#027 Lessons of a Public Speaker

In this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show, I'm sharing some of the lessons I have learned with public speaking and presenting. I discuss many of the strategies I personally use when I'm charged to give a public presentation. My hope is some of these lessons help you better prepare for your next presentation, board meeting, or sales pitch.

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Key Takeaways

• Public speaking is a trainable skill: the strategies Adam uses for presentations transfer directly to board meetings and sales pitches.
• Preparation is the differentiator: how you get ready before you speak matters more than talent in the moment.

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Episode Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated. While we strive for accuracy, some words or phrases may be misheard.

[00:00:00] Sport science, strength and conditioning, high performance coaching, welcome to the Coating Excellence Show. Hey everybody, it is Adam and today for this episode, instead of having a supporter like a sport performance technology company and doing an advertisement for them, I want to remind you I have a monthly newsletter that is chock full of great research articles, fascinating links, things I found entertaining and fascinating online, I really think you

[00:00:53] Like it, I describe it to my friends and family as a the birch box of newsletters. You really won't know what it contains for month to month, but you can be certain that there's going to be good things inside of it. Head over to AdamRingler.com, forward slash newsletter, pop in your email, and I promise you'll start to receive those monthly newsletters right to your inbox. Hey everybody, welcome to the Decoding Excellence Show, I am your host, Adam Ringler.

[00:01:23] And today is another edition of the random show, which has sort of become more common, more frequently in the latest couple episodes as we're continuing to find the scheduling time between some guests and some great interviews that I'm excited to bring your way, but until then, I still like to get on the microphone, I still like to talk, I find it therapeutic, it's almost like a sit down on a big black couch and talking to a therapist here, except I talk into a big microphone instead.

[00:01:56] But nonetheless, I'm excited to jump on the microphone today and wrap a little bit about some of the things that I've been exploring in my head, and I find it very entertaining and therapeutic to get it out of my head. And what I've found is that over the course of recording these random shows, there's elements in it that has resonated with other people. And you guys have reached out through social media, at Twitter, at AdamRingler, or my Facebook

[00:02:22] Page. And you have shared your sentiments about maybe something I said on each episode, and I find that not only rewarding and gratifying that there's some similarities between us, but hey, if this episode, even though in its most random format, if it's delivering a little bit of value, I'm all for it. So without further ado, here is this month's random show.

[00:02:50] Hello, everybody. I'm your host, AdamRingler, once again, and welcome to the Decoding Excellence Show. It is my job to bring you great guests who are at the top of their game, who are willing to share the lessons, the tactics, the techniques, the strategies that go into their day-to-day, and try to tease that out so that you guys have a better understanding of the framework, the architecture, or just the day-to-day strategy of how they periodize their day, and how

[00:03:18] They really bring out the best performance on a day-to-day basis. But today, much like you have heard in the intro, today's a random show. Today is a day where I throw all of those things to the wind, throw it against the wall, and today I just want to wrap. And today I want to talk a little bit about some of the conversations I've been having with peers across the industry, both strengthening coaches and sports scientists, but also some

[00:03:43] Of the things that I am discovering in my day-to-day. So if nothing else, this may get you through your commute, but hopefully it brings a little bit of value to you. So I had an experience where I was with one of my co-workers, and we were heading to do a little bordering, if you don't know, I'm out in Boulder, Colorado, and mountain climbing sort of a thing out here, and as not an avid climber myself, I thought, you know, why

[00:04:14] Not? Let's give this a shot. We went over to the Recreation Center, have some awesome bordering walls, and we went at it. And while we're there, we're walking over and we're chatting a little bit, and we're talking about social media, and we're talking about the podcast, this very podcast.

