9 ways to use props for maximum impact in your presentations

I discovered this fun challenge posted by Téa Silvestre Godfrey on Facebook, to use one of these 50 bizarre stock photos to inspire a blog post title. I couldn't resist. And then I decided to go a step further and actually write the blog post inspired by the image! Thank you, woman with watermelon and gun!

Props can add humor to a presentation. They can suggest a bigger picture. They can bring shock value. And they can contribute subtext. The visual impact of a prop is its power -- your words are enhanced by props, and sometimes words are unnecessary when using props.

Here are nine ways you can incorporate props into your presentation, including some of my clients' examples that made a great impact in their presentations.

1. Take the audience on an emotional journey.

One of our Santa Barbara Fast Pitch contestants, Kim Davis of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), tells the story of a child who, at the age of six, went into foster care with nothing to her name but a few belongings stuffed into a black trash bag. Kim brings such a bag -- not even half full -- onto the stage. When she lifts that bag into the air, you can imagine the few items of clothing, maybe a small doll or teddy bear, and the sadness of a child without a permanent home. It paints a picture more powerful than words alone.

2. Bring the world to your audience.

I watched a speaker prepare for his presentation a few years ago by putting on layers and layers of clothing. His intention was to take his audience on a trip through history, enhancing his talk by revealing costumes from different time periods as he peeled away the layers. Sure, you could throw some images up on the screen from different time periods. Or you could actually wear the clothing and bring the shapes, textures and colors from another time right into the room where your audience can see it up close and personal.

3. Don't let your props throw you off.

If you've never worked with props before, you might be surprised to discover that things don't always go as you envisioned it. Maybe it takes too long to get your prop out of its container. Maybe the prop is too small and the audience can't see it very well. Maybe your prop makes a big mess that you hadn't anticipated. Maybe your prop is awkward to hold or display.

Always practice your presentation with your props. Don't just imagine how they're going to fit in, but actually pull them out and use them while you're rehearsing. The more you practice with your props, the more naturally they'll fit into your presentation, and you'll have a better idea of how they're going to work in front of a live audience.

4. Make sure your prop is relevant.

I got a kick out of Larry Winget's props when he delivered his keynote on the third night of Be the Change. Some were signs that he had swiped (again, you can put it up on the screen, but a real-life prop can be much more effective) demonstrating his point that "people are idiots," and one was a plunger that he suctioned to his bald forehead. Whatever outrageous prop he pulls out, it's always tied to his message. Can you say the same?

5. Keep it simple.

The simpler it is to use and show your prop, the less distracting it will be to your audience. Like your slides, the prop isn't your presentation; it merely enhances your presentation. Depending on the size of your audience and how far away they are, your prop can be as simple as a book, a magazine, a phone, a vegetable, or a shoe. There's no need for elaborate props -- unless you're, say, Gallagher. Or maybe you're a scientist and you're going to blow things up. Your prop should be able to make your point simply and without a lot of effort.

6. Keep it hidden.

Bob Williams, another Fast Pitch finalist, keeps his "Veggie Rescue" apron hidden under his shirt until the appropriate time in his pitch. Then he rips open his shirt, à la Superman, and reveals it. It's a great moment that always makes the audience laugh. Props work best when they aren't seen until the right moment. The surprise factor is especially effective when you're using your prop for humor. Sometimes it isn't possible to keep your prop hidden, and when your prop is visible, just know that your audience is going to be slightly distracted by curiosity. So if you're using a prop that can't be hidden, at least get to it sooner rather than later. Unless the anticipation is part of your intention. And then, well, let them stew!

7. Be absurd.

If you're using your prop for humor, consider going over the top. That is, if you want the audience to really get it, you might have to be a little larger than life. Here's an example: At a networking event I used to attend, one of the members of the group brought along a box of cables and cords to demonstrate the huge mess that many of us have behind our TVs and other electronics. He dumped it on the table in the middle of the group, and it was funny. But then he mentioned the multiple TV remotes we all have, and suggested that if we have trouble finding them, this one might be a good replacement. And he pulled out the biggest remote I've ever seen. It was hilarious.

Over-the-top enough to get a good laugh. A slightly bigger-than-normal remote just wouldn't have been as funny, even though we would have gotten his point.

8. Help the audience feel the feeling.

In the documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead," we watch Phil Staples, a morbidly obese truck driver, transform himself into a health-conscious and inspiring role model for other overweight people. Phil becomes so transformed emotionally and physically, he starts giving talks and sharing his story. At one point, he lines up six bowling balls to show the audience how much weight he's lost. I don't know exactly how much those bowling balls weighed, but I can tell you that the thought of wearing those on my body every day, and the thought of trying to move and walk and sleep and sit with those attached to me caused a strong emotional reaction.

I could almost FEEL that weight hanging off of me. It was more than an emotional response; it was a visceral one.

9. Be creative.

I have a lot of clients who come to me from fields like finance, insurance and engineering, who tell me that their topic is boring. They feel completely at a loss as to how to take numbers and data and charts and make their presentations interesting to their audience.

And they're making it way too hard on themselves.

Astronaut and recent International Space Station Commander Colonel Chris Hadfield made many videos from space, explaining a variety of issues astronauts face. One of his videos was about why it's difficult to taste food in space. His props were simple but fun: treats and snacks that had been sent to the ISS by his fellow Canadians.

Think outside the box a bit on what kinds of props would help your audience grasp your message. After watching curling in the Olympics, a teacher here in Santa Barbara devised a way to teach her students the science behind the sport by using Hershey's Kisses and rubber bands. She named the lesson "Curling With Kisses."

Hans Rosling is my favorite example of a speaker whose topics should be boring but aren't because of his creativity. Check out his new "ecological and recyclable version" of the laser pointer in the linked talk.

How will you use props in your next presentation? How are you using them now? Share in the comments!

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

How food tastes in space

Way back in 2008 I came across a video featuring Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield explaining to kids how a space toilet works.

