Do you bank your happiness on the world around you? Or, instead, are you a beacon of hope for other people? If you radiate confidence, then the flux of the world around you doesn’t change who you are as a person.  This is especially true of public speakers.  Imagine being grounded enough in who you are that you remain unruffled. With each crisis, you become instantly more attractive, which leads to more speaking gigs and more business. You deserve not to be controlled by other people. You’re about to learn how to take your freedom back from people who have been taking it from you. The only thing you have control over is yourself. You don’t have control over anybody else. This blog will help challenge you to stop wasting time on other people’s business. When there is a problem, or anything unpleasant happens in your life, often times you will tell yourself a story to make sense of that situation. A story is simply something that you tell yourself. For example, you may be telling yourself that since certain clients didn’t move forward with you, they must hate you. This is a story you’re telling yourself. If the person calls you up and says, "I hate you," then you could make the claim that this person hates you. However, a more accurate representation is that this person feels that they hate you, but they don’t really hate you. There are really three types of "businesses" you can be involved in: Your business Other people’s business God’s business "My business" represents all the things that you directly have control over. These are things you can change that affect your world and your sphere. For example, the choice to be happy or not is "my business." This is a big one. Most people live in other people’s business and their happiness hinges on external things. "Other people’s business" represents things that you don’t have control over. You can influence things, but because of human free will, you cannot control another human being. For example, when you worry about whether your friend Joe is happy or not, you are in Joe’s business. Whether your staff is happy or not, whether your business partner is happy or not, or whether your spouse is happy or not—it’s all other people’s business. "God’s business" is literally everything else on the planet. It has nothing to do with another human. For example, worrying about the weather is worrying about God’s business. Worrying about a tornado or earthquake in your area is spending time in God’s business. Worrying about getting hit by a bus is being in God’s business. Worrying about someone in your family dying is being in God’s business. Identify When It’s Your Business One of the best ways to is to identify what is your business is to ask yourself these questions: Does what you want require anybody else to do anything? Or is the control and potential all within you? If you are the only variable, it’s your business. For example, let’s say you want to hire a marketing person for your business. You may really want a marketing person for your business, but you haven’t been able to find one yet. If you’re the only one responsible for taking the action to find that marketing person, then it’s your business. You can tell whether you have taken on other people’s business—and attached yourself to their end result—by thinking about a tug of war analogy. Imagine someone comes up to you and asks you to play tug of war; he does all sorts of things to try to get you to pick up that rope. If you let that person convince you to pick up the rope, then you have not learned how to detach from the end result. If you show distaste towards something that person said or did, then you’ve attached yourself to his end result. Chances are, that person wants you to be affected by what he says because then he knows he’s got you. You’re now attached to his drama and his end result. If you don’t pick up the rope, that shows you have learned how to detach from the end result. The shame, the guilt, or whatever else that person is trying to use to manipulate you to pick up that rope isn’t working anymore. Hope this helps when it comes to your fear or anxiety of giving a presentation (or really anything else you’re worried about in your life). All the best, Jason Teteak Rule the Room     The post Detach Yourself from the End Result appeared first on Rule The Room.