[00:04:32] And one of the great things that was brought up in the combination of both of these two topics was we talked about where did I get the question I was asked is where, you know, where did you find your niche in and presenting? Like, why do you like to present? How did you find your entry way into presenting? And it took me down sort of an interesting rabbit hole of my life where, you know, I don't

[00:04:59] Know. It's interesting when I think about it, you know, I'll try to replicate some of my response to him, but it was ultimately, when I think about this question, like, for you, the listening audience of this, and maybe you are petrified of public presentations or public speeches or what, but I am absolutely in love with talking in front of crowds. It's one of my, one of the things that I really love to do, I get such a great feeling

[00:05:27] Out of doing it when I'm prepared and the presentation or the talk goes really well. It's, there's no better feeling than that, delivering great high quality information that's educational, that's informative, and that also drives action to the listening audience and the participants in the crowd. But I think if I were to go down my route and my, my history of where I fell in love with presentations and public speaking, you know, I was a graduate assistant at Michigan State

[00:05:58] University long ago, and part of that had an opportunity to present at a small local high school strength and conditioning clinic. I don't even know if it was in a CA credits were available, if it was accredited by them or what, but we presented essentially on the Spartan way, and it was essentially a collection of what we're currently doing during that year and some of my thoughts and beliefs on it.

[00:06:24] And, you know, I, I, you're like most presenters, you know, you spend a lot of time, you work on your slides, you practice your presentation, and then eventually it's game time. You have to go up there and you have to perform and present in front of people. And I loved it. I fell in love with standing on stage and presenting and sharing ideas and sharing things that will help other coaches.

[00:06:45] And there is no, it's probably, you know, you look at the show and you look at the articles on AdamRinglow.com and everywhere else, and it's, that's a, a thread that is constant in my life as I love sharing information. Some of it good, some of it bad, some of it's probably not correct anymore. But, you know what, I will, I'll continue to try to multiply the effect of what people have shared to me and spread it to other people, because if there's value in it for me,

[00:07:16] I think there's value in it for you. So that is where I first sort of fell in love with the stage and presenting. And then, you know, it's fortunate enough I had a good friend back in Michigan, asked me to do a presentation for one of the strength and conditioning clinics that he was starting in the Southwest, Southwest, Michigan, Strength and Conditioning Coaches Clinic or so, and it was hosted at Niles High School.

[00:07:41] I was a graduate of Brandywine High School, which is literally right next door to Niles High School, and presented on leadership. And you know, here I was, I think it was maybe one or two years out of grad school, I was, you know, in Wichita State University, and I was presenting on some of the things that I've learned over those last two years about how you can use strength and conditioning as a vehicle to deliver leadership lessons and to help develop young leaders and great

[00:08:13] Team, team leaders and teammates. And I borrowed a lot of, a lot of interesting concepts, things that I've read from great military strategists, Colin Powell, and I borrowed from the US Navy SEALs and the military branches and Army and really tried to develop a small little curriculum that is easily teachable to your team leaders, your team captains, and your teammates. And I loved it again, another presentation where I was stood up in front and I presented

[00:08:47] With, I think this was the first presentation where I was a little bit of an awestruck because here I am, I'm presenting and then right next to me is Mike Robertson who, you know, during my formable years in undergrad, listened to a number of his materials. I think one of the very first strength and conditioning educational content that I either downloaded or bought or acquired somehow was building an efficient, a building and efficient athlete by Mike Robertson and Eric Cressy was on that T1, you know, freshman year, dorm,

[00:09:27] High speed internet and had access to it and it was amazing and it opened my eyes that there's educational content out there that is high quality from great practitioners. And here I am, you know, much later in my career and I'm presenting and, you know, I'm having to follow Mike Robertson presenting and it just blew my mind and another great opportunity to present and share some ideas of what I was currently thinking. I threw the circuit a little bit and I think we ended up presenting, I was on a panel

[00:09:58] At the CSCCA or the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association, one of the national conferences and then another great panel with high quality practitioners and sharing ideas about sport technology, sport performance and sport science and the integration of all those things into a strength conditioning program. I did a couple webinars here and there, where I got to share my beliefs about the high performance model we were building and sort of the construct and the architecture of that and the various different sub disciplines from a

[00:10:34] Tactical, a technical, from a technology standpoint medical and recovery standpoint of that and you can find that online from various various resources and publications and podcasts and then also did a presentation for team builder, I believe, where I was discussing how to build a, how to utilize sport performance technologies on a shoestring budget and that was absolutely fun to give. That was another presentation where I got to share my ideas about how you can hack together different technologies, some of it free, some of it not, some of it on a corporate trial