I was impressed with the simplicity of his explanation, his use of humor, and his way of making science accessible, all in under two minutes.

Since then he's become quite a celebrity, most recently joining the Barenaked Ladies and the Chieftains in live musical performances from his post on the International Space Station.

Today I came across another of his videos, this time explaining how food tastes in space, and why it's hard to taste food when astronauts first arrive in space. Once again, a simple explanation, complete with props -- snacks sent up to the ISS from his fellow Canadians.

Science (finance, medicine, law, etc.) doesn't need to be boring to lay audiences. It also doesn't need to be complicated. If you want to get your message across to the widest audience, keep it simple. Not dumbed-down. Just simple. (Also see Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson's engaging way of talking astrophysics.)

It's no coincidence that you see a lot of these two men, and other experts like them. Which interview would you rather watch: A boring, dry, pompous scientist who can't connect with the audience and spews nothing but statistics and data, or an engaging, approachable, unpretentious scientist who's passionate about her topic and wants everyone else to feel the same way?

Want to get those interviews, conference presentation slots and public appearances? Be real, approachable, understandable and fun!

Who are your favorite science, political, legal, and medical experts who are great at getting their message across? Share in the comments!



____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

How big is 7 billion?

For a great example of how to make your stats more relatable to your audience, check out this National Geographic video about the number 7 billion (unfortunately, I am unable to embed it, so please click the link to go to the page).

In the March 2011 issue, there was a simple graphic with text examples, but the video is infinitely more fun.

When you're giving mind-number figures to your audiences, do you think of ways to make them more clear and concrete?

This CNN article attempts to give us something to grasp. Associate professor of mathematics Klaus Volper says, "The number is just outside of our usual everyday scale of thinking," said Klaus Volpert, an associate professor of mathematics at Villanova University. "We count to 10 on our fingers and that's our scale, you know? Even counting to a million is already kind of outside of the everyday experience. And then once you go past a million, it becomes a blur."

Here are some examples from CNN:

"-- Seven billion seconds ago, the year was 1789. That was the year George Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. president and Congress met for the very first time.

-- If you took 7 billion steps along the Earth's equator -- at 2 feet per step -- you could walk around the world at least 106 times.

-- Suppose an average thimble holds 2 milliliters of water. Seven billion of those thimbles would fill at least five Olympic-sized swimming pools.

-- Let's say the average human is about 5 feet tall, accounting for children. If you stack those 7 billion people end to end, they would reach about 1/14th of the way to the sun -- or 27 times the distance to the moon, Volpert said.

-- Seven billion ants, at an average size of 3 milligrams each, would weigh at least 23 tons (46,297 pounds)."

There's a bit too much "supposing" in those examples, but I think they work okay.

Now go watch the National Geographic video:

Click here to view the video.

How can you make your statistics and numbers more engaging and concrete for your audience?

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Are you willing to have your beliefs challenged?

This past weekend I attended the World Tea Expo to present a workshop on business networking. Also, to drink a ton of tea. This was my fifth or sixth time attending the conference and my second time speaking; what better way to combine two of my favorite things!

One of the sessions I attended was presented by Kevin Gascoyne, professional tea taster and owner of of Camellia Sinensis, a tea company in Canada. His presentation was called "A Step Toward Caffeine and Antioxidant Clarity." I was intrigued by this topic because there is an overabundance of information about the caffeine and antioxidant contents of various teas, and it's confusing and inconsistent.

Kevin (whose slides I hope to be showing you soon) quickly cleared up one mystery about caffeine testing in tea: Caffeine and antioxidant levels are not tested in tea that's prepared the way people actually drink it.

When people prepare tea for drinking (in case you're not a tea drinker), they first boil water, then depending on the kind of tea (white, green, oolong, black or puerh), infuse a tea bag or loose tea leaves in the water -- either immediately or after it's cooled a bit. Tea is steeped anywhere from a few seconds to five minutes, and then consumed. Many factors, in addition to the kind of tea, play into how a particular tea is steeped, including the kind of pot one is using, the amount of tea, the amount of water, the temperature of the water, and more.

To test caffeine, tea is ground up, mixed with distilled water (which one would never use for steeping as it renders tea flavorless) or other liquid, and possibly chemical compounds, and components are separated through liquid chromatography (the common denominator in both traditional research and Kevin's tests). Right there, you can see the problem. The caffeine content of tea processed in this way has nothing to do with the caffeine content of leaves prepared for drinking.

Kevin decided to hire a lab to test caffeine levels in teas prepared in the same way as we drink them, using common pots, regular water, typical steeping times and typical ratios of tea to water. He chose a couple dozen teas from his company to test.

Here's what we've all been told up till now about the caffeine content of tea: The amount of caffeine in tea is a direct result of how it's processed and its level of oxidation. This means that, in general, caffeine levels are expected to be highest in black teas, then diminish in order of oxidation levels: oolong, green, white. Puerh falls somewhere in the middle (puerh is a black tea that's been fermented after processing).

Kevin showed us that this "conventional wisdom" is FALSE. His results chart showed a white tea in the eighth position after several black and green teas. There were green and white teas all up and down the list, and black teas near the bottom. There was no discernible pattern. In fact, one first flush darjeeling was at the top of the chart, while an autumn flush darjeeling from a different area of the same tea garden was near the bottom. There was a sencha (green) high on the list and a sencha low on the list.

The purpose of this post is not to go into detail about why these teas had differing levels of caffeine (similar results were shown on the antioxidant test chart), but to point out that, for once, a speaker challenged conventional wisdom!

How many times have I heard the tired old statistic that people fear public speaking more than death -- even though there is no recent study to prove this? But speakers and writers continue to blather on about this as though there were substantial evidence to support it. Certainly, many people fear public speaking, and as social anxiety goes, it's right there at the top. But more than death? No.