Are you ready for your next big presentation?  Are you sure?  Just because you have your notes ready, and even if you know exactly what you are going to say, you still may not be truly ready.    That’s because the presentation isn’t actually about you at all.  It’s about your audience.  If you really want to be ready so that your audience is blown away by your presentation, then after your notes are ready, you need to practice.  My suggestion is to practice your presentation three times in real time with what I call "Ninety-Ten." Practice for "Ninety-Ten" "Ninety-Ten" is the term I use to describe one of the best rules of presenting. While it is a comfort to have all the material available in your script for reference, to be a really dynamic speaker, you should be so familiar with your material that only 10 percent of your brain needs to be thinking about the presentation content itself and 90 percent of your brain can be thinking about your delivery to and interaction with your audience. If you are only at 60/40 or 80/20, you will be constantly distracted, looking at your content rather than at the audience, which will make you appear nervous and distract your listeners. More important, the more comfortable you are with your material, the less likely you are to be nervous. You make that happen with practice. The great majority of people can get to 90/10 after they practice a presentation three times in real time. In other words, if you have an hour-long presentation, you would stand in an empty room and go through it from beginning to end three times for a total of three hours. Afterward, you are likely to find the cues from this outline will be all you need to remind you what you have to say. I did a second observation of my new clients after I had helped them create their blueprints and told them to practice three times. Instead of as many as two dozen downward glances, I recorded only four to six. Each told me how much less nervous he felt about making the presentation. Most important, both appeared less nervous. Though three practices are enough for many people, some need more. I suggest you practice until you feel comfortable, but I assure you this will happen sooner than you might expect. Practice away your last-minute jitters Even when practice has gotten you to the 90/10 level, you may have some presentation anxiety. You’re most likely to experience it during the first thirty seconds of your presentation and for up to five minutes after you start. If you can’t do a complete run-through in real time right before you are scheduled to present, you can reduce your anxiety if you at least practice the beginning of your presentation. Go through the whole opener, from "Hi" and your name through "I’m going to show you . . ." and continue into your first topic. I usually suggest you continue until the five-minute mark, since normally nervousness dissipates by then. However, you may want to go a little longer or shorter, based on your past experiences of how long it takes you to relax. Do the pre-presentation practice of the opener at least three times. However, if you experience not just nervousness but fear—the kind that makes your palms sweat, your voice shaky, and your brain blank out temporarily—six practices seems to be the number that does the trick. (That’s only a half hour in all.) The best place to practice is in the empty room where you will be delivering the presentation, before everyone gets there. If that’s not possible, it’s useful to find a private space where there’s a mirror. Face the mirror when you practice to check you’re not exhibiting any of the nervous habits that I’ll describe later in the chapter. Even if you don’t feel nervous, you may unwittingly use body language that makes you look as if you are. If you’re having trouble finding a practice space, use this tip a colleague shared. When he needs a private spot, he locates the nearest restroom and retreats into one of the stalls. By warming up and relieving your concerns about forgetting, practice will do wonders to calm your nerves. With Gratitude, Jason Teteak Rule the Room The post The 90/10 Rule appeared first on Rule The Room.

What Every Presenter Should Know About Being the Best Q& A Session with Jason Teteak How does the white belt mentality apply to presenting? Years ago I decided I was going to start a Presenter Education Program at one of the largest healthcare software corporation in the world with 150 Presenters on staff. I met with the Head of Training to propose an innovative program to improve learning transfer, audience experience and reduce Presenter burnout/turnover. He said "I see the need to provide this program for all new Presenters, but why would we want to extend the offer to seasoned Presenters--they are getting great evals, their audience loves them, they are learning a ton from them and they’re happy?" I introduced him to the concept of "The White Belt Mentality"-- also known as beginners mind. So, what is "The White Belt Mentality"? I will read and excerpt from my book to answer this: When I taught high school I came across the notion of the best of the best teachers always getting better. I was awestruck by this and had to figure out why. I learned that the best of the best get (and stay) that way because they are constantly working to become better and humble themselves to the process—"White Belt Mentality". Look at the best tennis players in the world, they have coaches. Now, can their coaches beat them on the court, probably not but that’s not the point. The question is can these coaches help these top athletes get better? Absolutely! And no one questions this. In my experience with thousands of Presenters, the best Presenters