[00:11:15] Like Tableau and some of the softwares whether it's Qualtrics and some of the technologies from software companies to really put together an athlete management system and then to utilize very inexpensive technologies like contact mats, finger taps, CNS sort of sensitive type testing modalities to at least give you some objective information about the state of readiness of your student athletes and that, that was another fun one. So I could go on and on and talk a little bit about presenting there or elsewhere or on the, you know, the high performance basketball symposium

[00:11:53] Where it was much more polished presentation talking about sport technology and sport science and the integration of both and how we've some of the construct of that high performance model we built and some of the technologies we are utilizing but nonetheless all of this, right, all of this was just I guess my introduction to presenting and so I'm sitting with this individual and we're in between climbs and bouldering around and we're just talking about, you know, presenting strategies boy if you've gone to any conferences you can see that, you know, some people really take it

[00:12:31] Seriously and presenting in front of people and crowds and you know, one of the lessons that really stuck out in my mind is that, you know, while your presentation might only last an hour, if it's a terrible presentation and there's a hundred people in the audience, you've collectively wasted 100 hours of humanity's time, right, and that could have been, that could go for training athletes or carrying cancer or spending it with loved ones, it's a huge resource and waste to do it. So there's the utmost pressure to really deliver high quality information to people

[00:13:07] And if you're listening to this random show, maybe I'm wasting your time, I don't know, hopefully not but there's a lot of things that I've learned over the course of my career of, you know, presenting and doing keynotes is that really the art and the essence of a presentation is in the preparation and obviously you have to have great material and you have to know what you're talking about but so often I see that people really don't put a premium on the presentation, whether it's the aesthetics of the presentation and the slides or the practice that is necessary to deliver a really

[00:13:44] Great talk that resonates with the audience, you know, I think if you've read, you know, books like talk like Ted or confessions of a public speaker or any of the presentation secrets of Steve Jobs or, you know, there's a number, there's a whole sort of genre of books that talks about public speaking and presentation styles and so, so worth but if you're a frequent watcher of Ted talks or things like that then you know that there's a, there's a flare that is required for really delivering a great presentation. We talk about this sort of the ebbs and flows of a presentation, there was

[00:14:24] A great book, I'm going to probably stall on the author's name but it's called Resonate and it talks about how to form together a really great presentation and so the architecture of it, the highest, the lows, the three-part act, how you have sort of, you construct it with the reality that the audience is currently facing and then you sort of juxtapose that against what could happen if they're, you know, follow your advice and, you know, you introduce a concept and then again, you parallel that with, you know, but the reality is X and then, you know, again, you bring them on

[00:15:02] This sort of the roller coaster of highs and lows and highs and lows and then you have this call to action at the end and it takes them through this emotional journey and they leave your presentation and they feel like, wow, you know, what a, what a great talk, you know, I felt like I was being led and there was, you know, this thread that was consistent through the presentation and it was, you know, constructed much similar the way that a writing cast, writers or editors or, you know, a producer for a movie would essentially sit down and story plot out what a movie might look like,

[00:15:37] Right, the highs, the lows, the climax, the fall, the action, the turn, that, you know, all the various components of it. So I just don't see that from time to time when I go to these presentations across a country and I sit down and then listen to people talk, you know, most of the time it's reading from power points or reading from slides and I think that's, you know, that's very uninspiring. So I chatted a lot about sort of the, I don't know the aesthetics or the presentation style and the flair of what you present because it's, it's one thing to just tell people the education,

[00:16:11] The content, right, here's my slides, this is what it said, here's the research, you know, this increased in athletes, VO2 max by whatever 10% or you could really go in and tell and lead with a story and I think when you think about educators and great educators, right, and I was fortunate enough, my mother, you know, just retired from education after 41 years and was a fifth grade teacher. But some of my most favorite educators were people that, that taught through story, right, and that was essentially the genesis of the decoding excellence show. We wanted to distill the

[00:16:48] Tactics and the techniques and the tools that people utilize, high performers utilize on a day-to-day basis to bring out their very best and whatever discipline that they do, whether it's, you know, it's discussing and really trying to optimize athletes' sleep or if it's the optimization of athletes' nutrition or if it's sports science or you name it, right, and we've discussed it on the decoding excellence show. But ultimately, we wanted to craft it around having a conversation with somebody because we're human and that's the way that we learn, we learn through stories,

