My Journey to Great Presenting
My presenting skills were first shaped at an early age, but they weren’t always met with the most eager of audiences. I was raised in a religion in which sharing our message door-to-door was important. As one might imagine, showing up uninvited to someone’s home to discuss religion doesn’t always bode well. Nonetheless, we were expected to practice, to prepare our presentations to the best of our ability, even working through what they would look like if met with conflict. No matter the outcome, our goal was to inform those that answered their doors. The Oxford English Dictionary defines inform as a means to:
Give someone facts
Tell someone information
Training to speak to strangers on their front stoop wasn’t the only early indicator of my love of presenting. I come from a theater family. Many of my aunts grew up doing plays and then went on to do community theater. As a kid, they would bring me along to their try-outs and next thing you know I found myself on the stage. I was so little I never thought of it as scary. It was fun! And I continued my involvement in theater through middle school and high school.
Now, the religious involvement I mentioned earlier wasn’t so keen on extracurriculars when it came to kids. Thankfully, performing was the one area my mom felt comfortable enough to bend the rules for. Like her sisters, she’d grown up involved in the theater, and maybe seeing me involved brought back happy memories of her own childhood. Whatever the case may be, I was grateful for this.
I learned from an early age that the key to great presentations is practice. Step one, raising your hand to say, “Yes, I’ll take the opportunity to share my message in front of an audience.”
As I continued to say yes to these opportunities, I also watched my mother prepare speeches to practice for going door to door. She was sharing information, yes, but the intent was to persuade. She would consider all the possible questions an individual may have so that she could be sure to answer them well. The Oxford English Dictionary defines persuade as a means to:
Cause someone to do something through reasoning or argument
Cause someone to believe something
Through her, I learned that sometimes practicing means more than memorizing lines or establishing good posture. It can also mean researching your audience and addressing counterarguments.
Later, as I had more occasions to present, I began to understand that persuasive speaking isn’t always the answer. In that religion, my mom was speaking to convince, to communicate beliefs in the hope others would have cause to believe them too. But later, experience would show me the power of speeches to relate. The Oxford English Dictionary defines relate as a means to:
Make or show connection between
Identify with
I would use the power of a presentation with the intent to relate on my 30th birthday. I invited all my mom’s side of the family to a restaurant – nine aunts and uncles with spouses and kids in tow. We were a large group. After we ate and I’d blown out my birthday candles, I stood up to thank everyone for coming. My intention was to connect with these humans that have been such a support to me throughout my life. Later, I would pull from this example any time I needed to identify with an audience – whether they be family (like giving a speech at a wedding) or colleagues (like leading an all-hands meeting) or strangers (like motivational speaking).
Looking back, I can see that maybe it was connection and relating that was missing when I first knocked on a door to share a message on a neighbor’s front stoop.
Now, whether the goal of my presentation is to inform or persuade or relate, I like to infuse a little of all three.
To share what I know and speak from personal experiences.
To encourage action or a new belief.
To show whomever I’m speaking to that I’m a human too; that all of us are connected.
Ultimately, I believe that it’s the convergence of all three that makes a great presenter!