymore.

It almost seems like magic.

The repetition and doing it out loud, triggers the process of integrating the information. Or to put it differently that slowly but surely the energy of the speaker can flow to other parts than only assembling the information. Or just simply that the speaker is connecting him/herself to the content. However, you want to look at it, the presenting gets so much more powerful and effective.

So, giving a good presentation and learning how to present is an empirical process you could say. It is not a matter of writing the information down, reading it, thinking you know it and that is it.

It is not only about writing, reading and understanding, but it is also about doing, hearing, feeling and seeing as well!

And most of us only focus on the first part (writing and reading) and forget the second part, actually doing it and practicing it.

Everybody will get stronger as a speaker in their own style, if they practice out loud, really do it and persevere with it. Trust me.

Do you really want it to go as fast as lightening?

Then apply Sandra’s tip. She also looks in the mirror while practicing her presentation out loud. “This helps me tremendously” she confided to us during the training.

I thought this idea was brilliant. It’s the highway recipe to connecting yourself with your content.

Why brilliant?

Because the more senses you use, the quicker and deeper you will connect to your content and the better your presenting becomes. You hear, feel and see how you present (empirical).

It may sound funny, but it almost seems that if you activate all of these senses; hearing, seeing and feeling, you will obtain the sense tasting as a bonus.

It suddenly seems you’ll start “tasting” a lot of important extra’s; like a sense of timing, which words needs extra emphasis or what the presentation is really about and how to say this in a clear and concise way.

So, integrating the content goes quickly but you’ll also improve your presentation at the same time.

The content is no longer something that comes from outside (assembling from your head or outside yourself on a piece of paper) and first needs to simmer through a rusty pipe. No, it seems to pour straight out from you to your audience.

It COINCIDES, the CONTENT and you THE SPEAKER. And this is so incredible convincing and powerful!

So, practice out loud and look more often in the mirror!!!

Good luck!

Want to have a look behind the scenes of clear and engaging presenting?
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So, you can always deliver all the information that you want in a “connected”, clear and professional manner.

Then apply for:

Open Training: “Presenting with Impact”. Friday 27 January. 4 spots left. Learn all the ins and outs of clear and engaging presenting.
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