[00:17:22] We learn through breaking bread and sitting at the fireplace, right? Like, you know, we're, we're not too far removed from being caveman, right? That's not too long ago when you look at the, you know, how, how old the earth is or how, you know, how long or how relatively short, I suppose, mankind has been. So I really wanted to craft it around that same idea of teaching these lessons of how people have constructed their day-to-day, whether the habits and the routines that they do, but I wanted to do it through a story and then really sort of teasing that out. So when you think

[00:17:58] Of a presentation, whether you want to talk about a particular topic, let's just say statistics for, for that means, right? How can you make statistics into a story, right? You know, and that was the conversation that we've had and I thought it really, you know, watching this thing go from the first draft to the second draft to the third draft to the final, the finished product. It was like, I was watching, you know, editorial drafts of, hey, here's my book, here's my article, here's my, you know, edit or whatever, and it just really added flesh to it. And I found myself more, way

[00:18:38] More captivated, even though it was the third or fourth time I was listening to it and watching the presentation, I was way more captivated towards the end of it, the fourth version, just simply because there was a construct that really grabbed you superficially, you know, almost subconsciously and it led you through this story. But the great educators I know that they lead through stories, they use storytelling as a vehicle to deliver content. And so often that is not always replicated from presenter to presenter at, at, you know, presentation or clinics or symposiums

[00:19:16] Across the country. So that was just one thing that we, we chatted about was really trying to create the construct and the architecture of the slides. But another thing that we spent a lot of time talking about was just the sort of the, I don't know, the aesthetics of slides and presentations, right? And, you know, I think if you've seen TED Talks or you have watched many sort of technology keynotes, what you've seen is that oftentimes, less is more when it comes to a slide. And this all comes down to, I guess, subjectivity, right? Eyes, you know, beauty is in the eye of the

[00:19:56] Beholder, if you will. So what I might like, right? You might not. You might find it terrible. You might not like those strategies. You just want the bullet point facts. But I've always used slides or at least what is being projected or what is being displayed behind me as sort of a kutramat to what I am saying. And that is the story that I'm telling. And so what you'll find in a lot of my presentations or my, my history is that they are visually rich. And hopefully, you know, high definition quality pictures, and they should capture you, and they should be stimulating,

[00:20:35] And they should be supportive to the story that I'm trying to tell in the presentation. And so often, what I see is, you know, white slides with black text, with bullet points, with, you know, whole body from the very top of the slide to the very bottom chuckful of text. And you have to remember your academic days, right? You're, you're undergrad or graduate school days where, you know, you're sitting in a classroom and it's hot. And your professor or your TA whomever is loading up slides. And it is literally death by PowerPoint, right? And maybe if you're so far

[00:21:12] Removed from academics, just think almost any business meeting, right? So you go to these meetings and it's death by PowerPoint. And essentially, right? Like very few people will graphically use stylistic pictures as a support to the visuals and to the story that they're trying to weave. And whether it's a business proposal or it's a sales pitch or it's whatever, right? Continuing to use the slides as a, as a support of structure to the story, rather than sort of a a lamppost to completely lean on, I think it's a much better support. It's a much better

[00:21:56] Position to be in, right? You can continue to use that. And boy, it again, right? Like if you have a beautifully crafted story with great sort of emotional roller coasters, highs and lows to support your educational content that you're trying to deliver to the audience, you have supportive and visually rich pictures that help support and graphics that might be custom made. And that's I could go into my use of Photoshop and my history of it, but I grew up on Photoshop. So, you know, I know my way around on that sort of piece of software and have used it heavily

[00:22:32] In presentations. But if you can do those things, then what you're ultimately doing is delivering a really finished, polished project to your audience members. And I think they absolutely deserve it, right? Their attention is the, you know, the utmost important thing that they can deliver and they can give to you as a presenter. So, really when you have the opportunity to present, I think you should cherish it and you should really try to, to over-deliver on that. And hopefully if you, you know, you've been into my presentations or anything that I've presented on or shared,

[00:23:09] Then maybe you could say, Adam, you're a liar. All of this is terrible. Your presentations was garbage. And I'm okay with that. That's great feedback. And what I would ask for you to, is tell me why. I want to get better. I want to know on that. But I mean, how many of you guys out there, right? I wish this was going out live. But how many of you guys out there have been and seen bad presentations? I don't need names. You don't need to knock out anybody. But if you have, I would love for you to, to tweet at me at Adam Ringler and say, hey, I, I actually have been to

