15 Things to do before a Presentation

"The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public." —George Jessel

It is uncanny how public speaking can make almost anyone feel uncomfortable. In the past we have explored how preparation (Simple, Unexpected, Story) can make a world of difference. However even the most confident of speakers can feel butterflies before a talk - even a talk they have given hundreds of times. The key is to harness these feelings and make the butterflies work for us. The following Business Insider article looks at 15 things we can do to make that happen. The entire article is worth a read. We wanted to touch on a few of the points. 

Remember and live up to the 3 Audience Truths

• "This audience believes I am the expert."  This is especially true in Balika and Bal Mandal. However even in Kishori/Kishore/Yuva Mandal this can apply. You have read the syllabus, done your home work (SUS). So at the very least, the material is fresh for you. You are also the expert in your opinion and point of view.
• "They want me to succeed." Nobody wants a boring sabha. Everybody wants you to do well because that means they are engaging in something of value. Samp is not relegated to basketball and team building activities. Samp is also rooting for you to give an amazing talk. Even the apathetic of audiences will be happy if your talk goes well.
• "They don't know what I'm going to say." If you forget a prasang or don't say everything exactly as you planned - nobody will know. (Yes the karyakars that previewed your talk will know, but they REALLY want you to do a great talk - it's their seva - so they will be the ones who are most forgiving).

Take several deep belly breathe
Pranayam - it works.

Practice the first (few) minutes of your talk
Nerves tend to dissipate as our talk goes on. If we are going to choke it is going to be right at the beginning (I once messed up the Jai Naad when giving a talk). If we nail the first five minutes - the rest of the talk should follow with flow.

Smile

We never believed this one until we tried it. Smiling relaxes us when we are most stressed. Guy Kawasaki has written a whole book about it, which expounded the idea that true (duchenne) smile is indicated by crows feet at the side of the eyes. More recently Kraft and Pressman replicated an earlier study showing that forces smiling reduces stress. (They made subjects bite chopsticks whereas the previous study had them bite pencils).

Graphical Ramayan

This week we will try to combine the principles of Made to Stick and Resonate in creating a sticky talks that resonates with our sabha audience. It maybe beneficial to re-read the follow posts here an here to review the main points from those two books. The topic from the syllabus is the Ramayan, and we will look at one option. See if it works for you, or better yet, take these ideas (and the ideas in the blog) to make something even better - and share that with us.

Everyday Ecstasy

Simple

Everyone has sorrow in life, even Ram Bhagwan. However, he was always happy. Those who focused on him, had sorrow in their lives, but they too were always happy. We have the same relationship with Bapa.

Unexpected

The supplemental material has some very good unexpected graphs which we reproduce here. The ideas is that in every story, every hero has what is called the "Hero's Journey." S/he has obstacles that they have to overcome. We attach emotion to their journey, and then we relate to that journey. It may look like this graph.

Let's look at an example that everyone knows (bonus for those that watched yesterday post video - notice how this mirrors the structure of a great talk).

Now to Ram Bhagwan, what did the first part of his life (at least the part in this presentation) look like. If the audience could benefit, make this an activity: map Ram Bhagwan's life from misery to ecstasy up until he reaches the jungle. It may look something like this.

This is the first part of our introduction, where we paint a picture of what is. What is life like right now for all of us? It is this up and down of happiness and sorrow. Even Ram Bhagwan was not immune to this. In fact, his happiness was greater than ours (first prince, destined for the throne, marries Sita), but his sadness is even worse than ours (leaves home and parents at a young age, attacked by monsters that want to kill him, exiled to the forest).

Now, we introduce our idea of what could be and introduce the gap between the status quo and the simple idea of our talk - Ram Bhagwan was always happy, so really, the map of his life should look like this graph.

Concrete, Credible Story Examples

With our simple idea introduced take the prasangs from Ram Bhagwan's life and show how even though he experience a great deal of joy and a great deal of sorrow - it did not disturb him because he was one with Bhagwan. For our local sabha, the kishores would benefit by giving the concrete example of Swamishri. He has had health problems - heart attack, cataracts, etc. - yet he is not affected by this. He has also had a great deal of success - Delhi Akshardham - yet he he is not affected by this either. Why? He is always in a state of bliss, he is always focused on Maharaj.

How would this look on Duarte's graph of a great talk as described in Resonate? Here is our attempt.

