Last week we spoke about stepping into your nervousness and owning it as a superpower.
It can be a significant paradigm shift, but it doesn’t necessarily remove all the anxiety related to giving a presentation.
I get it, anxiety can be (and is) crippling. I’ve been there myself many times.
In the lead-up to a big presentation, there is usually a lot going on and you will be required to coordinate the many moving parts… all while you’re trying to keep yourself together!
We’re all under pressure to deliver the best presentations, with immaculate storylines and designs. Let’s also not forget the reality of last-minute changes from key stakeholders 👉 i.e. your manager 🤬
So how can we reduce some of the anxiety and free your mind to focus on the presentation?
Presentation anxiety typically stems from two main sources:
- The Presentation Delivery: Will your message land and get the desired outcome?
- The Technical Setup: Will your presentation display and work the way you need it to?
As if worrying about slide design and storyline wasn’t enough?!?
The Presentation Delivery
This is typically the main source of anxiety.
Have we done enough to get the presentation to the right level for the audience to take action? Will it be delivered smoothly and capture the audience’s attention?
The quickest fix to any presentation delivery anxiety is to do lots and lots of rehearsals.
Whether you do practice sessions alone, with a team member or in front of a mock audience… make sure you get enough reps in. The speaker notes section of the slide can be a fantastic lifeline here. Write out your script and practice it until it sounds natural.
Besides rehearsal, be clear on who will be in charge of advancing each slide (whether it is the speaker themselves or a central person) and who will take notes during the session. Taking notes while presenting and having to answer audience questions can be overwhelming – having help here is essential.
The Technical Setup
Often causing many a presentation-day heart attack 😵
Technical setup issues typically hit you out of nowhere and can end up in panic just minutes before you’re set to go on stage.
I’ve been in situations where the venue didn’t have internet access and I ended up running outside to download my slides from cloud storage with my phone. Then there were times when the connectors for my laptop to the projector didn’t work. Or the time when there was a central machine that controlled the venue setup and not a USB drive in sight for me to load my presentation onto it.
This and other technical issues tend to strike on the day of the big presentation.
Not only are our presentations high stakes, but with so much out of our control I often wonder why we continue to put ourselves in these situations with PowerPoint 😂😂😂
The Pre-Show Checklist
Don’t worry… with so many years taken off my life due to presentation-day panic, I have your back with a handy Pre-show Checklist.
This is a checklist that I created to help cover often overlooked situations in the lead-up to big presentations. It will ensure that your presentation admin is taken care of and that you can breathe a little easier on the day.
🎁 As a newsletter subscriber you get access to the Pre-show Checklist here
I hope this checklist helps you as much as it has helped me over the years. If you have any points to add please drop me a reply to this mail and we can add it to the checklist 😊
Good luck and have fun sharing your work!
Is there a particular area in communicating your work that you currently struggle with? Let me know with a reply and I will create a lesson just for you 🏆
That’s all for Edition #18 folks. Hope you have a fantastic week!
✌️ + ppt
Fareed.
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