[00:23:44] A number of bad presentations. And this isn't, this isn't, you know, to, to jump on any sort of certifying body. It's just say, we deserve better. The audience deserves better. And if you're a presenter, you need to do a better job at presenting as well. One of the greatest pieces of advice I got from one of my counterparts and great friend at, you know, Utah, Ernie Rimer. He talks so much about really trying to bring people in and engage with people, right? And I think that's a powerful lesson as well as really trying to up the engagement in your presentations, right? And if you've

[00:24:22] Been to the, the CSCCA and you've listened to Ernie present at our, you've been sort of a spectator, if you will, in the circus of his presentations. They're amazing, right? They, they literally grab your heart and they rip it out and they, they grab your attention and they shake you around. It's, it's a great presentation. But again, if you're sitting in there and it's your third presentation of the day, and you're going through your, your national conference, whether it's for athletic training or some technical trade or it's your sport that you're coaching or

[00:24:54] It's strength conditioning or whatever it might be, you know that it's, you know, it's lecture after lecture after lecture after lecture. And hey, if you get one that really grabs your soul and shakes you and gives you a call to action and you walk out those doors and you feel motivated to use that material for the betterment of your athletes or the people you service, that's a fantastic presentation. And so I, I'd encourage you, right? How can you engage with the audience? Because again, just showing facts on a white slide with black tacks or whatever. Yeah, they might,

[00:25:29] They might remember it in that acute moment. Maybe they'll write down some notes and their moleskin or, you know, they're provided note-taking materials. But it very quickly is waning and it's very quickly lost, right? Maybe you show them, right? Not only do you tell them, but then you show them. Okay, well, maybe they retain a little bit long. But if you engage with them, right? And you get them to participate in it and you get them to do some things and to interact with your presentation and, and to be a participant of it, not just a listener of it, you make it more

[00:26:01] Active rather than passive. You have a real great vehicle to deliver educational content to those audience members. And I think they deserve it as well. And I think what you'll find is that the material that you're trying to teach with them will resonate much longer. They'll remember it for years down the road and months down the road. So that, you know, when they are going to that, you know, they're in that particular situation, they can remember what you taught them. So again, those are just some of the bullet points. And yeah, obviously this is a random show. So

[00:26:32] You're going to expect some of that randomness from this. And so I just wanted to wrap a little bit about presentations that I've seen because we've we've all been, you know, on the other end of listening to a webinar and watching slides and and sitting in those conference halls. And I just think we can do better, right? And presenters week, you know, we owe it to the audience to do better. So if you are doing it, that's that's some of my advice that I would certainly give. If you have a presentation coming up, I think it would warrant some practice run-throughs. Remember

[00:27:07] Then it's not just an hour of wasted time. It's an hour multiplied by the number of heads that are in that room listening to you. So you owe it to them as well. That was another presentation where I got to share my ideas about how you can hack together different technologies. Some of it free, some of it not, some of it on, you know, corporate trial like Tableau and some of the softwares, whether it's Qualtrics and some of the technologies from software companies to really put together an athlete management system and then to utilize, you know, very inexpensive technologies like

[00:27:46] Contact mats, finger taps, CNS, sort of sensitive type testing modalities, to at least give you some objective information about the state of readiness of your student athletes. And that that was another fun one. So I could go on and on and talk a little bit about presenting there or elsewhere or, you know, the high performance basketball symposium where it was much more polished presentation, talking about sport technology and sport science and the integration of both and how we've some of the construct of that high performance model we built and some of the

[00:28:22] Technologies we were utilizing. But nonetheless, all of this, right, all of this was just, I guess my introduction to presenting. And so I'm sitting with this individual and we're in between climbs and bouldering around and we're just talking about, you know, presenting strategies. And boy, if you've gone to any conferences, you can see that, you know, some people really take it seriously and presenting in front of people and crowds and, you know, one of the lessons that really stuck out in my mind is that, you know, while your presentation might only last an hour,