want to be coaches; they seek feedback, learning and challenges. There are so many benefits to them getting coaching but I have found the Presenters with this "White Belt Mentality" to be the exception, not the rule. That is not to say that a "White Belt mentality" cannot be cultivated. I have actually found a way to train coaches to inspire others to as I call it "climbs an even higher mountain". Without giving away all of your secrets can you explain how to create a "White Belt" Presenter environment? First create and offer a class that will be offered to seasoned Presenters who want to get better to be held just once a year for these top Presenters to collaborate and learn from each other. Your "White Belt" leaders will immerge here. Assign them to be what I call a "Yoda". These "Yoda’s" embody the "White Belt Mentality". Offer them learning and training opportunities from a Master Yoda.  They then will observe the Presenters and gather specific positive feedback based on what they see, hear and feel while observing the Presenter in the classroom to build awareness for the Presenter about their strengths. A great Presenter is aware of their strengths and uses them to further the learning of their audience every time. This is very powerful knowledge that gets overlooked and sometimes, when there is not awareness about strengths, there are many missed learning opportunities and atrophy can occur. How do Presenters feel about the "White Belt" approach? Most Presenters I have worked with have a lifelong passion for learning. This love of learning is actually the key to cultivating and maintaining an appreciation for "White Belt Mentality" vs. a black belt mentality. The "Black Belt Mentality" focuses on a finite "mastery" point, or a finish line. It has an air of "Ok, now that I have mastered this subject, I can train on this subject". And herein lies a big problem, most Presenters love to learn. With this "Black Belt Mentality", learning ends and this is where what I call "Presenter-drain" begins. Boredom can set it. Learning decreases. With the White Belt mentality, the learning is always going to be a part of the process and I see Presenters with amazing energy, focus and motivation spring forward. It prevents anyone from getting stuck in a rut. Staying with what you know is comfortable but you do not grow. What does a "White Belt "Presenter embody? An excitement for learning. There’s a strong appreciation for always having "A new mountain to climb". It’s seeking out the best techniques, coaches, and mentors. They thrive being the learners too. You allow them to learn how to fly higher in ways authentic to who they are as individuals by implementing a program that embraces and rewards the white belt. The best only get better because of habits like getting a coach. At the end of the day, seeking the "White Belt" mentality is a personal choice and depends on internal motivations based on WHY a person is a Presenter, WHAT their goals are for themselves and the people they teach and WHO they want to be as a Presenter. 3 Ways to Encourage White Belt Mentality: 1) Find strengths and ensure that strengths are being utilized so they stay powerful. 2) Identify the next mountain to climb. 3) Look for authentic ways to soar above where you have been. I’ll add that I love coaching and working with-in groups of advanced "white-belts". It’s amazing when "white-belts" get together to problem solve. They can amaze themselves and have new found love for training. Enjoy training more; cure Presenter burnout! Here are a few White Belts for you to meet-- Carlos’s Story- A financial professional and Presenter who loves to learn. He embodies the "White Belt Mentality". We take turns being the learner and sharing with each other. In a "Black-Belt" environment it becomes about "who knows more" or who is "the master". In a "White-Belt" environment, it’s just the opposite! We actually fight over who gets to be the learner because we each love being in the learner role! With this shared mentality we come up with amazing ideas for training programming. Natasha’s Story- When a "Presenter Education Process" was introduced at a major corporation a few years back it was meant to be for new Presenters. Natasha, a top Presenter, well know, well loved, seasoned Presenter requested that she be a part of the process. She sought out coaching. After she went through the process she said she "Had a renewed respect and enjoyment for training. Honestly, I was starting to get bored with being a Presenter and feeling really drained. I was so refreshed by this process and now I have two year’s worth of material to implement. " Jeremiah and Dylan Two best of the best, top Presenters in their organization requested coaching. Their employer brought me in and for me it was amazing to see them in action. They both clearly know their strengths and how to utilize them in a training environment. They were looking for feedback and craved validation for what they were accomplishing from a coach who had the eye for seeing what they were doing right, letting them know and then helping them to find new challenges-new mountains to strive for and ways to become ever more authentic while in front of their audience. White-belt to the "nth" degree—they couldn’t wait to get a coach in the room with them. So what are your thoughts about cultivating a "White Belt Mentality"? If you are a Manager, how do you keep you white belt mentality for yourself, encourage it or recognize it in others at your organization? Send me your thoughts at Jason@RuletheRoom.com.   Want know more about the "White Belt Mentality"? Go to ruletheroom.com   The post White Belt Mentality appeared first on Rule The Room.

