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Transcript
{0:00} Hello! In this video, I’m going to share with you the truth behind my TEDxRoppongi talk on September 3, 2016. And along with that I’ll be giving you some tips that I hope will help you the next time you present.
You may not be presenting at a TEDx, but maybe you have a conference coming up. Or maybe you’re presenting in a sales pitch. Or maybe you’re presenting in a team meeting. I hope these will be useful for you.
And first of all, I just want to say that the event itself was fantastic! I totally enjoyed it — the event itself. And I really appreciated being asked to present there.
I’m going to tell you the real truth about what was going on in my mind during that time — in the hope that it will help you — along with some tips, too.
So everything was going great before the time that I went on stage. So just before me there was this amazing 3D hologram show from Hide, who was a Japanese singer who passed away several years ago. But he was kind of brought back to life in this hologram show. It was really loud music. It was really exciting. I was backstage and I was dancing around. And it was great.
{1:22} I also did the things I know to do as an experienced presenter. So I’ve presented hundreds of times. I coach people in presentation skills, so I knew the things to do.
For example, getting plenty of oxygen into the body to help, so that you can relax and you can breathe. And making sure I drank plenty of water, sips of water, so that my voice wouldn’t dry out during the presentation. So I was doing all these things. I was feeling pretty good. And even to going on stage. I walked on stage. I was confident as I walked on stage. And then I stood, and I looked around. And it was great, and I went into my first lines. My very, very rehearsed first lines.
{2:08} It’s always important to make sure you really know what you’re going to say when you get out there in the beginning. And it was all good. And then something started to happen.
So the first one that happened was that I missed a line from my script. Now I usually say to people don’t work from a script. Because if you work from a script, the tendency is that you’re thinking about well, what do I say next? what do I say next? — even if you’re well-rehearsed — what do I say next? And that means you’re in your own head, and you’re not focusing on the audience. In this particular case, we were asked to work with a script because we were going to be presenting, and there would be Japanese subtitles at the sides of the stage. So I created a script. And I missed a line towards the beginning, and that threw me.
A voice came up in my head saying, Oh, no you missed a line! How’s the story going to work now? Oh, panic, panic!
{3:14} So my first tip is actually don’t work from a script. It’s really, really hard working from a script. That then moves on to the next problem that happened. Which was the slides didn’t transition as I had thought they were going to do. So we were using a clicker, but we only got to use that clicker on the day. And so I wasn’t quite used to it, and I must have pressed too quickly or something. So the slides didn’t work as planned.
{3:47} So my tip there is to make sure you can rehearse as much as possible in the environment where you’ll be presenting.
The next one — and this was a really big one. So as I mentioned, it’s a special theater — it’s actually the first of its kind in TED history, from what I heard, using hologram 3D technology. So the way it works is that there is a stage, the speaker is on the stage, and there’s a kind of black mesh screen at an angle in front of the presenter and the slides are projected onto that. So it gives this hologram effect to the audience.
The audience can see the presenter really, really clearly. However, the presenter cannot see the audience. The presenter cannot hear the audience. And this was very difficult for me to deal with. I’m the sort of person, I like a very interactive presentation. I like to be able to see the smiles on people’s faces. That kind of reassures me that things are going okay.
{4:58} That was not happening in this case. In fact, the kind of image that came to my mind was that I could see that there were 150 heads — black heads, basically — vaguely behind this black screen. But I couldn’t see any facial expression. I couldn’t hear a thing. And so to me it was a bit like being under attack from 150 faceless and silent aliens! So I went into a kind of fight or flight mode. It was like survival. Oh my goodness, I need to run away!
{5:40} And I really thought for a moment that I was going to run offstage, like you may have seen the Michael Bay incident from a few years ago. I kind of thought that was going to happen. So there’s all of this panic in my head, voices saying, oh my goodness, you’re a presentation skills expert, and this is going to be an absolute disaster. What’s the video going to look like? And lots of people are going to see it.
{6:08} So lots of panic going on. But somehow a little voice managed to get through and say, Think about the audience. You must go on. So I did manage to go on, and I stumbled over some lines a little bit, but I managed to continue. And then I got more into my flow and I finished strong. And it was great by the end. It was a really, really terrifying experience for me.
{6:43} So my third tip there is think about the audience. And this is what I say when I’m coaching all the time because thinking about the audience is the most important part of your presentation.
So the tips are 1) Don’t use a script, if you can. 2) Practice in the environment. Rehearse in the environment as much as possible. 3) Think about your audience.
This was such a fantastic experience and I’m really, really grateful to the organizers, especially Amber Chook and Daiki Toshima, who are volunteers, but they were fantastic. I’m also grateful to Alex Fazel, who introduced me to the organizer and gave me this opportunity. So really appreciate this.
I hope that these few tips are going to be useful to you the next time you present.
And if you’re interested in more, please look at the Sasuga! Tips for You newsletter. It goes out every Tuesday with tips for communication skills, presentation skills, running effective meetings, participating in conference calls, all sorts of things you need in global business.
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Hope to see you there. Hope you’ve enjoyed this. Thank you!