What’s another good way to keep my presenting skills from becoming awful?

Jan 16, 2010

What’s another good way to keep my presenting skills from becoming awful?

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book “How To Give a Pretty Good Presentation” (Wiley 2010)

Use them as frequently as possible. I know that you don’t love to give speeches and you aren’t a preacher who is going to put speaking skills to use every Sunday morning. But try not to let your speaking skills rot away from disuse. If you only play golf once every five years, how good is your golf game. However, if you play golf once every three weeks, at least you know, more or less, how you will do next time you are on the links. I’m not suggesting you spend every free night giving speeches at the local toastmasters club, but once every 3 or 4 weeks, you could look for some opportunity to speak out. It could be giving a toast in front of 6 friends at a birthday party. It might be asking a question at a school board meeting. Or just volunteering to say the pledge of allegiance at school convocation.

Every time you speak in front of more than a person or two, it helps your body and mouth condition itself to surviving the nerves and tensions associated with giving presentations.

If you sit in a chair for a whole year without getting up once, imagine how difficult it would be to stand up and walk across the room after a year. Your legs would be wobbly and weak. It’s the same with giving presentations; if you wait a year in between presentations, you will also be wobbly and weak. You might not be an Olympic class runner now, but you can most likely walk across the room easily now because you practice walking every day. I’m not saying you have to give a presentation every single day, but the less time in between presentations—any presentations—the better.