 You may routinely give presentations on different topics to a group of wily veterans who think they have heard it all before (a group of physicians, for example, or executives, or even a convocation of college students). You may also give presentations on the same topic to audiences of all different types. In either case, there will be times when you want to make the presentation even more effective by spending some advance time tailoring it for a specific audience. It’s even more challenging when you arrive at a presentation only to discover the composition of your audience is not what you expected. Or, even if you’ve done your research and prepared very carefully for your audience, you realize that their expectations are different from what you had anticipated. In these cases, you’ll also have to tailor your presentation, but you’ll have to do it in real time. Here are ways to meet both sets of challenges: Customize takeaway hooks for your listeners Be prepared to match the mood of your audience Customize your presentation on the fly. Give real-life uses they can relate to. I am surprised when I look over presentations and discover that presenters have not done enough work to ensure their stories and examples are customized according to the particular requirements of the audience. Your audience needs to feel as if you have written this presentation specifically for them—even if that’s not the case. Customize takeaway hooks for your listeners If you are giving a presentation to a number of wily veterans, one of the best ways to make your listeners feel you wrote the presentation just for them is to modify every one of your takeaway hooks to suit them in particular. For example, when I gave a presentation to a group of newly veteran professors on how to give a compelling lecture, among the takeaways I planned to include was one about confidence. Typically, I’d introduce the hook by saying, "I’m going to show you how to come across as completely confident, safe, and trustworthy." For the professors, I rephrased the topic so it would appear to be tailored to them: "I’m going to show you how to feel and show more confidence and credibility so you and your students can focus more on learning." When I delivered this hook, the professors were especially attentive and engaged. I have said you need to do research for a presentation, and if your audience is more informed, it pays to do additional research when you’re going to appear before a particular type of audience. I knew how to tailor my presentation to what the professors wanted because a few weeks prior to the presentation, I had called on some of them to discuss what would be important to their peers. I asked the sort of questions that elicited some of their pain points and pleasure points: What most worries assistant professors about giving a lecture? The number one answer? They were concerned about appearing credible to the students. What are your biggest challenges as lecturers? Covering the entire topic was one. Dealing with different levels of competence in a single classroom was another. What were some of the problems the challenge causes? Being ignored by students who were sitting with their computers open to Facebook. Feeling their confidence erode. Worrying about their competence as teachers. What would be the ideal outcome after attending a presentation on giving a compelling lecture? They described it as having confidence that they could appear before seventy-five students with open laptops, call them to attention, and manage to keep their attention for an hour. What would getting such an outcome do for you? Feeling confident would make them enjoy interacting with their students and have a snowball effect, they told me. They’d become better teachers and could focus on helping the students learn. These answers helped me tailor my hooks so I could make the audience crave what I was going to say. Be prepared to match the mood of the audience If possible, do some advance research about the sponsoring organization that can help you anticipate the general mood of your audience. Perhaps the sponsoring organization is facing financial reorganization, so the staff is being cut and the people remaining are uncertain about their positions. Or perhaps the company has brought you in to implement new procedures and the personnel aren’t happy about the changes. Begin with a neutral tone. Don’t try to incorporate humor or enthusiasm right away. People won’t respond to humor or enthusiasm until they’re feeling good. They don’t feel good until they feel safe. And they don’t feel safe until they trust you. Wait until after you’ve covered your first takeaway or later before you introduce any humor. They’ll start to feel good only after you’ve taught them something that catches their attention and/or their imagination.  