The bumper sticker on the car in front:
“You laugh because I am different.
I laugh because you are all the same.”
Nice.
I was a child of scientists. I have a degree in some sort of traditional science. Both my daughters are scientists. Science runs in the fam.
So, my quick rant on evolutionary survival science is this:
We pay attention to “different” because it will kill us (think of a twig snapping in the woods). The “same” doesn’t. It is safe and BORING. We don’t pay attention to same.
As speakers we can use that hard-wired tendency to create interest. Different grabs attention. And we can use it in so many ways.
Different tone – loud versus soft.
Different gestures.
Different delivery – lone presenter versus showing a quick video. Or lone presenter versus an interactive exercise.
And maybe the best way to be different is to have a contrarian point of view.
Many of you on my list know of the great contrarian Alan Weiss. He has actually mellowed a lot since I first started following him. Although I think I am still on his bad side. He has made a wonderful career out of being cranky and contrarian. It is his natural state.
People follow him and send him oodles of money because he has a different take on things. That take is not so off the path that it doesn’t make sense. But it is a different way of looking at the world.
My contrarian view is that as presenters who want to get better, we often focus on stage skills. How we act and look and sound and move. How confident we are. To be sure these are important things. They should be mastered or at least improved.
But I have often thought that all that falls apart when we have a train-wreck of a speech. Unorganized. No through line. Way too much information. And the biggest deficit – little or no quality rehearsal.
My course focuses on that. Create a perfect presentation (for you) and you will become better just by having it in your tool kit. Your confidence will soar. And your skills in front of the room will dramatically improve.
The best carpenter is only as good as his tools. You need better tools. You need a killer speech. So good (and maybe with a little contrarian twist) that they cannot ignore you.
So, don’t be the “same presenter”. Be brave. Be different. https://ready2speak.com/course
Tom