[00:28:59] If it's a terrible presentation and there's a hundred people in the audience, you've collectively wasted a hundred hours of humanity's time, right? And that could have been, that could go for training athletes or curing cancer or spending it with loved ones. It's a huge resource and waste to do it. So there's the utmost pressure to really deliver high quality information to people. And if you're listening to this random show, maybe I'm wasting your time. I don't know, hopefully not, but there's a lot of things that I've learned over the course of my career of,

[00:29:33] You know, presenting and doing keynotes is that really the art and the essence of a presentation is in the preparation. And obviously you have to have great material and you have to know what you're talking about. But so often I see that people really don't put a premium on the presentation, whether it's the aesthetics of the presentation and the slides or the practice that is necessary to deliver a really great talk that resonates with the audience. You know, I think if you've read, you know, books like Talk Like Ted or confessions of a public speaker or any of the presentation

[00:30:14] Secrets of Steve Jobs or, you know, there's a number. There's a whole sort of genre of books that talks about public speaking and presentation styles and so, so worth. But if you're a frequent watcher of TED talks or things like that, then you know that there's a flair that is required for really delivering a great presentation. We talk about this sort of the ebbs and flows of a presentation. There was a great book. I'm going to probably stall on the author's name, but it's called Resonate and it talks about how to form together a really great presentation and so the

[00:30:52] Architecture of it, the highs, the lows, the three part act, how you have sort of you construct it with the reality that the audience is currently facing and then you sort of juxtapose that against what could happen if they're, you know, follow your advice and, you know, you introduce a concept and then again, you parallel that with, you know, but the reality is X and then, you know, again, you bring them on this sort of the roller coaster of highs and lows and highs and lows and then you have this call to action at the end and it takes them through this emotional journey and

[00:31:28] They leave your presentation and they feel like, wow, you know, what a great talk. You know, I felt like I was being led and there was, you know, this thread that was consistent through the presentation and it was, you know, constructed much similar to the way that a writing cast, writers or editors or, you know, a producer for a movie would essentially sit down and story plot out what a movie might look like, right? The highs, the lows, the climax, the fall, the action, the turn, you know, all of the various components of it. So I just don't see that from time to time.

[00:32:03] When I go to these presentations across a country and I sit down and then listen to people talk you know, most of the time it's reading from power points or reading from slides and I think that's, you know, that's very uninspiring. So I chatted a lot about sort of the, I don't know the aesthetics or the presentation style and the flair of what you present because it's one thing to just tell people the education, the content, right? Here's my slides. This is what it said. Here's the research, you know, this increased an athlete's a VO2 max by whatever 10% or you could really

[00:32:39] Go in and tell and lead with a story. And I think when you think about educators and great educators, right? And I was fortunate enough my mother, you know, just retired from education after 41 years and was a fifth grade teacher. But some of my most favorite educators were people that that taught through story, right? And that was essentially the genesis of the decoding excellence show. We wanted to distill the tactics and the techniques and the tools that people utilize, high performers utilize on a day-to-day basis to bring out their very best and whatever discipline

[00:33:15] That they do, whether it's, you know, it's discussing and really trying to optimize athletes sleep or if it's the optimization of athletes nutrition or if it's sports science or you name it, right? And we've discussed it on the decoding excellence show. But ultimately, we wanted to craft it around having a conversation with somebody because we're human and that's the way that we learn. We learn through stories, we learn through breaking bread and sitting at the fireplace, right? Like, you know, we're not too far removed from being caveman, right? That's not too long ago

[00:33:49] When you look at the, you know, how, how old the earth is or how, you know, how long or how relatively short, I suppose, mankind has been. So I really wanted to craft it around that same idea of teaching these lessons of how people have constructed their day-to-day, whether the habits and the routines that they do. But I wanted to do it through a story and then really sort of teasing that out. So when you think of a presentation, whether you want to talk about a particular topic, let's just say statistics for for that means, right? How can you make statistics into a story,

[00:34:26] Right? You know, and that was the conversation that we've had and I thought it really, you know, watching this thing go from the first draft to the second draft to the third draft to the final, the finished product. It was like I was watching, you know, editorial drafts of, hey, here's my book, here's my article, here's my, you know, edit or whatever. And it just really added flesh to it. And I found myself more, way more captivated, even though I was the third or fourth time I was listening to it and watching the presentation, I was way more captivated towards