Emotion and Details

Each of the prasangs from the presentation are perfect for storytelling. We had a great guest post that really identified how to make our prasangs resonate - it maybe worth reviewing. The key idea with emotion is that it does not have to pull on our heartstrings, it does not have to make us sad or hopeful. Any emotion will do - disgust, anger, laughter. When Ram Bhagwan is exiled, if we dig, we can find details (that may not be in the syllabus) that clearly show how outrageous this was - it should make us angry that this happened - it was not fair. Once we have everyone riled up, we can deftly point out that Ram Bhagwan did not get angry. Why? He was always in a state of bliss - our simple message.

Call for Action

Duarte mentions that we need to end with a call to action - to point out what the world would be like if everyone was happy. We can paint that world, there would be no war, no disagreements. We get a glimpse of that world when we are near Bapa, when Bapa visits our center, when we go to a National Convention where Bapa is present - everyone is excited, energized.

Stop what you're doing and watch this.

Really. It is that good. Want to make your presentation amazing for priority sabha? Stop, look and listen - to Ms. Nancy Duarte in this video.

Nancy Duarte's talk at TEDx East from Duarte Design on Vimeo.

Everything we really need to know on making a presentation can be understood by reading two books: Made to Stick and Resonate! After that, it is all just practice and getting feedback. Ideas can change the world; ideas can change your sabha.

Helping the Hero

Last week we examined the idea of creativity and unexpected. We saw that the emphasis was to create a "knowledge gap" in our audience so that they wanted to know more. How can we find the killer example that will get everyone in our audience engaged in the presentation? Answering that question seems like a daunting task that we have to fit in with all the seva we already have.

Let's take a step back and look at our guru, Pramukh Swami Maharaj. He spends his day greeting satsangis, doing murti darshan, and performing puja - with a catch; he does it in the presence of others so that they may derive some connection or insight that ultimately draws them closer to a force that can influence their life for the better. There have been accounts of the struggling alcoholic who at one glance of Swamishri loses his desire to drink or the vegetarian-convert who vacillated away from carniverous consumption.

Similarly, presenting is an opportunity for us to guide others towards change. While our audience may not be all that knowledgeable of the topic at hand, we should never feel as though we are out to educate them or point out how their current mentality is flawed. Doing so actually denigrates our message. Our goal really is to illustrate how our simple message taken from the presentation can change each person life. We are showing that change in hopes of inspiring others.

Picture this: Shriji Maharaj knew his Kathi Darbars enjoyed racing horses, their zeal for fighting, and even their coarse mannerisms. What if He started off by telling them how their interests were all worthless in attaining moksha and pointed out just how rude and raucous they truly were? He may have had to continue that yatra back to where He started!

Instead, Maharaj become one of the them by taking interest in their horses and riding with them. After cultivating this bond, he slowly started to create change. Now that's creative. After all, Yogiji Maharaj has said, "Pehla het karva shikvu" (Learn to be a friend first).

Hence, the first step in being creative and having a sticky sabha is to like our audience. In her book, Resonate, Nancy Duarte compares the audience to the hero and the speaker to the mentor (think Luke and Yoda, Neo and Morpheus). In that light, we can see that speaking becomes an important seva - that is if we choose to hold it in humility and not hubris.

Below are an adapted version of some questions that she provides in her book to consider while analyzing our audience (p.65). Duarte notes that our goal is to figure out what our audience cares about and then link it back to our idea. Try using some of these the next time we're faced with crafting a presentation. They can help us decide on the creative story or the unexpected opening that will resonate the most with our audience.

Lifestyle
What does the average member in our audience do on any particular day?
What do they at school, at home, online?

Knowledge
What is their opinion on the topic to be presented?
How close does it fit to what Swamishri would like?
Who/what provided them that insight?

Motivation & Desire
What gets them out of the bed every morning?
What is missing in their lives?

NOTE: "Swamishri" or "Satsang" could be answers to the first question but warrant deeper analysis. What about Swamishri or Satsang could they use in their lives? 

Values
How do they spend their time and money?
What things do they seem to naturally enjoy or hate?

Influence
Who or what influences their behavior?
What experiences have influenced their thoughts?
How do they make decisions?

Respect
How do they give and receive respect?
What can you do to make them feel respected?

Example: Last week, we mentioned the "trust fall," an exercise often used in presentations on the topic of faith. Let's see how this could break down using this analytic scheme.