In this case, Kevin took matters into his own hands, and paid for the research himself. The results were particularly eye-opening for him; he confessed to having steered customers who were caffeine-sensitive toward white tea, for example, because of the common belief that it was low in caffeine. In fact, I had gotten into a friendly argument with a fellow attendee the night before who insisted that her company's white teas had very little caffeine. But had she tested them? No.

By sponsoring this research, Kevin was willing to have his own long-standing beliefs challenged. And they were. And thanks to him (and his book where the research is published TEA: History,Terroirs, Varieties), we have all had our eyes opened.

As a result of this research, Kevin suggested that "the act of drinking tea must be appreciated for its own sake," regardless of caffeine and antioxidant quantities and that, if we're caffeine-sensitive, we stick with herbal tisanes. Sounds right to me!

If you're a speaker or writer, do you repeat the same statistics you've heard over and over, without looking into their validity? Do you continue to repeat statistics even when you can't find any proof? It's easy to play on the emotions of your audiences, and boy do we love a shocking statistic. But when your statistics can't be backed up (and these days, your audience can Google your stats while you're stating them), you are the one who ends up losing credibility.

Thank you, Kevin Gascoyne, for being willing to challenge conventional wisdom in this area. I was surprised that the session wasn't standing-room-only, but perhaps some attendees didn't want to have their worlds shaken and their beliefs tested. It's much easier to stick with the tried and true than re-educate yourself, your staff, your clients, your customers and your audiences.

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

"Memorable" doesn't necessarily mean "good"

One of my clients, a medical doctor, sent me this amusing (and slightly disturbing) story of a memorable presentation at a urology conference, which took demonstration to a whole new level.

If you question whether this really happened, there are references at the bottom of the blog post.

Read it here: How To Give An Unforgettable Talk

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Michael Erard: In praise of verbal stumbles

I enjoyed this essay on Slate.com by Michael Erard, author of Um... Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean. You have to imagine that I'm going to like an article that backs up my view of "ums" and "uhs" NOT being the downfall of civilization as we know it.

Here's an excerpt:

"People have been pausing and filling their pauses with a neutral vowel (or sometimes with an actual word) for as long as we've had language, which is about 100,000 years. If listeners are so naturally repelled by 'uhs' and 'ums,' you'd think those sounds would have been eliminated long before now. The opposite is true: Filled pauses appear in all of the world's languages, and the anti-ummers have no way to explain, if they're so ugly, what 'euh' in French, or 'äh' and 'ähm' in German, or 'eto' and 'ano' in Japanese are doing in human language at all.

In the history of oratory and public speaking, the notion that good speaking requires umlessness is actually a fairly recent, and very American, invention. It didn't emerge as a cultural standard until the early 20th century, when the phonograph and radio suddenly held up to speakers' ears all the quirks and warbles that, before then, had flitted by. Another development was the codification of public speaking as an academic subject. Counting 'ums' and noting perfect fluency gave teachers something to score."

Enjoy the article, and if you want to know what I think about "ums," here's a blog post or two.

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

TEDxUCLA: The good and the great

I had the privilege of attending TEDxUCLA this past weekend. With spots for only 400 people and a dazzling roster of speakers, the event quickly sold out. So I got up early and hightailed it down to Los Angeles for a day typical of a TED or TEDx conference: chock full of innovative ideas, amazing art and music, creative expression and, oh yes, the occasional thud of a dull speaker.

First, I'll describe what was good and great about this conference, both in its conception and in the quality and ability of the speakers. Let's call these the "DOs."

1. DO: Acknowledge the tweeters, texters and typists

When I got my information e-mail from TEDxUCLA with the guidelines of the day, I first felt a little offended. "What? Anyone using electronic devices has to sit in the last three rows? Well, I never." Or something like that.

However, when I arrived and discovered that the auditorium was actually rather intimate, I realized that the last three rows were not so far from civilization. And as the day went on, I appreciated being surrounded by others taking notes on laptops and iPads. And I'm sure the rest of the audience appreciated not having our typing sounds interfere with their enjoyment of the day.

This was a win-win for speakers (who don't have to look at downturned heads typing away while giving their presentations) and audience members alike (who felt at ease to freely type, surf the Web looking up bios, and tweet out to followers without getting dirty looks from surrounding neighbors).

I also enjoyed the projections on the front walls of individual hashtags for each speaker. Every #tedxucla tweet went out accompanied by a hashtag for the speaker, which can then be searched later. Brilliant.

By the end of the day, I had met, had followed and had been followed by several fellow Twitter users that I never would have met otherwise.

2. DO: Encourage audience interaction

From the stretch breaks with "the wave" and flying beach balls to the Michael Newman introduction which included "Get out your smart phones," the most engaging presentations of the day were those which included the audience.

As in most of the TED talks I've ever seen, there tended to be very little interaction between speakers and audience. I don't know why this is the case; I don't know why TED speakers are encouraged to lecture rather than converse, but thankfully not all of the speakers of the day took heed of this tradition.

3. DO: Use compelling visuals and examples

The speakers at this conference had some of the more effective examples and images that I've seen.

Photographer Rachel Langosch showed slides of her young students' photos documenting their world; it was much more powerful than if she had just told us how her students took to photography.

Andrew Byrom used images to demonstrate how he went from designing typefaces to creating 3D sculpture based on typefaces, to building utilitarian objects from the same typefaces. The progression of his work was clearly laid out in his visuals. I beseech you to visit his site and look at his designs; they're unbelievable. Here's a (not-great) photo I took of one of his creations (hint: they're tables and benches in the quad outside the Broad Auditorium).

Eddo Stern, after describing how games and play can improve our mid-lives, showed a series of videos that completely challenged my concept of computer games. I had been a little resistant to his talk at first, but his examples opened my mind.

