They want you to be good!

Confidence:

There are several aspects to building your confidence, but we have to remember that ultimately some people simply cannot lay the facts over the feelings of fear, and they will always struggle with this.

Secondly, a certain level of fear and anxiety is actually a good thing. A total absence of anxiety can lead to a lack of care, and that leads to a fly by the seat of the pants false confidence that excludes appropriate preparation.

But let’s look at these facts regarding confidence, lack of confidence and reasons for confidence.

One of the fears that people have is about the audience being critical of their efforts, so the first thing to understand is:

•         The listeners WANT you to be good.

They really do. It is rare that someone is assessing you with a critical eye and ear, and even in those rare cases it is normally to help you improve. The audience is not actively looking for you to fail. There are simple reasons for this:

o   Nobody wants to sit through a boring presentation.

Think about when you are forced to go to some sort of event where you are going to be sitting and listening to a speaker. Do you go thinking that you hope the speaker is boring and terrible?

Even if you don’t want to be there, you grumble to yourself that you hope at least the guy is not boring.

Have you ever sat in the car with your workmates on the way to a conference and said to each other “I really hope this guy is a bumbling, boring, stuttering speaker. I can’t think of anything I look forward to more than a boring presentation.”

That is a conversation that I venture to say has never been spoken, except facetiously.

Even those people who have been forced to attend “against their will” want the presentation to be enjoyable – at least that way they have had an enjoyable day, rather than a miserable day being forced to listen boring presentations.

o   Very few people actively want you to fail, and even they don’t want to waste their time.

You see, regardless of the situation, people just do not want to waste their time – even if it is company time, as some people like to joke about. You might have an enemy in the audience, but you do not have an audience of enemies. And even that mythical person that wants you to fail doesn’t actually want to be subjected to an hour of boredom just so that they can be victorious over you. They would rather not have to endure it, but instead simply rejoice in reports of your failure – so most likely that person – if they even exist – will not be in the audience. They want you to fail but they don’t want to endure your failure, and they don’t want to be there just in case you are good, and then they have to endure your victory.

So, they want you to be good.

Even the ones who you think don’t wish you the best.

•  It is not just about information – they actually want to be entertained.

The second point about this is that they want you to be enjoyable.

If it was just about information, people would simply publish facts. Presentations would be Powerpoint slides with tables, and dot points of information, with no need for any talk or discussion.

No, even in the most “informational” of presentations, the point is for it to be entertaining.

People remember facts when they are presented in unusual or exciting ways. If you list off facts, then only the most dedicated remember.

As a result of this, people don’t head to a conference saying “I hope there is a lot of good information”, they use phrases like “Worthwhile” and “not waste my time”.

The funny thing is, if you have two presentations side by side, and one is boring but full of useful information, and the other is interesting but low of detail, most people will come out of the second raving about how good it is, whilst most people will come out of the first saying very little.

Don’t get this wrong folks – I am not saying substance is irrelevant. If you have nothing worthwhile to say, then people will soon stop listening.

But people simply don’t want to be bored, no matter how much information is presented.

If your only goal is the dissemination of information, then publish a document.

People want good, useful information, but they want you to make interesting to them.

Either extreme is a waste of time – we must find that happy place in the middle, where we have enough good, solid, useful information, but presented in a way that makes it accessible and memorable.

Entertaining provision of information is what we are aiming at.

Information alone is ignored.

Entertainment alone is of no lasting value.

Present information in an entertaining way, and people happily accept that information and it goes with them, taking with it the prospects that you can build upon later.

So, with the understanding that we can have confidence because the audience wants us to be good, we can then go to the mechanics that will help your confidence.