[00:35:03] The end of it, the fourth version, just simply because there was a construct that really grabbed you superficially, you know, almost subconsciously and it led you through this story. But the great educators, I know that they lead through stories, they use storytelling as a vehicle to deliver content. And so often that is not always replicated from presenter to presenter at a, at, you know, presentation or clinics or symposiums across the country. So that was just one thing that we chatted about was really trying to create the construct and the architecture of the slides. But

[00:35:42] Another thing that we spent a lot of time talking about was just the sort of the, I don't know, the aesthetics of slides and presentations, right? And, you know, I think if you've seen TED Talks or you have watched many sort of technology keynotes, what you've seen is that oftentimes lesses more when it comes to a slide. And this all comes down to, I guess, subjectivity, right? Eyes, you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, if you will. So what I might like, right? You might not. So you might find it terrible. You might not like those strategies. You just want the bullet

[00:36:22] Point facts. But I've always used slides or at least what is being projected or what is being displayed behind me as sort of a kutramat to what I am saying. And that is the story that I'm telling. And so what you'll find in a lot of my presentations or my, my history is that they are visually rich. And hopefully, you know, high definition quality pictures and they should capture you and they should be stimulating and they should be supportive to the story that I'm trying to tell in the presentation. And so often what I see is, you know, white slides with black text, with bullet

[00:37:03] Points, with a whole body from the very top of the slide to the very bottom chuckful of text. And you have to remember your academic days, right? Your undergrad or graduate school days where, you know, you're sitting in a classroom and it's hot and your professor or your TA whomever is loading up slides and it is literally death by PowerPoint, right? And maybe if you're so far removed from academics, just think almost any business meeting, right? So you go to these meetings and it's death by PowerPoint. And essentially, right, like very few people will graphically use

[00:37:44] Stylistic pictures as a support to the visuals and to the story that they're trying to weave. And whether it's a business proposal or it's a sales pitch or it's whatever, right? Continuing to use the slides as a support of structure to the story rather than sort of a lamppost to completely lean on. I think it's a much better support. It's a much better position to be in, right? You can continue to use that. And boy, it again, right? Like if you have a beautifully crafted story with great sort of emotional roller coasters, highs and lows to support your educational content

[00:38:28] That you're trying to deliver to the audience, you have supportive and visually rich pictures that help support and graphics that might be custom made. And that's I could go into my use of Photoshop and my history of it, but I grew up on Photoshop. So, you know, I know my way around on that sort of piece of software and have used it heavily in presentations. But if you can do those things, then what you're ultimately doing is delivering a really finished polished project to your audience members. And I think they absolutely deserve it, right? Their attention

[00:39:06] Is the, you know, the utmost important thing that they can deliver and they can give to you as a presenter. So, really, when you have the opportunity to present, I think you should cherish it. And you should really try to to over-deliver on that. And hopefully if you, you know, you've been into my presentations or anything that I've presented on or shared, then maybe you could say, Adam, you're a liar. All of this is terrible. Your presentations was garbage. And I'm okay with that. That's great feedback. And what I would ask for you to, it's tell me why. I want to get better.

[00:39:39] I want to know on that. But I mean, how many of you guys out there, right? I wish this was going out live. But how many of you guys out there have been and seen bad presentations? I don't need names. You don't need to knock out anybody. But if you have, I would love for you to tweet at me at Adam Ringler and say, hey, I actually have been to a number of bad presentations. And this isn't, this isn't, you know, to jump on any sort of certifying body. It's just say, we deserve better. The audience deserves better. And if you're a presenter, you need to do a better job at presenting

[00:40:17] As well. One of the greatest piece of advice I got from one of my counterparts and great friend at Utah, Ernie Rimer, he talks so much about really trying to bring people in and engage with people, right? And I think that's a powerful lesson as well as really trying to up the engagement in your presentations, right? And if you've been to the CSCCA and you've listened to Ernie present at our, you've been sort of a spectator, if you will, in the circus of his presentations. They're amazing, right? They literally grab your heart and they rip it out and they grab your attention

[00:40:56] And they shake you around. It's, it's a great presentation. But again, if you're sitting in there and it's your third presentation of the day and you're going through your national conference, whether it's for athletic training or some technical trade or it's your sport that you're coaching or it's strength conditioning or whatever it might be, you know that it's, you know, it's lecture after lecture after lecture after lecture after lecture and hey, if you get one that really grabs your soul and shakes you and gives you a call to action and you walk out those doors and you feel

