The Presentations Japan Series

Zen Presenting

Zen study is a way to strip out all of the non-essentials in life. The noise, the distraction, the things that are not so important. People sit around concentrating on their breath c…

Bailed Out By The Brand

My eyes are closing. I am struggling to stay awake. There is something about this presentation that is not working. I thought, it must be me.   I must be tired. Later howeve…

Crazy Things Smart People Say

Education can be a barrier to intelligence sometimes. This is often the case with people educated in very hard skill disciplines. They are asked to absorb vast amounts…

How To Captivate Your Audience

We can speak to a group and then there is another level, where we try to captivate our audience. What makes the difference. The content could even be the same but in …

The Danger Of Longevity

Sometimes you see a confident presenter really bomb. It doesn’t happen all that often, but when it does, the contrast is vast. If they are totally hopeless and they bomb, we…

Job Well Done

When you see someone do a very good presentation, your faith in humanity is restored. There are so many poor examples of people killing their personal and professional brands with poo…

Pink Elephant Your Way To Influence

Don’t think of a pink elephant. Did you think of one when you read that sentence? It shows how easily we can we swayed by images. If I had said don’t think of th…

How to Make A Magnificent Acceptance Speech

You want to promote your business or organisation, so that you can be more successful. A genius idea pops up amongst the brain trust over a few drinks af…

Do Your Homework

I was at a speech recently, given by a very prominent person, an extremely experienced speaker, to a very prestigious audience. It should have been a triumph, but it was a fizzer. …

Nerves Are Not Needed

Speaking in front of others makes many people tongue tied and nervous. They struggle to get through a simple presentation, internally, in front of their colleagues. A public a…

Let’s Be Clear

Most talks and presentations we hear, we cannot recall. Why is that? We were there presumably because we had an interest. The presenter no doubt made an effort to share something of …

How To Rehearse Your Presentation

Every performance is better when practiced beforehand and presenting is no different. We don’t do it for a multitude of “good” reasons, none of which abrogate the …

Pizazz Baby, We Need More Pizazz When Presenting

Pizazz is one of those unusual words, that sounds kind of cool, but is a bit vague. In presenting terms, we are really looking at being more interes…

Own The Space And Work The Room

Getting up in front of people is confronting for a lot of speakers. Beady eyes are boring into you, a sea of serious faces is scary, the lights are painfully bright …

Hard and Soft When Presenting

It is so easy to become “Johnny One Note” when presenting. We get locked into a modality of voice and body language power. We just keep hammering away with that mode t…

Boris Johnson’s Lessons On Public Speaking

As the Foreign Secretary for Britain, Boris Johnson gets a lot of practice giving speeches and fielding tough questions. There is the temptation to say,…

Knowledge + Skill + Attitude

Highly knowledgeable people are often at a big disadvantage in business. They have expertise and experience. Their opinion is sought after, they have high personal leve…

The Power Of Passion When Speaking

Formulistic presentations tick the boxes, but don’t ignite much enthusiasm in the audience. Yes, the key points were covered, the time was consumed, people heard …

Clueless Smart People

Japan is an interesting place. So many things here are ultra modern, high tech, totally nuanced and sophisticated. You take it for granted that your refrigerator door opens fr…

Lawyers Need To Be Good Presenters, But Don’t Know It

Lawyers are smart people, but sometimes do self-defeating things. They are discovering that unlike the “good old days”, there are many service …