And I'll never forget Jimmy Lizama, who used stories from his own life, costume changes, facts about the environment, community and economy, and intriguing and humorous images to share one message: Get out of your car and onto your bike. He even gave us homework for how to do it. He's not just telling us what to do; he's living the life. He's not just promoting a different lifestyle; he's passionate about and committed to it. He made a huge impact on me.

4. DO: Tell stories.

The speakers who had the biggest positive effect on me were the ones who told stories. I've already mentioned a couple, above, but I don't want to leave out the best storyteller of the day (via 2001 TED talk video): legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

Just watch this video (even just a few minutes) to see what I mean.

Wooden told stories of his own childhood, of his dad reading poetry aloud on the family farm by the light of a coal oil lamp. He told stories of his students and players. He shared his philosophy of success, which was the basis of his talk: "Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best that you are capable of becoming." He shared the life lessons and rules he imposed on "the youngsters," a direct result of his father's teachings. He recited poetry from memory.

He was profound, smart, humble and funny. It was a great treat to see this talk from a great man.

5. DO: Use humor

Many of the speakers incorporated humor into their talks, but one stood out for his well-thought-out enhancement of a technical topic: Leonard Rome. Rome is a researcher who talked about his work with "vaults," minute barrel-shaped particles within our cells that can be used as drug-delivery vehicles for chemotherapy and vaccines, among other things.

His visuals included vaults which turned into hot dogs (after a mention of the resemblance), Homer Simpson representing a cancer patient, scenes from the movie "Fantastic Voyage," a picture of Minnie Mouse (as he described a female mouse immune to chlamydia), and many other humorous and simple images which helped the audience to understand the nanosystems he was describing.

He shared his initial impulse to call the vaults "Roma-somes," but wisely went with vaults instead. He expressed his desire to one day be able to say "Take two vaults and call me in the morning."

He made a topic that could have been overly technical and hard to understand (and to be honest, it still was, to some degree), fun and engaging.

On a side note, I also want to give him props for giving his colleagues props. When talking about new discoveries and contributions by colleagues, he generously named names.

6. DO: Offer solutions

It's one thing to talk about a problem and give stats and explain how bad things are. It's another thing to offer solutions that audience members can actually participate in and relate to.

Sometimes I listen to a speaker and I'm not sure what their purpose is, what they're trying to achieve, but this was not a problem with Jimmy Lizama, who told us exactly how to get out of the car and onto the bike; Yoh Kamano, who explained simply and clearly how we can use social media more effectively during natural disasters by geo-enabling our phones (and also included the audience tweeting #helpmeted to participate in his demonstration); or Stefan Sagmeister (via TED video) with the message, "If you have a lot of friends, meaningful friendships, or are married – you are more likely to be happy." Speakers who gave solutions to the problems they presented were more effective and felt more relevant to my life.

Overall, the conference was well done.

The lengths of the talk alternated between short, medium and long, and the topics/speakers also alternated between technical/scientific, environmental, creative, musical, political and medical.

Most of the speakers were interesting and engaging, and seemed to have some experience speaking or some training.

The auditorium was just the right size. It felt intimate, but was able to handle a large crowd.

The final act of the day was a real-time performance joining musicians live-streaming from Seoul, Korea with musicians in the UCLA auditorium, presented by CultureHub. It was incredibly moving and beautiful to be part of such a collaborative international experiment.

I can't wait till videos of the speakers and performances are posted online, so I can share all of these great presentations with you!

I will follow up this post in a day or two with my take on what TEDxUCLA could do better next time.

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

How I lost it and got it back again -- and how you can, too. Part 4

It's a complex organ, that crazy brain

I've appreciated all the comments and e-mails I've received from readers in the year since I started my panic attack series, and I wanted to give you a final update (at least here on the blog) and share how things are going, now two years past the date of what I affectionately refer to as "my nervous breakdown." (Catch up by reading parts 1, 2, and 3.) For those of you who also experience panic attacks, this may sound familiar to you.

2010 was all about acceptance. Or resignation? Let's go with acceptance.

There was the presentation I gave where, as the conference room doors closed behind me, I was suddenly overcome with panic and the urge to flee. I started to jump out of my chair. For what? Maybe to pop a quick Ativan? Problem was, the host was already introducing me and my bag was directly behind him.

Instead I turned around and quietly asked the person who closed the door if he could open it a little "for some air." I managed to get up -- like I always do -- and knock down the presentation.

There was that time when seven of us crammed ourselves into a minivan for a ride from the hotel to the conference, when I became overwhelmed with fear and had to do everything I could, mentally and physically, to keep from leaping out of the car. I ran down my calming measures:

Bottle of water (my #1 security blanket)? Check. Lean forward so I'm not cramped by the others around me? Check. Tell myself there's plenty of space and it's only a short drive? Check. Distract myself with conversation? Check. Breathe? Check.

There was the time, standing outside on a hot day, waiting for an event to begin, that I thought I would flip out if I didn't get out of the heat and find something to drink. After some respite in a shady spot, I headed to the women's restroom to splash water on my face. On the way, I found a vending machine with bottled water. Saved.

By the way, I totally get how silly this probably sounds to someone who doesn't get panic attacks. Anxiety from being too hot? Believe me, I get it. It seems like a ridiculous amount of overreaction to a minor discomfort. Yep, that's exactly what it is. Completely irrational. And that's why it sucks so much.

There was also the time when I sat at a table in the middle of a hot, noisy, crowded restaurant (the kind of place that first set me off 20 years ago), and I tested myself. "Gee, it's hot in here," I told myself. "It's awfully crowded." Knowing that these are typical triggers for me, I poked and prodded myself mentally. "Are you hot? Are you claustrophobic? Can you stand the noise and the crowd?" And the answer was yes. I felt completely fine and in control.

2010 was all about discovering who I am now, acknowledging myself as a person with panic attacks, and how I deal with that reality and live my life knowing there could be a trigger around every corner -- but also getting on with life and not thinking about it every minute!

