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This week’s DARE at a glance:

Every week, you get to DARE with me: take a Decision, try a new Action, share your Result and Evaluate the impact.

Your Decision, Action and Result: I’m still on holiday so Part 2 of my top tips for presenting like a pro. How to not be upstaged by your own PowerPoint, make your audience fly, and what to do when the words dry up.

I hope you had a fantastic week and, in the northern hemisphere, are enjoying some spring rest.

I’m having a two-week break with friends and family. To ensure proper recovery and family time, I will not be writing a newsletter.

Instead, I am offering you my take on the differences between professional and amateur presenters which I prepared earlier this year.  Today, we conclude the list.

How are you scoring so far? Are you a Pro or an Amateur? 

When I return from the Alps, my film crew and I go directly to the Comedy Store to prepare my new presenting course – DARE: to speak. I’ll share photos from the filming with you in next week’s newsletter. Or you can follow me on instagram to join us at the Store next week. 

Meanwhile, as the new US administration shifts from ‘I will deliver peace in a day’ to ‘we have other things to focus on’, I’ve been reflecting on the nature of commitment, both personal and public.

Richard Dunwoody MBE, one of the greatest jockeys of all time, and a consistently high performer even after leaving elite sport, taught me a great (and rather humiliating) lesson on this topic. When we return to High Performance next week – I’ll share Richard’s lesson on commitment with you.

Now, I want to tell you a story…

Difference #5: Storytelling

You remember that the Pro is going onstage to generate emotion, change perspectives and create action? Well, storytelling is our secret weapon in achieving that aim.

At least it was until just then when I let the cat out of the bag.

Please don’t tell my competitors, but when I present, I go far, far beyond ‘just’ using storytelling to engage and inspire.

I make it my business to have YOU create your own story of your future as I present. 

I make YOU the hero of my presentation.

I give you the tools to change your PERSPECTIVE and make your story of your future as liberated, powerful and ambitious as possible. I even take you to the future to briefly encounter your mortality to find the urgency and potency that generates EMOTION, and committed ACTION.

Pros are in the storytelling business. Amateur presenters, on the other hand, demonstrate and impart knowledge. They may even use some jargon to assist in that (ever played corporate bingo on the table at the back?).

If you want to learn how to use storytelling to inspire your audience, get in touch. I have already given away far too much competitive advantage here.

Difference #6: Leading With Your Body (55% of the impression you make).

Eye Contact: My number one ‘stagecraft’ priority on stage is using my eyes to engage with the tribe. All of them – and for long, confident gazes, not fast movements. I can see them lean in, and feel them engage as I do so.

We give away power (show submission) when eye contact is fleeting or worse, is directed at the floor or screen.

Stance: Your positioning onstage, and how you stand and move up there, matters.  Forget ‘power stances’ and move towards authoritative positions on the stage. Don’t stand to the side and give PowerPoint the stage. We came to see the leader: you.

Stand still from the hips down. Rocking, slouching into one hip, walking in a tiny area – all of this is submissive behaviour.

Luckily for us professionals, 95% of the amateurs we present alongside will hide behind the lectern all day long.

When we walk centre stage and engage our tribe with full humanity, we change the dynamic of the entire day! It’s an easy win – and it is available to you too if you can find the courage to be uncomfortable and lead.

Difference #7: Leading With Your Voice (38% of the impression that you make)

The most wonderful art form is the use of your voice to transfer energy and emotion and a new perspective!

It is simply too detailed to work on here (fully covered in the new course) Our voice reveals and transmits our internal state, it is closely linked to our breath, of course. It is your instrument. It is, quite literally, your VIBE!

A major difference between the professional speaker and the amateur is that we are using our voice as an instrument to engage, inspire and lead the room.

Difference #8: PowerPoint Is Your Enemy.

The amateur starts their preparation by opening PowerPoint to ‘write a presentation’.

They then project PowerPoint centre stage and stand humbly to the side of the room. They then tell you what they wrote on the slide you just read (whilst you open TikTok).

The professional starts by going for a walk or pulling out a notebook and pen to think deeply about their audience, their message, their desired outcomes, about the ‘poetry’ (how we can use words, stories, imagery and rhythm) and how to build a shared experience that generates emotion, energy, a new perspective: and action.

You, your energy and your stories are the star. PowerPoint use usually reverses this ordering and distracts from you (which most presenters adore as it delivers comfort by projecting submission).

Difference #9: Mind Reading

Try reading the minds of your colleagues today, of your family and friends this evening. Of course, you cannot. Ask them to read your mind. Of course, they cannot.

Amateurs tend to assume, in the moment onstage, that the audience are mind readers.

They assume that if they have a momentarily loss of confidence, or of content, that the audience can see this. They cannot. They do not know. Stay cool, tell a little story, drink water. Gather your thoughts.

And you cannot read their minds. If a person looks at their phone whilst you speak, perhaps they are awaiting their child’s medical results? A big deal decision? Making a note of something you said?

If they yawn, were they up all night with a sick elderly parent? Having a wild party?

Relax. It’s not all about you.

Difference #10: Get You On Their Side

Some presentation skills ‘gurus’, who are rarely professional speakers, will tell you to:

‘Get them on your side’ early on,

Professional speakers do not ‘get them on our side’.

Presenting is not about you. It’s about your audience. Doing something honest and truthful that captivates, moves and ignites them.

Try this instead: “Get you on their side.”

Now once you are on their side, and they really know it, you can ask them to follow you into pioneering action, and there is a high chance they will follow.

Just imagine the response if your CEO did that when s/he spoke. Imagine the response if the whole audience knew that YOU were on THEIR side: whether your audience is your Exec team, the catering team or a kids soccer team.

To use the new cliché (and the only time I will be using it) now your words ‘hit differently’.

In Conclusion:

For the amateur it is all about THEM! (Safety, promotion, status). For the Professional it is all about the AUDIENCE – because only through creating emotion, energy and a new perspective in them do we get paid.

Make it about your audience, not you, and you will not go too far wrong. And, ironically, they’ll love you all the more for it in return.

My ‘DARE: to speak’ High Performance Presenting Course launches on 28th April

 Write your story 🖋️

Jim