The lights dimmed as Larry took the stage. It had been six months since he’d gotten the big promotion, and this was his moment to shine.
Larry knew from painful feedback that people found him “wooden”—a nice enough guy, they said, sharp as a tack. But not exactly relatable. So Larry hired a coach and got to work.
Larry architected a perfectly logical presentation of the messages he wanted his audience to understand. His assistant put together a slick PowerPoint deck. His wife bought him a new pair of trousers. The night before the speech, he practiced it all the way through, twice.
Onstage, Larry nailed his lines (albeit with the help of his “courtesy monitor”). The slides were lovely; the trousers perfect. But the feedback did not change: Larry was a stiff.
Larry hit his marks, but he failed to connect because he was not authentic. Don’t be Larry. Here’s how to be yourself instead.
Deliver narratives, not facts
Great presentations are more theater than lecture. Audiences long to be entertained and to feel emotion. They want stories—character-driven narratives that bring your lessons to life and embody your insights. Plus, they want to get to know you.
To craft compelling narratives, first look inward, to the truth of your personal and business experiences. Find the dramas that underlie your values and beliefs. Ask questions such as: “What problems did we struggle to overcome?” “Who really mattered and what did they do?” and “What were our defining moments?”
Sharing real-life experiences is better than projecting pie charts and platitudes. Stories let your audiences learn your lessons for themselves. They also reveal your temperament and disposition. They make you real.
Master more than just your words
If you’ve ever frozen in fear beneath the hot glare of a spotlight, you know how deceptively difficult it can be to deliver the goods with ease, honesty, and color. Your audience might be digesting one word at a time. But you, the presenter, need to negotiate four tricky mental tracks all at once.
Track 1 is hard enough: simply stating a cogent thought. You’re presenting a complex idea and you want to articulate it in a way that makes sense. Then comes Track 2, which is remembering the message that comes next. This is often where the nightmares happen, in the terror of drawing a blank and losing your bearings.
Assuming you don’t flub your lines, you still have two other tracks to manage. Track 3 is the physical one: controlling your body, your movements, your gestures. This track is frequently relegated to the unconscious, in which case your anxiety and stress can inadvertently get projected. And finally, Track 4, the hardest and the most important, is where you read the audience’s responses as they happen, and make adjustments accordingly.
The better prepared you are, the more tracks you’ll be able to handle when it comes time to stand and deliver. Try to wing it, and you’re likely to crash and burn on Track 1.
Practice, and practice again
Once your narrative is set, the formula for success is simple. The more hours you put into practice, the more authentic you’ll be.
If you’ve got a high-stakes 20-minute keynote, plan to spend 20 hours. More if possible. Practice in front of as many test audiences as will tolerate you, and really listen to their feedback. Record yourself on video and watch it (perfect for avoiding the pitfalls of Track 3). Practice when you’re driving and showering, when you’re stressed and distracted.
The goal is not to memorize your lines. It’s to become so intimate with your material that the details and the flow become available to you like happy memories, never taxing your mind. This frees up the brain space required for that critical Track 4: internalizing the audience’s feedback and adjusting your delivery as you go. When you own your narrative, this is far easier to do.
You can’t quantify authenticity. People simply know it when they see it. The good news is, it’s within you. Dare to be original, to share a bit of vulnerability, and to do the hard work of preparation. Your audience will love you for it.