Give real-life uses they can relate to Gradually—by the end of the opener, after you’ve shown them the list of takeaways, and especially after you’ve taught them how to achieve the first takeaway—your audience members should become responsive. Once they start to demonstrate some enthusiasm, you can respond to it, build on it, and perhaps introduce some humor. If audience members are unresponsive or negative, they’re likely not getting what they wanted for one of two reasons: Your presentation isn’t meeting the audience’s expectations: It’s not giving them what they came for. Your presentation isn’t meeting the audience’s needs: It isn’t giving them adequate and actionable solutions. Even if you prepared using all the techniques I suggest in my book, it is possible your audience will want to know even more than you had planned to cover. You can find out what the audience hopes to learn while you are actually delivering the presentation, and you can make sure to deliver it. To show an audience you’re responsive to them, the first thing you have to demonstrate is that you’re listening, you know what’s important to them, and you know how they’re feeling. They have to be sure you have heard them before they will feel that what you are saying is meant directly for them. This means they don’t want you to offer solutions until they have asked for them, so your job is to get them to tell you what they want to know. Then, when they’re convinced you’re tailoring your approach to their needs, they’ll be responsive. Once again, I’m going to remind you it’s not what they want that’s really important. It’s why they want it. You need insight into their emotional needs—their pain points and their pleasure points. You need to find out what is bothering them so you can offer appropriate remedies or what they desire so you can offer the means to get it. You can get that information quickly and effectively with the circle of knowledge. I’ve already told you how it helps capture their attention and makes your presentation enjoyable; now I’ll explain how it helps you tailor your approach. I was speaking to a group of deans at a large university and then to a gathering of student ambassadors who had been hired to recruit other students to join the sponsoring organization. In both cases, I was talking about how to give a presentation. I knew the takeaways for both would be similar. But I wasn’t sure which specific takeaways would matter the most to each group. I knew the circle of knowledge would help me to customize my presentation on the fly and allow me to focus on the areas that were of primary interest to each one. Knowing this, I could change my emphasis, a simple matter of taking time away from some topics and adding time to or emphasizing others. When I asked the college students the top three things that make an effective presenter, one said, "They know how to deal with questions they don’t know the answer to," and a second said, "They know how to interrupt the questioning to deliver their message." Those responses, which revealed their fears and doubts, represented their pain points. I asked the deans what they felt made a presenter effective. Their responses made it clear their main concern was managing to communicate everything they felt was necessary in a relatively brief period of time. Again, they had revealed their pain points to me. Give real-life uses they can relate to Telling your audience what you’re going to teach them is important, but to really get and keep their attention, you have to make them understand why they might need it. One of my clients once told me, "I’m giving the audience information. They can figure out how to apply it." When I disputed that, he said, "I can’t give them an example because I don’t have one. This is an audience of project managers, and I’ve never presented to project managers." The way you find examples is by talking to people like those who will be in your audience, doing research in advance, and mingling with the audience before the presentation. Mention your takeaways, and ask the person you’re speaking to how they might be useful. Half an hour before I spoke to a group of HR managers, I engaged one in conversation about three of the points I planned to cover. I asked if there were times she felt especially challenged by keeping her topic interesting. She said that happened during the meetings in which she was to help employees choose a health plan. I also asked if she sometimes felt it difficult to stay on track. She cited presentations about sexual harassment, when the discussion often became heated and difficult to control. Finally, I asked if making any specific presentations made her particularly nervous or fearful, and she said that happened when she had to address key objectives such as turnover and staffing. This five-minute discussion directly before my presentation yielded gold. I took notes, and, after our talk, I spent another five minutes incorporating her examples under the appropriate tasks and subtasks on my blueprint. When during my presentation I cited these examples, which the HR managers could apply in their world, I could see from their expressions they understood I was talking directly to them about things they could use, and they were rapt. The most important way to tailor your approach to a particular audience is to give actual examples and demonstrate as clearly as possible how those examples apply to their situations. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of putting effort into this step. The payoff is enormous. You’ll seem credible and empathic, and you’ll find your audience much more attentive. Best, Jason Teteak Rule the Room The post Win Over Wily Veterans appeared first on Rule The Room.

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Michael Starr, lead singer of Steel Panther, explains the venue's legacy before his band performs on the final show.