Presentations

Yesterday afternoon, I returned from Making the Stage with T. Harv Ecker, Blair Singer, Larry Gilman, and Zoltan.  If you are a professional speaker and haven't yet attended Train the Trainer and Making the Stage, you should check out these (and the other course offerings, as well) by Peak Potentials.  Most people start with the Millionaire Mind Intensive first (since it's free) and you can find out more by clicking the link.

I've taken quite a few of the Peak's courses at this point and I highly recommend their accelerated learning techniques as a way to keep your audience engaged and to help them retain more of what they learn.  Using these techniques kept the people who were listening to my final presentation on the last day of class on the edge of their seats.  The people listening gave me great feedback about how well I brought them along during my 30 minute presentation on getting past creative blocks.  I had also given them a minute to write down some notes about the process I led them on so that they could use it again at home and they shared what a great idea that was.  They told me that they planned to use the exercise going forward when they got stuck on a problem and how effective they thought the exercise was for anyone, not just creative folks.

Since I'm just getting started with the public speaking part of my creativity coaching business, I wanted to make sure that I would be putting my best possible foot forward as I began.  I've done teaching as a part of every phase of my 30+ year business career, ranging from introductory computer classes for department heads and their secretaries to creative projects for artists.  I've also done some public speaking, as well as appearing in print and on TV.

So obviously, I don't have many problems with the actual public speaking part of doing workshops going forward.  What I wanted to make sure of was that I would be delivering the information in a way that people who find it engaging and entertaining, while retaining more of the information I would be giving them.  The input from our instructors really helped to cement that in me in a way that I can now relax about it, since I know that I can construct the script for my workshops in a way that they'll be engaged in every part of the time we spend together.

I used to be a little nervous about doing a presentation to audiences in which I might not have too many of my target audience in attendance.  But now, I'm really excited because the people in my group weren't my target audience, but still felt that they got value out of my presentation.  Several people who heard even my early presentations were asking me where they could come to learn more about what I do.

Whoo Hoo!  What a win!  Next stop - Workshop Heaven!