Here’s How To Avoid Drawing A Blank In The Middle Of
Your Presentation
These four techniques can keep the tumbleweeds from rolling through your
brain while you’re in the spotlight.
You’re halfway through your talk, and so far it’s going great. You
feel confident, and your audience seems to be responding. Then, out of nowhere,
your mind goes blank. Crickets. Tumbleweeds. The crushingly dark, noiseless
void of outer space itself.
“What was I going to say here? Oh my God, I’m blowing it!”
If you’ve been in this situation, you know how awful that feeling
can be–and how hard it is to shake off and regain your footing. So what can you
do to prevent these mental wipeouts from happening in the first place? A few
things, in turns out:
1. DON’T OVERSIMPLIFY
Yes, keeping it simple enough to be digestible is a smart
public-speaking strategy in most contexts, but there is such a
thing as going too far. For instance, if you try searching for just
one word or phrase that describes a few different ideas, you may not actually
hit on the right one. As a result, your thoughts get convoluted, twisted
together–and your mind has to unravel each idea and then try
to tie them all back together again.
Not long ago, I was working with a client whose mind went blank
during a recent presentation simply because he “couldn’t find the right word.”
When I asked him to describe what he was thinking about during that desperate,
futile search for simple language to encapsulate everything he was trying to
say, he told me he was thinking about three things:
1.
That his company was large;
2.
That they “insource” their business on occasion;
3.
And that insourcing was starting to become a trend in his
industry.
That’s a lot of material–it’s no wonder his mind went blank! He
was trying to compress three related yet distinct ideas into a single-phrase
sentence. What he really needed to do was address each of these points
sequentially, rather than try combining them into just one turn of phrase. When
you’re preparing for a presentation, pin down each of your main ideas first,
then search for straightforward language to convey them.
If you try to oversimplify things, you may find yourself
struggling to find it while all eyes are on you.
2. NEVER SAY HOW MANY POINTS YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE
BEFOREHAND
You should probably avoid telling your audience how many points
you’re going to be making. Once your listeners have a number in their heads,
they’ll start counting. If you forget which point you’re on, you’ll encounter
that dreaded awkward silence as you try to remember where you left off.
Similarly, if you’re discussing your strategies, for example,
don’t say “first of all,” “secondly,” “third,” etc. Just say, “One of our
strategies,” “Another one of our strategies,” and so on. Avoiding these simple
numerical turns of phrase can help you prevent your mind from blanking because
you’ve forgotten where you are in the sequence.
3. DON’T END ON PRONOUNS
You also want to avoid ending your points with pronouns like “it”
or “that.” For example, if you’re discussing specific reasons why you chose one
approach instead of another, don’t say, “. . . is one of the reasons we decided
to do that.”
Pronouns like “that” are too vague for public speaking. Once you
start explaining yourself, you could end up forgetting what “that” was
referencing to begin with. Instead, keep naming the thing you’re tempted to
replace with “that” or “it”–and don’t be afraid of sounding repetitive
when you do. Repetition is actually a handy device for reminding both you and
your audience what you’re talking about.
So if you can avoid ending your points with pronouns, you’ll
reduce the likelihood that you’ll forget what you were in the middle of saying.
4. KEEP UP WITH YOUR OWN RHYTHM
You can’t get stuck when you stumble. I’ve seen so many
speakers go through this cycle: First, they mispronounce a word. Then they
think about how dumb it was that they mispronounced the word. And finally,
their next thought is completely wiped out.
To make it through the wipeout, you need to reconnect with your
rhythm. Step one is simply to breathe. When you breathe, you can get your body back in sync, and your thoughts will flow. Remember, the connection goes both ways–mind to body and
body to mind. So if you can stay in sync with the rhythm of your talk, you’re
less likely to lose your place to begin with.
Drawing a blank every once in a while is normal and happens to
everyone–it doesn’t mean you’re a bad speaker. The real mark of a good speaker
is knowing how to make that happen less often and to recover quickly when
it does, and these four techniques can help you do both.
BY ANETT GRANT
https://www.fastcompany.com/40478112/heres-how-to-avoid-drawing-a-blank-in-the-middle-of-your-presentation?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Daily&position=7&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=10092017
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