Present Perfectly: Mastering the Art of Impactful Presentations
Have you ever risen to the challenge to give a talk or speech to a large group of people. If you have, do you remember it?. You might remember it as a very stressful challenge… your heart starts beating fast, you sweat and your mouth goes dry. In this article we will speak about reducing the stress level and giving a great presentation
1.Prepare
- The first and the most important thing is preparing. It is so important to learn a lot about the topic you present. Make some notes so they can remind you what to speak.
- Keep your presentation simple so it is good of the presentation takes about 20 minutes. Give time to prepare for it and pay attention to your body language, visuals and voice.
Don’t memorize what you should say because while speaking you may forget something and be trapped.
2.Keep the audience’s attention
- Use visuals, interesting images, slides, photographs, drawings, videos. It makes your presentation simple and people will understand the topic easily. But remember! giving too much information is not good.
- If you want to attract your audience’s attention you should have a strong begging and telling anecdotes or story is always a good idea. Rise interesting questions, show statistics, make statements that will shock the audience.
- Take time to listen to the speeches of famous public speakers like Martin Luther king Jr., Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and study the trps they use during a presentation. But if there is a person in your surrounding who is also a good public speaker and him/her to be your mentor.
- Be careful to the needs of your audience and before telling them any information and yourself a question “What can make the learning process enjoyable” or “ What information does my audience really need”. Don’t always stay on the same place of the stage, sometimes move.
- Don’t speak too loudly or too calm, balance your voice to be nice to your audience.
3.Stay calm
- Breathe slowly and use your time wisely. Imagen your audience is feeling comfortable and you will stop nervous. If it is your first presentation it is usual to feel stressed. But is stress really bad for you?.
Many people believe that stress is bad for you. But it is only harmful if you think it is. This is stated by Social stress Test.
During the Social stress Test two groups of people were asked to perform a series of stress_producing actions such as an exam while the instructor shouted “faster! faster! That’s bad!. But the first group was not told anything. The results showed that dry mouth and fast breathing heart are ways to prepare for challenge. The group that wasn’t told anything had signes of blood vessels damage. But the other group was normal, as if they were not told anything and not under stress at all. The results have been confirmed by other tests. So stress is what you think about stress.
