Fearless Presentations

Want to calm down before a presentation? Even if you don’t regularly experience the fear of public speaking, just before you start a speech, it is easy to feel anxious. This initial nervous energy can cause a speaker to have a shaky voice, dry mouth, or sweaty palms just before a presentation. The good news is that this experience is very common. Most of the time, if you start your presentation we...

Picture this: You arrive at a concert venue to see your favorite artist. The lights dim, the crowd buzzes, anticipation builds. They finally step on stage and perform the entire set with their hands stuck in their pockets. No gestures. No movement. No visible energy. Even if the music sounds incredible, something feels off. You’re listening, but you’re not fully feeling it. The performance lacks p...

The quickest way to make people not believe you're qualified is to not believe it yourself. Saying that confidence is important certainly isn't the most groundbreaking thing to hear but knowing exactly WHY it's so important is what really gives people the push to develop it.  After last week's episode discussing why you need to have more self-confidence in what you already know...

Every speaker wants to become a subject matter expert on the topic they present, but here's the truth these people aren't realizing: Regardless of what industry you are in or what expertise you have, you are the expert. The knowledge that you have on a specific topic is valuable to somebody, and that's really all that matters. Becoming an expert on a subject doesn't come with s...

What are the most important qualities of a good public speaker? What makes a great presenter? Just what are the fundamentals of a good public speaker that allow one orator to get up in front of an audience and mesmerize the crowd while another fails? When I first started teaching the Fearless Presentations ® classes, I did so because I knew from my own experience that the more self-confident a pre...

In the past few weeks we've covered a couple of the best entry points into public speaking from wherever you're starting at, but what do you do if you're starting with nothing at all. If you're not already in an industry that is looking for more speakers and you've tried to apply to some public speaking companies to no avail, it can start to feel hopeless.  Luckily, so man...

Over the last 2 weeks I've been going over the best ways to get started as a public speaker, and today we're delving into what I think is the easiest of those ways. Speaking on topics you already know and are passionate about takes so much of the stress away. Having real pedigree in something you're speaking on and the ability to go off-hand whenever you need to is something that ea...

Last week, we went over a few of the best ways to get into the public speaking industry. There's a few different entry points and over this episode and the next couple, we'll be covering, in more detail those three different ways to get started.  The first one I'm covering is joining an already established company. If the prospect of entrepreneurship daunts you and you want to go th...

Being a professional speaker is a very lucrative and rewarding profession. But if you have never actually made money from speaking before, you may be looking into how to start a public speaking career. In this episode, we'll be starting our series on the absolute best and easiest ways to get started on your public speaking journey! Show Notes: How to Start a Public Speaking Career ( https://w...

Last week, at the very end of the episode, I mentioned that one way to make your PowerPoint Presentations better is to create a good handout for the audience. And I shared a story about a breakout session I led where I spend most of the time in the presentation using the handout as the visual aid versus the slideshow. On this episode, I'm going to go into more detail about what I did. The tit...

Last week, on the last episode of the series on the Presentation Skills Checklist, we covered how many slides to put into a PowerPoint Presentation. This week, our topic is "3 Simple Ways to Create Better PowerPoint Presentations." By the way, if you are using the techniques I outline on other episodes of the podcast, creating a PowerPoint presentation should be really easy. Basically, i...

I hope you have enjoyed the Presentation Skills Checklist series. So far, we covered how to know your audience. Next we helped you create a great presentation title. Then, we helped you organize your presentation outline. And in the last couple weeks we showed you how to add credible evidence to reinforce the points you created in your outline. The last step is to create your PowerPoint Slideshow....

If you want to be a fantastic speaker, you have to be able to make any topic really interesting -- even if you aren't that excited about it. So on this episode, I'm going to give you nine things that I call "Impact Ideas". They are different types of evidence that you can use to make your point more compelling or interesting. This is a continuation of the series we started a fe...

Great speakers know how to tell a great story. On this episode, I'll give you the five key steps of storytelling that these great speakers know and use in every single speech that they deliver. (That's hat makes them great speakers!) This is a continuation of the series we started a few weeks ago about your Presentation Skills Checklist. And over the last couple of weeks, we covered the...

A few weeks ago, I gave you my Presentation Skills Checklist. And over the last couple of weeks, we covered the first two items on that checklist, (1) how to know your audience better, and (2) how to design a catchy title. On today's episode, I'm going to show you how to quickly and easily design your speech in a whole lot less time that what most people take to create a presentation. If...

A couple of weeks ago, I gave you my Presentation Skills Checklist. And last week, we covered step one in that checklist which was know your audience. If you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode yet, the things I covered were essential in creating better presentations and reducing public speaking nervousness. Most people design presentations by creating a long list of items they cou...

Last week, I gave you my Presentation Skills Checklist. And step one in that checklist was to know your audience. Listen to any speaking coach, go to any Toastmasters, attend any presentation seminar, you will hear a single phrase over and over. “Know your audience.” Sounds really good too. When we hear the phrase, we think, “Well, of course. That makes sense.” But what exactly does “know your aud...

On today's episode, I'm going to give you a presentation skills checklist that can make designing and delivering a presentation easier and less risky. When folks go through our presentation skills classes, they are often surprised at how simple public speaking really is. That is if you have a great structure and follow a simple checklist. Before pilots take a plane off the ground, they a...

!!ANNOUNCEMENT!! We are super excited to announce the new way we will be doing our Fearless Presentations classes and if you are interested in hearing all about it I cover it pretty extensively from 2:33 - 15:32. For those that are more of our loyal listeners to the podcast, y'all probably started listening in the first place because you were wanting to reduce nervousness when you present. Of...

A few years ago, my wife and I went to see the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. When I was a kid, I remember hearing Another One Bites the Dust and We Are the Champions, but I was by no means a Queen fan. I was surprised, though, how many songs from the movie I knew every word to. But, I have to admit, the most surprising thing to me was that Freddie Mercury was a Persian Indian man who lived in England....

One of the more challenging parts of any presentation is the very first part. If you are wondering how to introduce yourself before starting your presentation, you are in good company. For most of us, once we get the first few sentences out, our nervousness will diminish pretty significantly. So, this initial self-introduction is really important. If we struggle here, our nervousness will increase...

After years of presentation coaching, one of the major things that I have realized is that many of the things presenters do to reduce nervousness actually cause nervousness. And because most business presenters deliver presentations so infrequently, those bad ideas get repeated over and over. Eventually, they become habits. So, on this episode, I'll give you the seven presentation habits that...

If you practice great presentation skills, and focus on designing your presentations on what your audience needs and wants, the last thing you will have trouble with is hecklers. However, it only takes a single mad-at-the-world heckler to quickly turn your presentation masterpiece into modern art. So, when you are rudely interrupted in front of an audience of strangers, you will want to have a str...

Welcome to 30 Tips in 30 Days! Over the entire month of November, I will be releasing a short, bite sized episode of Fearless Presentations every morning covering things that are absolutely essential to being a better presenter.  Whether you've been speaking professionally for years and years or are looking to just start your public speaking journey, applying just these 30 tips I cover here w...

Welcome to 30 Tips in 30 Days! Over the entire month of November, I will be releasing a short, bite sized episode of Fearless Presentations every morning covering things that are absolutely essential to being a better presenter.  Whether you've been speaking professionally for years and years or are looking to just start your public speaking journey, applying just these 30 tips I cover here w...