With great power comes not so great stomach-churning slide presentations. PowerPoint gives us toys and we beat each other up with them — they feed into our most primal weaknesses.

Let me explain by way of example: Many years ago, my wife and I were visiting the Chattanooga Aquarium with our two young children. I highly recommend Chattanooga and it’s aquarium by the way. What I don’t recommend is sending your 5 year-old daughter into the gift store with the innocent sounding instructions to “pick something”.

After an excruciating amount of time with much frantic discussions (actually arguments and yelling) we finally decided on one of the thousands of stuffed toys.

It was a horror show.

This is remarkably similar to what happens when you give a normal, responsible adult the power to apply any of the millions of transitions and animations in PowerPoint. It is beyond their ability to control. After all we are but simple creatures.

My advice: Do not “zoom”. Do not “push”, “split”, “reveal” or “random bars”. Or any of the others.

Unless you are a Pixar animator put down the mouse and accept the fact that you can’t handle this type of insane power.

Two quick suggestions.

1. Try adding a simple “fade” transition between slides. Shorten it up to about .25 seconds. It’s nice.
2. If you must use a particular transition or animation, do it only if it adds to the meaning of your content.

Don’t overdo it. Be aware that what you think is cool is very quickly perceived by your audience as childish, amateurish or down-right nasty.

Remember, PowerPoint was created by evil sorcerers. Be very, very careful.

There is an incredibly valuable resource available for almost nothing to anyone who wants to take the leap and become more able and confident at public speaking.

I am speaking of course about Toastmasters – that ancient organization originated in the last century by men who wanted to drink and talk (or so legend says).

Today Toastmasters is so much more. There is very little drinking (although I did sample some single malt Scotch and a glass of excellent homemade brew at past meetings) and it has become a very popular world-wide organization.

There are many reasons people join Toastmasters. I joined to become better at pitching my graphic design services to potential clients. And thus, began a long journey to become a speaker and then a speaker coach. So I also owe much to my Toastmaster’s start and to the people who have graciously helped me along the way.

To be sure, there are a number of Toastmasters practices and inadequacies I take issue with and I might just rant about one or two of them if I wake up in a uber cranky mood some day.

But for now, let’s talk about what I see as its most obvious benefit. The greatest value I see to average ordinary folk incoming to the Toastmasters groups I have belonged to is very simple.

They get to practice (and therefore get better) in front of a very gentle and supporting group of people.

This builds better speaking skills and, most important, confidence.

And we all know confidence is the key to the golden door of happiness and success in life.

So my advice to anyone starting out, whether you are an extrovert or introvert, look for a good Toastmasters club (unfortunately there are many that are not up to snuff) and jump in.

They are generally a safe place to get better. And we all need a safe place to get better.

I needed to fix the door latch on my daughter’s very old Toyota Sienna. So of course, I quickly ran to the wisest person I know to ask for advice – Captain YouTube. I shuffled through a few videos and found what I wanted. Then of course I went to Amazon and ordered the necessary part.

Then there was a problem. It was for the wrong door. (I know, I never claimed to be mechanically inclined – just cheap). The part I reordered in the green that looked like it would match my daughter’s car did not.

Anyhow, it worked – it opened the door and added a nice two-toned effect to that side of the car.

The point is sometimes we are, as Ben Franklin could have said, “penny wise and pound foolish.”

Sometimes, it is good to learn things on our own. But if we are to become really good at something — let me put in a shameless plug – we need help.

Maybe a coach. Not for your home minivan repairs.

But maybe for your next speech.

You are right. This speaking thing is difficult.

Your stomach hurts. Your knees feel weak. You just know you are going to forget something. You are asking yourself “Why on earth would I put myself through this? Again?”

And yet you do. You are preparing to step in front of a group of your coworkers. People who know you. Who sometimes, let’s admit it, judge you. And whose opinions you respect.

Yikes. Why are you doing this?

Well, there are a bunch of reasons.

One might be that you want to connect, you want to communicate. You want to talk about your project.

Another reason might be that you want to be that person, even though you may be an introvert, who steps up and represents your team, your organization.

A real important reason might be that you saw that universal fear in you — that all too common fear of public speaking — and said, “Not me.”

“I am not going to let my fears, especially that fear, determine me.”

If it were easy everybody would do it.

The truth is everybody else is too lazy (it is hard work) or too chicken to do it. Too lazy or too wimpy to face the fear of speaking in public.

So, this speaking thing is the perfect opportunity for you.

Yipee. I’m with you. https://ready2speak.com

Well, maybe a philosopher would. That’s ok. Especially if you are speaking to philosophers. Go ahead and sell them all the philosophy you can manage.

But for regular people…

Sell them solutions. What problems of theirs can you solve.

I was just binge listening/reading Ben Settle, the marketing misanthrope. As I was starting to doze off, I caught him saying “People don’t buy philosophy, they buy solutions to their problems.” I had to replay that a few times.

Brilliant advice for marketers. And for speakers.

Everyone wants to be entertained. Everyone likes to explore the inner tick-tock of their brain. They love to watch TED talks and discuss how to look at a rainbow.

But what they really want is for some little nugget of truth that they can take home and solve whatever problem they might have.

So, by all means, tell them about the philosophy, the reason why you are who you are and why you are so passionate about your topic. This will validate that you are indeed the world’s greatest expert on whatever you speak about.

But if you don’t give them some real-world solutions for their problems you are missing the big deal here.

They are looking to you for solutions not philosophy.

Real-world solutions for real-world speakers here: https://ready2speak.com/course