There was a period of months in 2010 when I thought I might have licked the attacks. But that just wasn't the case. When I found myself too busy, too stressed, with too little sleep and exercise, it was almost a guarantee that I would, with the right trigger, get punched in the gut with that familiar electric jolt that makes me want to jump out of my skin.

So now I test myself. As in the example above, I check in with myself when I'm in a situation that would be a typical trigger: hot, noisy, claustrophobic, crowded, enclosed. How do I feel? Am I going to be caught off-guard by my circumstances and freak out? What are my options? Can I go outside? Can I drink some water? Can I find a space to clear my head? This has proven to be a successful tactic, and 100% of the time, when I check in with myself this way, I prevent an attack.

But there are still those times when I'm hit with that unexpected body blow. And this is enough of a threat to keep my anxiety quietly revving in the background (sometimes the anticipatory anxiety -- the anxiety about potential anxiety -- is worse than the panic attack).

In a heavy rainstorm, hubby made an offhand comment/joke about our water-damaged ceiling caving in. Something about the idea of the ceiling, water pooled into a small reservoir waiting to burst, sent me flying from the couch into a familiar pattern of agitated pacing, looking for escape. Fear of drowning? The burdensome image of heavy water over my head? I don't know, but once again I was startled by the intensity of the physical reaction, before my brain even had time to think.

This is the lizard brain at work, the part of the brain that processes emotions and controls autonomic (involuntary) responses associated with fear. Here's a little science for you:

---

"­The brain is a profoundly complex organ. More than 100 billion nerve cells comprise an intricate network of communications that is the starting point of everything we sense, think and do. Some of these communications lead to conscious thought and action, while others produce autonomic responses. The fear response is almost entirely autonomic: We don't consciously trigger it or even know what's going on until it has run its course.

Because cells in the brain are constantly transferring information and triggering responses, there are dozens of areas of the brain at least peripherally involved in fear. But research has discovered that certain parts of the brain play central roles in the process:

Thalamus - decides where to send incoming sensory data (from eyes, ears, mouth, skin)
Sensory cortex - interprets sensory data
Hippocampus - stores and retrieves conscious memories; processes sets of stimuli to establish context
Amygdala - decodes emotions; determines possible threat; stores fear memories
Hypothalamus - activates "fight or flight" response

­T­he process of creating fear begins with a scary stimulus and ends with the fight-or-flight response." ~ Discovery Health

And more:

"According to the Public Health Service, about 50% of mental problems reported in the U.S. (other than those related to substance abuse) are accounted for by the anxiety disorders, including phobias, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety. Research into the brain mechanisms of fear help us understand why these emotional conditions are so hard to control.

Neuroanatomists have shown that the pathways that connect the emotional processing system of fear, the amygdala, with the thinking brain, the neocortex, are not symmetrical -- the connections from the cortex to the amygdala are considerably weaker than those from the amygdala to the cortex.

This may explain why, once an emotion is aroused, it is so hard for us to turn it off at will. The asymmetry of these connections may also help us understand why psychotherapy is often such a difficult and prolonged process -- it relies on imperfect channels of communication between brain systems involved in cognition and emotion." ~ LeDoux Laboratory

Check out this fascinating and easy to understand series of articles about the brain and fear!

---

As 2010 went on, and I became familiar with this new reality, it finally dawned on me that I'm done trying to fix it. I've done all the work I can do, I've got more tools than ever, I've researched the heck out of this thing, I'm healthier and stronger than I was two years ago, and infinitely more self-aware thanks to the excellent work of my therapist. Maybe my panic attacks will never go away. And you know what? Lots of people have physical and emotional baggage and "issues" -- and this is mine.

I realized then that it was time. Time to stop therapy, time to stop analyzing every instance of anxiety, and time to acknowledge that this is the way it's going to be.

I had my last appointment with my therapist almost two years to the day that I started seeing her.

I don't avoid the places or situations that trigger my attacks (oh, how I wish I could avoid the MRI machine...). Avoidance just makes anxiety more powerful. I keep going back, keep testing myself, keep pushing myself to focus on my tools.

Freaked out in Pirates of the Caribbean in 2009... conquered it in 2010. Avoided elevators in 2009... piece of cake in 2010. I hate crowds, but I immerse myself in them. I'm uncomfortable in hot stuffy rooms, but half of my presentations take place in them!

My prevention tools are plenty of sleep, healthy eating, exercise, positive attitude, and avoiding stress. My in-the-moment tools are water, coolness, space, movement, thought-stopping, distraction, and as a last resort, Ativan. (I wrote in more detail about these tools in Part 2.)

It's been a fascinating learning experience and a window into my own psyche and the brains of so many others who share this disorder (or condition, or whatever you want to call it).

For the first time since December 2008, I'm not in any kind of treatment for panic attacks. It would be heaven to be completely free of them and maybe I will be one day. But for now, I'm happy, I'm healthy, and I'm in control of my life -- and I'm okay with this one minor annoyance that pops up now and again.

Thanks for reading this series and I hope that, whatever your challenge is, you'll face it head-on and gain strength from the fight.

Previous posts in the series:

Part 1 Falling apart
Part 2 Tools and techniques
Part 3 Meds and moving on

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

17 locks

A friend of mine is one of the top computer security experts in the country. He's part of a team of professional hackers and researchers at UC Santa Barbara that was recently interviewed in the Santa Barbara Independent.

While the article was fascinating and gave a rare inside glimpse into the world of cyber crime, I have to confess that my favorite part was Giovanni's "17 locks" analogy. From the article:

"So why not just build computer systems that are 100-percent secure? Because it's impossible. This is largely related to the balance between security and ease. Theoretically, everyone could use exceedingly long and complicated passwords on computers that offered very few features (since every application offers a new way for hackers to enter your system).

'Think about 17 locks on your car,' said Vigna one evening at Santa Barbara Brewing Company, the first place I met all three of UCSB's hackerazzi together. 'Would you buy a car like that?'"

