Become a More Confident Public Speaker by Incorporating Story Into Your Presentation
Public speaking is rude. Even people who make public presentations all the time can get intimidated by the scene. While the age-old advice to portray everyone in a room can certainly help (or hurt, depending on who you are), Fast Company offers another idea for dealing with tricky public speaking: include a story.
While most of us are not expert speakers, we are expert storytellers. The idea behind the advice is that if you include a relevant personal story in your presentation, telling about it will help you relax and create a much more memorable experience for your audience.
At a basic level, we have all told many more stories in our lives than we did public presentations. By default, this is what everyone will naturally do better. When you’re comfortable with your story, you also show the crowd confidence, listening and authenticity – and your story can give your entire presentation a little natural structure, a structure that, since you know the story, you won’t mess up and stray from the middle of the conversation.
You don’t want to just tell a story, the story should be relevant to the topic of your presentation, but if you find the right one, your story can help give your presentation structure and a personal touch that will make it and your topic much more relevant to your audience.
Stories, especially personal ones, will be much easier to remember than tons of PowerPoint slides, saving you the trouble of memorizing tons of index cards. You will be more relaxed, and a more natural presentation in general will make you more convincing.