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What Role Does Attitude Play In My Presentation?

As the world’s largest provider of media training, presentation training, and public speaking workshops, we can tell you that attitude has a much bigger role in presenting success than it does in other areas of life. For example, I can go out on a golf course brimming over with confidence. I can tell my partners “I’m going to hit a hole in one. I’m going to make Tiger Woods look like a duffer.” And the results will be the same: I will still shoot 180 and that is with me giving myself a mulligan on each hole. I can also go out on the basketball court and have a positive attitude about my ability to dunk a basketball. This, laughably and regrettably will not help me dunk a basketball.

The self-help movement and personal development fields are full of gurus who will tell you attitude is the most important of all presentation tools. And so often, this is bunk. With sports, genetics may play a bigger role. With talents like singing, certain abilities are distributed to a random few. Fortunately, presenting skills are NOT like that.

Anyone can learn to be an excellent presenter. Your attitude really does have a huge impact on your presentation and on your audience. The sheer act of you looking and sounding like you think you are a great speaker will actually have the effect of making some people believe that you are, in fact, an excellent speaker.

There are a lot of different styles among world-class speakers, but one thing they all have in common is that they give off the sense that they absolutely love speaking to the audience they are in front of and that they are good at doing so. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair give off a feeling that if they weren’t being paid fortunes to speak in front of you right now, they’d pay you for the right to speak to you because they are having so much fun.

When Arnold Swarzenhagger speaks to an audience, he doesn’t act like he is filled with self-doubt or nervousness about his accent or his inability to pronounce the word “California.” Instead, he exudes the sense of joy and “I can’t believe how well this speech is going!” It’s contagious with the crowd.

You can do this too, if you plan accordingly. It is critical that you go into every presentation with the attitude that you are going to nail it, be great, really communicate your messages, and accomplish all of your goals. You must convey this with every part of your body, voice, eyes, and energy. No, you won’t be perfect, but audience members are far more likely to pick up on your positive attitude than they are any minor stumble, mistake or minor blunder you make.

Unlike learning how to hit a hole in one or dunk a basketball or playing concert-level quality violin, presenting and speaking well are easy skills. So when you go into a presentation with a positive and upbeat mental attitude, it’s not some phony baloney, pie-in-the-sky attitude that will set you up for a big fall. Instead, it is an attitude that is positive and realistic at the same time and will propel you and your audience toward a successful time together.

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