[00:41:26] Motivated to use that material for the betterment of your athletes or the people you service, that's a fantastic presentation. And so I encourage you, right? How can you engage with the audience? Because again, just showing facts on a white slide with black tacks or whatever. Yeah, they might, they might remember it in that acute moment. Maybe they'll write down some notes and their moleskin or, you know, they're provided note taking materials. But it very quickly is waning and it's very quickly lost, right? Maybe you show them, right? Not only do you tell them, but then

[00:42:03] You show them, okay? Well, maybe they retain a little bit longer. But if you engage with them, right? And you get them to participate in it and you get them to do some things and to interact with your presentation and, and to be a participant of it, not just a listener of it. You make it more active rather than passive. You have a real great vehicle to deliver educational content to those audience members. And I think they deserve it as well. And I think what you'll find is that the material that you're trying to teach with them will resonate much longer. They'll remember it for

[00:42:34] Years down the road and months down the road. So that, you know, when they are going to that, you know, they're in that particular situation, they can remember what you taught them. So again, those are just some of the bullet points. And yeah, obviously this is a random show. So you're going to expect some of that randomness from this. And so I just wanted to wrap a little bit about presentations that I've seen because we've we've all been, you know, on the other end of listening to a webinar and watching slides and and sitting in those conference halls. And

[00:43:06] I just think we can do better, right? And presenters week, we, you know, we owe it to the audience to do better. So if you are doing it, that's that's some of my advice that I would certainly give. If you have a presentation coming up, I think it would warrant some practice run-throughs. Remember that it's not just an hour of wasted time. It's an hour multiplied by the number of heads that are in that room listening to you. So you owe it to them as well.

[00:43:41] Hey, everybody. That's going to be a wrap for this episode of The Random Show. Thanks so much for listening to this show. It was, uh, to be honest, they're a put it for me to get a lot of these thoughts out of my head. And hopefully it delivered a little bit of value for you. Hopefully you took something away from the presentation notes and and the hints and the topics that we certainly discussed and and how you can improve your own presentation skills when you're being called to present in front of a an audience or a crowd, whether it's at a national convention or conference

[00:44:16] Or even if it's a business proposal or a pitch, something that you have to do or you have to prepare slides. So hopefully you took something away from it. And as always, there's a number of different ways that you can support the show, right? The first thing is I have a monthly newsletter that goes out. It is located at atomringler.com forward slash newsletter. And like I said in the intro, it is chocked full of great articles, research papers, um, sort of daily notes, things I'm finding fascinating and experimenting with and being a human guinea pig with to try to change my

[00:44:52] Own behaviors, my own habits, but ultimately to really try to improve my life and get something a little bit more meaningful out of it. So uh, head over to atomringler.com forward slash newsletter. Pop in your email and I promise you you'll get the welcome email and you'll start receiving those monthly updates and you won't regret it. I'm not going to spend send you a bunch of spam messages or anything like that. I really think that you'll get a lot out of it and uh, and check it out. I get questions every single time we publish, either an article or the latest update to the decoding

[00:45:28] Excellence show. And the question I often receive is how do I support this show? Well we have a new way that the audience and the crowd and everybody else here can support the decoding excellence show. Head over to buymeacoffee.com forward slash atom ringler. It's actually not buying me a coffee. I know the name sounds sort of uh, confusing or misleading if you will, but what it is is that it's a a platform sort of a crowdsourcing way of uh, of donating to the show and the idea is that you would donate a coffee, right? $5, $4 or whatever to the decoding excellence show. And what we do with this

[00:46:08] Is we turn the proceeds directly over to supporting the hosting of the decoding excellence show. Aren't whether it's our Spotify or our simple cast or iTunes and elsewhere. And it supports the hosting fees for our website and the decoding excellence uh, decoding excellence show. So if you want to support the show, you can buy me a coffee. You can buy seven coffees. You buy yourself a coffee. Otherwise, please head over, check it out. It is buymeacoffee.com forward slash atom ringler. I'll include it in the show notes and as always, thank you for supporting the decoding

[00:46:45] Excellence show.