The reporter spells out in detail the argument against more secure computers, but in one brief sentence, one razor-sharp analogy tells us everything we need to know about why computers aren't 100% secure, in a way that the majority of people can understand instantly.

A good analogy is a powerful thing in a presentation. It can make your point in a second, and is usually much more effective than a long, drawn-out explanation. However, the best analogy supports a more detailed explanation, as demonstrated above.

A strong analogy is almost guaranteed to make your points stick in the audience's minds, like this one will stick with me -- probably forever.

If you're not sure how to come up with analogies for your presentations, check out my previous post, "Three steps for adding analogies to your presentations".

More analogies and tips here:

Use analogies to make an impact

Favorite analogies

Don't crash and burn

Does your presentation taste as good as it looks?

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

"King of the Icy Bodies" - Intervew with an astrophysicist

I'm going a little overboard lately with the videos of scientist speakers. What can I say? I get a kick out of super-brainy people who are able to make their messages accessible to a wide audience, and actually express their true excitement about science. It's not something you see every day, unless you're in third grade.

This is an interview on the Rachel Maddow Show with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium. He's the astrophysicist responsible for demoting Pluto from planet to "icy body" (although it's now "King of the Icy Bodies" instead of just the puniest planet, according to Tyson.) He's also author of the book, "The Pluto Files," on which the documentary of the same name was based.



If you can't see the video, click here.

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Curling with kisses: How a teacher engages the audience

"When Santa Barbara Junior High School science teacher Marilyn Garza watched curling for the first time during the Winter Olympics, she saw an avenue for teaching her students about friction and gravitational forces.

With images of curlers sending granite stones down lanes of ice, Garza devised a way to show her students the science behind the sport by using Hershey's Kisses and rubber bands. She named the lesson 'Curling With Kisses.'" ~ Daily Sound

Remember your junior high school science teacher, toiling away to come up with activities and experiments every day to make science fun and engaging? What did your other teachers do to help you understand concepts you were learning for the first time? Use analogies so you could relate those concepts to your life? Use demonstrations? Show videos? Create activities for you to do alone or with a partner or group?

I shared my high school geometry textbook in a post here a while back. The teacher was a huge drag, but the book managed to make geometry fun and interesting.

In fifth grade, I was learning critical thinking skills through debate, thanks to Mrs. Lopez. The topic: Which is more damaging, fire or water? Which side do you think I took, as a ten-year-old contrarian?

I had a high school Spanish teacher (Mrs. Couturier) who, when our class was scheduled before lunchtime, would go with us to the dining hall and have us all sit together speaking Spanish for the duration of the period. Not reciting or reading from textbooks, just conversing.

I had a grad school professor whose group projects included having us apply the program's education principles to a mock business we created.

Another grad school professor had some students literally climbing the walls in an activity designed to teach us how to "let go." Was it a powerful and engaging activity? So powerful that some people were too scared to participate.

Not all teachers are great, but most of them spend hours and hours each week preparing activities and exercises to encourage active learning. There's always a way to make your topic more interesting!

What have you learned from teachers that you can apply to your presentations?

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

The good, the bad and the just a'ight: TEDxSB Part 2

Continuing on in my TEDxSB series, today I'm going to talk about the speaker "don'ts" I saw during the course of the conference. Tomorrow look for some speaker "do's" and reviews of my favorite presenters from the event. Read part 1 here and part 3 here.

Curse of Knowledge

Nowhere is the curse more dastardly than at a conference on a college campus with speakers who are college professors and scientists.

A few of the day's speakers forgot (or never realized in the first place) that they would be presenting to an audience of mostly laypeople. They lectured at us as though we were captive students who already knew something about their topic. (Not being captive students getting graded on attendance, I know of at least one person who left at the break due to boredom.)

They showed slides packed full of text, tiny images and content like "www based 2048 processor global computing grid, no downloads: write lots of new software!" Whaaaa?

As a speaker, it's critical that you put yourself in the audience's shoes. Remember what it was like before you knew what you know. Imagine what it must be like for an audience to hear about your scientific research for the first time. Is it clear? Is it understandable? Is there a logical flow? Is your content relevant to the people in the audience?

In the case of a couple of speakers, the answer was no. Not that their material couldn't be made relevant. It just wasn't presented in a way that made me care about it.

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad slides

Is it too much to ask that a presenter take a few minutes and review the readability of their slides? Apparently it is.

Slide after slide, speaker after speaker, dense dense dense. Illegible text, incomprehensible images, acronyms, logos. I want to tear my hair out and scream "Why?!" The slides make no sense. They have too much information for me to process. I can't follow the slides and also listen to the speaker. I get more and more confused. Eventually I give up trying.

You might be thinking, "Lisa, why don't you just listen to the speaker and forget about the slides?"

1. Our brains don't work that way. We are visual creatures and our eyes are drawn to visuals. We can't help ourselves.

2. The speaker has to be interesting enough to hold my attention. If they aren't (and they weren't), my attention will wander... to the visuals.

Not rehearsing with the equipment

Several speakers had problems with their computer, their remote, and their microphone.

One speaker held the microphone at arm's length throughout her presentation. There were regular delays while presenters tested the microphone instead of just speaking (you'll find out soon enough if it's on). One speaker kept pointing the remote at the screen instead of the computer and then wondered why the slides wouldn't move.

All of this confusion could easily have been avoided if speakers had practiced and become familiar with the equipment beforehand.

No audience engagement

A couple of speakers droned on and on about their topic without the slightest shred of passion, humor or energy. A few people stayed tied to the lectern and barely moved at all. Several speakers read directly from their notes enough that it became monotonous. One speaker was completely canned and memorized which, while there were some good parts, did make her seem robotic.

I typically talk about audience involvement as a big part of audience engagement. Unfortunately, there was no interaction from any of the speakers, which was a shame. The best way to get people to buy into your cause is to include them in the discussion.

