Talking With Your Hands

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 presence, connection, and impact. You leave entertained (maybe), but not moved.Whether or not you use your hands as a tool to command a room can be the difference between an impactful presentation and a forgettable one. Talking with your hands is a form of nonverbal communication that won’t replace your words, but can determine how your words are received.This week, Roma steps in for Doug to share everything she knows about presenting physically and using the full range of you to give a presentation. Learn what to do with what body parts when and why!Show Notes: Talking With Your Hands: How Positive Gestures Instantly Improve Your Presence on Stage(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/talking-with-your-hands-how-positive-gestures-instantly-improve-your-presence-on-stage/)

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, this week we're going to talk about displaying that confidence. Believing yourself good enough is completely different than showing that you're good enough and both parts are required to give the idea that you are credible. So stick around and learn just how important displaying confidence is and some tips on how to go about doing it. Show Notes: People Judge Your COMPETENCE by the CONFIDENCE That You Show(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/people-judge-your-competence-by-confidence-that-you-show/)

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 some magical recognition of feeling worthy, an expert is just a person knowledgeable enough about something to speak and teach it. Many of us think just because we have more to learn that the knowledge we already possess is useless.In today's episode, I'll be going over how to grow confidence in the knowledge you have, permeate that confidence so people trust you, and navigate situations where you don't know something and still want to maintain credibility. Show Notes: How to Prove You’re an Expert (Even If You’re Not)(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/you-are-the-undisputed-expert-so-now-prove-it/)

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 presenter appears to an audience, the more respect that the audience will have for that presenter. In addition, chapter one of my first book on public speaking was about enthusiasm, because I knew that out of all of the qualities of a good public speaker, enthusiasm was the absolute, most important.Over the years, though, our instructors have worked with over 20,000 presenters. Some had a natural presence in front of groups. Others, however, had to develop presentation skills in order to be perceived as being a great public speaker.Find out what what qualities every great presenter from those 20,000 had in common and how you can start incorporating them into your own life!Show Notes: 7 Qualities of a Good Public Speaker Every Presenter Needs(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/7-qualities-of-a-good-public-speaker-that-every-presenter-should-know-and-emulate/)

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 many of the best speakers out there started exactly from where you are right now. Stick around to hear exactly how those same great speakers got out of the rut of beginning!Show Notes: Start Your Own Public Speaking Company from Scratch(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/start-your-own-public-speaking-company-from-scratch/)

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 eases the anxieties like nothing else. Stick around and hear how to make that transition from being someone who's knowledgeable to someone who can also share their knowledge.Show Notes: Become a Professional Public Speaker by Speaking within Your Current Industry(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/become-a-professional-public-speaker-by-speaking-within-your-current-industry/)

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 the more hands off/luck-based route, this is really your best option. There are a few big pitfalls many trip into and a few simple things they never seem to do when taking this road, and by the end of this episode you won't have to worry about either of those things!Show Notes: Become a Certified Speaker for an Established Presentation Company(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/become-a-certified-speaker-for-an-established-presentation-company/)

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://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-start-a-public-speaking-career/)

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 title of the episode is Create the Perfect Presentation Handout.I'm going to give you three progressively more difficult ways to design a handout. The first one, by the way, is the one that almost everyone does, but it is by far, the absolute worst way to create a handout.And if you stick around until the last tip, I'll explain in detail how I was able to make sure that the participants in that breakout session I mentioned in the last episode actually kept and used the handout that I provided for them. It take a little more time to design, but the result are phenomenally better.And, by the way, since the podcast is audio based and handouts are very visual, I created a handout on how to design better handouts that you can download from the show notes. If you download that handout and use it as a visual aid for the episode, the ideas will make much more sense.Show Notes: How to Create the Perfect Presentation Handout(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-create-the-perfect-presentation-handout/)

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, in a presentation, less is more.But on this episode, I give you my top three tips that will help you kill your next presentation. First, we cover how to design your presentation first, then create your slideshow. Next, I show you how to use examples from real-life to add credibility to the text on your slides. Ad then, finally, I show you how to create collateral content -- things like handouts -- that can help your audience understand and retain the content of your presentations better.Show Notes: 3 Simple Ways to Create Better PowerPoint Presentations(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/three-simple-ways-to-create-better-powerpoint-presentations/)