Tell me if you've been there.
It's ten minutes before your presentation begins and...
Your heart is POUNDING.
You are praying for an internet outage, natural disaster, or an emergency fire drill.
Your palms are sweating and you're having difficulty catching a full breath.
If so, you, my friend, are in Presentation Panic Mode. It's a terrifying place!
Thankfully, there is no good reason for you to stay there.
Call the Presentation Police and get yourself to a safe place...the exact same place you're in actually, simply with a different strategy. Enter the 3 P's of Presenting. Use these three tips to calm nerves, build confidence, deliver with executive presence, and even receive accolades for doing so.
1. Prepare. There are a variety of ways to do this, so here are a few of my favorites. Know your material inside and out. For several of your key points, do additional research. Have more information than your audience does and know that you know your stuff. Check who will be in the audience and anticipate their questions...or even ask them in advance. Familiarizing yourself with your material and your audience are incredibly effective ways to prepare.
2. Practice. Do you know on average how many times TED Talk speakers practice their talks? Care to take a guess? It's TWO HUNDRED times. 200! And it shows. That which appears to come naturally does not without plenty of practice...out loud, using the technology that will be accompanying you, and even in front of allies.
3. Presence. Be present, in fact, aim for what I like to call Relentless Presence while giving your talk. Oftentimes what trips up an already shaky presenter is not staying in the moment, but rather trying to think so many steps ahead that she loses sight of what's in front of her. It's like driving a car blindfolded...very dangerous and scary! Make an agreement with yourself. Write 'Presence' somewhere that you'll see it. Presence = Power = Successful Presentation Delivery!
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