However, there were speakers who were clearly excited about their topic and were able to convey that excitement to the audience. There were speakers who had energy, movement, and conviction, speakers who made us laugh and made us ponder.

But only about half of them.

I'm going to end today's post with a TED video that was shown at the conference. Rachel Armstrong discusses her work with "metabolic materials" -- "construction materials that possess some of the properties of living systems, and can be manipulated to 'grow' architecture."

Notice how, right away, she describes the problem. And then very quickly moves on to describing her work and the solution. Not all of her language is easy to understand, but she makes up for it by showing examples of the application of this technology to the rotting wooden piles upon which Venice is built.

Notice that there are no data slides. No graphs or charts. Just images which she explains as she shows them. And then she summarizes her main points, in case there was something you didn't catch. And all in 7 and a half minutes. Science presentations don't have to be complicated, incomprehensible, or dull!



If you really want to see a scientist having fun, Hans Rosling's TED presentations are must-see.

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Doodling can help your audience concentrate

Download audio here.



"You know you're bored when you start shading in the squares of your notebook. Apparently it's a habit that could be helping you to concentrate."

In a recent article on the BPS Research Digest blog, a study is described in which subjects were asked to listen to a dull phone message, without memorizing it, and then write down some details from the message. Half of the partcipants were asked to doodle while listening, by shading in squares and circles on their note paper.

"Afterwards, the doodlers had noted fractionally more of the correct names (7.8 on average vs. 7.1 - a statistically significant difference). What's more, moments later, the doodlers also excelled in a surprise memory test of the guests' names and the places mentioned in the message, recalling 29 per cent more details than the non-doodlers."

More research needs to be done into how and why the brain behaves this way, but it backs up anecdotal evidence that "secondary tasks aren't always a distraction from primary tasks, but can sometimes actually be beneficial." Read the full article here.

So remember, when you notice that guy in your presentation who never looks up from his Blackberry, he might be remembering what you said better than the woman next to him!

Here are two previous posts that touch on the same subject:

Is your audience paying attention?

Reading your audience

And here's a post on how toys are helpful to participants:


Toys and candy, a speaker's best friend

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

A tough room

Download audio here.



We enjoyed a lively show by They Might Be Giants yesterday afternoon. What we didn't realize when we bought our tickets was that it was a family show promoting their latest children's album, "Here Comes Science" (4:00 did seem a little early for a start time). The audience was full of kids wearing balloon hats and carrying balloon swords, picked up at the family festival before the show.

Last week, TMBG was interviewed in our local weekly, and one question stood out to me about the difference between audiences of adults and audiences of kids.

Independent: You're playing both adult and family shows during this tour. How would you compare them?

TMBG: I'd say the main difference for us as artists is that the kids are a little bit of a tougher room. They don't worry as hard about how we're doing.

Adults want you to succeed onstage. It makes them nervous when the band isn't going over, so they'll bump up the enthusiasm with feedback. They also observe these formal rules of a concert: They face the stage, and they applaud at the end of the song, and they don’t talk during the song because that’s what makes them comfortable. Kids don’t have these same concerns. [Laughs.]

For some of them, you're just what's going on in the room, and they're not all that worried about it being a successful show. They might not applaud, or they might be facing the other way, or they might be talking to their friend … or on the floor. But then there are a lot of young kids who come right up to the front and pump their fists and sing along to all the songs.

It's kind of exciting, actually, to think that we might be introducing kids to rock music or to live concerts. There might be kids out there for whom this is their first live show, and that’s really cool. That’s an important memory.

Watch the video below not just for an introduction to one of my favorite songs from the show, "Meet the Elements," but for an example of a visual that is fun to watch, easy to understand and sticky for how memorable it is! (Lyrics are below.)



Iron is a metal, you see it every day
Oxygen, eventually, will make it rust away
Carbon in its ordinary form is coal
Crush it together, and diamonds are born

Come on come on and meet the elements
May I introduce you to our friends, the elements?
Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade
They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are

Neon's a gas that lights up the sign for a pizza place
The coins that you pay with are copper, nickel, and zinc
Silicon and oxygen make concrete bricks and glass
Now add some gold and silver for some pizza place class

Come on come on and meet the elements
I think you should check out the ones they call the elements
Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade
They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are

Team up with other elements making compounds when they combine
Or make up a simple element formed out of atoms of the one kind

Balloons are full of helium, and so is every star
Stars are mostly hydrogen, which may someday fill your car

Hey, who let in all these elephants?
Did you know that elephants are made of elements?
Elephants are mostly made of four elements
And every living thing is mostly made of four elements
Plants, bugs, birds, fish, bacteria and men
Are mostly carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen

Come on come on and meet the elements
You and I are complicated, but we're made of elements
Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade
They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are

Team up with other elements making compounds when they combine
Or make up a simple element formed out of atoms of the one kind

Come on come on and meet the elements
Check out the ones they call the elements
Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade
They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Cognitive load -- and overload

Getting back into the swing of things today! It's nice to be home.

I want to bring your attention to these slides from a talk by Dr. Chris Atherton from the University of Central Lancashire. She talks about the brain's limits of attention and cognitive load, and how we can work around these limitations to make the greatest impact on audience attention and retention.

In short: Traditional slides loaded with text, bullets and clutter don't work! Yep, more research to back up the need for less text and more images. Yay!

Like any good slide show, these visuals are not meant to stand alone. You can get the gist of the presentation from the slides, so do take a look, below. But then head over to Olivia Mitchell's blog, where she has explained the research more thoroughly with the help of the slides and with Dr. Atherton's comments. This is a presentation I would love to see live!

Here's an excerpt:

"Chris suggests that the sparse slides may minimize extraneous cognitive load by creating fewer competing demands on attention — that is, because we don’t need to spend very long processing the visual elements, we have more attention for what the speaker is saying. She adds:

'Having anything on a screen invites people to look at it, the same way their gaze would keep returning to a TV screen in a pub. Since you can’t control the audience’s visual attention, it’s all about controlling what visual information you make available at any given moment, and minimising what is there so it’s not distracting from the spoken narrative, while also ensuring that it is congruent with what you are actually saying.'"