• Audience: Kishores
• Lifestyle: This is a K2 sabha, and they all go to college. They've grown up in Satsang for the most part and enjoy the independence provided to them by dorm life and meeting new people through intramural sports. 
• Knowledge: Faith is a topic they feel overdone in sabha and get the idea that blind faith is something we engage in on a day-to-day basis. Still, they do not feel compelled by it enough to follow basic niyams on campus, like eating out.
• Motivation & desire: Doing well in school and sports and getting along with others is what they seek. If they could link these goals to pleasing Swamishri, then they may increase their faith in him and open up increasing their samjan which in turn will strengthen their bond to him and all things Satsang.
• Values: They enjoy spending their time in the company of their college peers, and know what's current in the way of pop culture (TV, movies, music). They draw the line if they feel too pressured to do anything contrary to their niyam dharma, like drugs. 
• Influence: Their immediate social group respects their commitment to mandir, but the kishores do not actively promote it with others (i.e. invite them to mandir events). While they may not back out of coming to mandir on Sundays, they may be hesitant to give up hanging out with their friends on a Saturday night to come do seva at mandir. 
• Respect: They would feel empowered if we linked faith to their unwavering commitment to sabha, their intramural participation, and even their steadfast nature in the face of negative peer pressure. Then, we could perhaps nudge them in the direction that niyams are yet another mark of faith to provide a room for improvement. 

Given that these kishores feel faith to be an overdone topic, the "trust fall" may not be a great exercise; chances are that they've seen it before. However, we could add a touch of basketball: have a blindfolded kishore practice passing to another kishore while relying only on the other kishore's verbal cues. Then, if we linked this idea back to the Sant guiding us in our "blindfolded" time of life, we could open the way for a provocative presentation.

From this little exercise, we can see just how important it is to know our audience, to care about them. Ideally, the best presenters are the ones that care about the audience which is why the pravachans given by P. Santo deliver a greater impact.

Here is a simple experiment: Next time we've prepared a presentation and are up to speak, commence with the Jay Naad, take a small moment to thank Maharaj and Swami for this seva, ask for their help in making a sticky talk, and then look out at the audience and care that each one of them will take home the message to be delivered. It will work wonders.

We are fortunate that caring for our fellow Satsangis is already part of our time and seva at mandir, so let's infuse this sentiment in our speaking. 

Everyone likes classical Indian music - they just don't know it yet.

In a recent post we linked a talk from Ben Zanders wherein he used all the best practices of giving a talk to prove that everyone loves (western) classical music - they just do not know it. In the talk below Dhanashree Pandit-Rai uses all the same techniques to do a complimentary talk to prove that everyone loves Indian classical music - they just do not know it. This talk is exceptional. She has a simple message, she starts with something unexpected, she uses credible and concrete examples, and while not chock full of stories - they stories are sprinkled in for good measure. The music itself conveys emotion. She hit all the Made to Stick principles.

Let's look at Resonate! We will be talking more about this book (as we read and understand it). However since the Ben Zanders example was tied to the ideas in Resonate! we can see that this talk also gives us the comparisons that Duarte explains is essential in a great talk. She uses the contrast of western and Indian classical music to take us on a journey. Leaving us on a high note (no pun intended) that opens the door to the appreciation of classical Indian music.

There are many ways to use these ideas in sabha. For example, we could use some of her ideas to create an amazing kirtan translation/kirtan based katha. Have a listen it is truly worth it.

Resonate!

We have always been great fans of Nancy Duarte and her book, slide:ology, she has come out with a new book entitled, resonate, and well, it really resonates with us. Duarte calls resonate a prequel to her last book slide:ology which tackled the craft of visual presentations. The new book is engaged more with theory. The points she makes about emotion and structure would be obvious to a (decent) Hollywood screenwriter or (serious) second-year M.F.A. student, but they’re not well known to a regional vice president for sales or many sanchalaks who have to present every week.

We are planning some future in depth posts on her findings and really recommend the book or listening to her talk. Here is the (ultra)abridged version.

• Don’t be too cerebral. 
• Tell stories. 
• Figure out what the audience cares about. 
• Create common ground with them. 
• Move back and forth between opposing ideas to create energy. 
• Deliver facts but put them in context and make them shocking if possible. 
• Find inspiration anywhere you can.

She analyzes many great talks to show how they all fall into this pattern. In fact, she propounds that this is the pattern to follow to make something memorable. One talk she analyzes is Ben Zanders TED talk. With an extra 20 minutes to spare, check out the talk and prepare to be engrossed in sheer loveliness.

[Extra credit: Watch it again later to see how it fits many of the Made to Stick paradigms, as well as Duartes's observations above].