Chris Atherton at TCUK09

(Thank you for your support over the past week. If you'd like an update on my mom, I wrote about her here.)

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

There is no such thing as a dry topic

I've heard from my clients who are engineers, finance people, doctors and scientists that their topics are dry and boring, that their audiences want tons of data, and that there's no way to make their presentations interesting.

They could not be more wrong.

A topic is dry when the writer or speaker makes it that way. Let me share the example of my high school geometry textbook.

The book introduced two characters named Obtuse Ollie and Acute Alice. They would perform experiments that were analogies for the math problems we were trying to solve. The interaction of these two characters was just one example of the kind of humor and engagement that the book used. Here's one of their challenges (make sure you're on page 317):


Geometry: seeing, doing, understanding By Harold R. Jacobs

This textbook uses art by M.C. Escher, Peanuts^® cartoons, games (including a math game from a 1917 paperback), graphic design, a measure from a musical piece by Bach, the image of a batter's swing, stories, examples from history (tapestries, a silver vase, bridges, etc.) and more.

I was never a top math student, but this class was one of my most enjoyable and most memorable -- and not because of the teacher. This book made all the difference in my interest and ability to learn geometry.

I sat with a client last week who was going to be giving a presentation on cloud computing, a technical topic for an audience who was going to be new to the concept. Going through his slides, I noticed that he had a slide that spelled out the definition of cloud computing.

I suggested he interview people at the conference in the day before his presentation and ask them what they thought "cloud computing" might mean. Then, in the presentation, use the more confusing or humorous responses as definitions of what cloud computing is NOT. That way, he could kick off the talk with some light humor to get the audience engaged before he got into the nitty gritty of the topic.

As a speaker, what stereotypes about your topic are you clinging to? That science can't be interesting? That finance is boring? That insurance puts people to sleep? You can change that. It just takes some creativity, some willingness to challenge the status quo and, as always, your own passion for your topic.

You bring the energy. You bring the enthusiasm. You make it what you want it to be. I'll say it again -- there is no such thing as a dry topic!

Share your examples of presentations you've seen or given that broke the mold of a typical dry topic.

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Audience's facial expressions affect our language

BPS Research Digest recently published an article on how the facial expression of a listener affects the way the speaker uses language. Here's an excerpt:

"Audiences differ. Talk to one person and your words are welcomed by a smile and nod of acknowledgment. Speak to another, less winsome listener and your words are confronted by a frown and folded arms. According to Camiel Beukeboom, these different responses systematically alter your use of language. Speak to a positive listener and you'll likely use more abstractions and subjective impressions, whilst if you talk to a negative listener you'll probably find yourself sheltering in the security of objective facts and concrete details."

I find that I do work harder to prove my points when audience members looks skeptical or closed-minded; when the audience appears to be "with me," smiling, nodding, accepting, I tend to go in a more emotional direction. I'm curious now to observe my future presentations more closely for the above-mentioned phenomenon.

Have you ever experienced this -- consciously -- as a speaker?

Read the full article here.

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Mehrabian myth busting -- animated!

Here's a clever animated video discussing the constant misinterpretation of Albert Mehrabian's communication research. Very entertaining! Here's my original blog post on the topic as well.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dboA8cag1M

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

PowerPoint effectiveness based on research

Here's a helpful post on Jennifer Kammeyer's blog Comm Comm, compiling research on what makes PowerPoint effective.

It's a great little cheat-sheet to have when, for example, you're trying to convince your supervisor of the superiority of a sentence at the top of the slide rather than a word like "results."

There are a lot of theories about what makes PowerPoint effective and some random formulas and rules like 10/20/30, but there's also solid research. Check out her blog and also her website for more on PowerPoint research.

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Images are not fluff

I've heard this several times from clients who've come to me for help with their slide shows: "My boss/conference organizer/client wants me to take all the images out of the PowerPoint. He says they're 'fluff.'"

This comment always irritates me, but what else should I expect? Long ago, in a land far, far away, someone decided that a presentation could not be taken seriously unless it was accompanied by a PowerPoint chock full of text, bullet points, charts, data and citations. Someone decided that we can't call it "work" unless we wish we were somewhere else.

Because images, colors and visual stimulation are okay for little kids, but once we're grown up, there is too much danger of enjoyment breaking out if we don't follow the rules of serious presentations. And we all know a presentation is no good if we're enjoying ourselves too much.

So let me post again some resources on making your PowerPoint more effective with more images and less text:

New research about PowerPoint titles

Why you can't read slides and listen to a speaker at the same time

Is the font on your PowerPoint big enough?

Jennifer Kammeyer's Comm Comm blog on PowerPoint research

Laura Bergell's post "Slides are not handouts"

Cliff Atkinson's book, Beyond Bullet Points

Garr Reynolds' book, Presentation Zen

And let me remind you that the best way to help your audience retain information is to serve as many learning styles as you can. The more you can do to reach your audience members in the ways they learn best, the more likely they are to remember your message.

Here are some resources on learning styles:

Learning Styles and Preferences

Learning Styles Explained

Learning Styles and Strategies

And for fun, here's a post from Chris Spagnuolo's Edgehopper blog about librarians reading to children at story time, and what you can learn from them.

The way we learn as children is still valid once we're adults. Don't fool yourself into thinking that the more statistic- and text-laden your PowerPoint is, the more effective it will be. Sure, you'll be taken seriously, but your audience will be bored out of their minds. And they'll remember very little.

Others may call it "fluff," but images and other kinds of visual, auditory, verbal and physical stimulation will keep your audience focused on you and your message, not using your presentation for every child's all-time favorite part of school: nap time.

____________________________________________________
On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!