John: You're listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development.

John: To change your experience of life and work with every episode.

Tony: So tune in, grab your notebook, and let's go. Let's go.

John: Welcome to another episode of The Present Professional. Today, we're here to talk to you about how to lead an engaging experience with your group, team, or anywhere that you might even be hosting a game night or something. We're talking about how to engage people in an experience that you want to create. And this is something that Tony and I have done in various different capacities when it comes to just Leading a meeting, leading a full educational workshop, and even speaking to an audience. It all comes into how are you preparing for the experience itself. So your preparation is going to lead to it being seamless. You being able to adapt on the fly. during the experience because you are prepared with all of the options that you want to have at any moment during the experience. So we're going to really zone in on the preparation aspect of it, leading these experiences today for you and whatever group that you may be leading.

Tony: Well said, and I'm glad you mentioned the preparation piece. There's a saying that preparation prevents Piss poor performance. So preparation is really, I ain't going to put a percentage on it, but it's really a majority of your outcome goals or your outcome success rate. So yeah, happy to talk about preparing. I think that if you look at sports or you look at anything else, you know, even public speaking or like you talked about, even hosting a game night, it all starts in preparation. The best individuals, the best speakers, the best presenters, the best hosts, they all have thought about what's going to happen before it happens. And then when people show up, They are just following a game plan. So looking forward to unpacking this a little bit more and kind of diving into some are smart tools and tricks and resources that we use to. To keep getting booked. And keep people coming.

John: I'd say the biggest game changer for me here was yoga teacher training and really just teaching yoga in general. So I get up in front of a room of, I don't know, around 30, 35 students every week and lead them through an hour long experience every week. And it really helps sharpen that muscle for me and be able to adapt on the fly notice people's energy, be able to make shifts during the moment. And, you know, that's a whole other episode talking about in the moment. But during teacher training, Nancy, one of my teachers said success is 99% logistics. And what she's saying is that, you know, the way that I interpret it, is the experience of success. So it's you know, when you're experiencing success, you are being caught off guard less, you're having to improvise less, you are, you know, being effective with how you want to move forward. And you can always tell when you think about experiences and that you've been a part of education experiences, workshops, meetings, You know when you're in a meeting with someone that is not prepared. Like you can tell when there's been, there's no agenda to it and there's no program promise or goal of the meeting. When there's no natural flow to where we start the discussion in the middle and how the conclusions that we want to make. And so it's, you've experienced someone that's been well-prepared leading your meeting and maybe you've experienced being unprepared yourself. and what that feels like. But these logistics, it starts with your mind as well. What is, when you're thinking about inside, looking at yourself, what is the purpose of this meeting? What is the purpose of bringing everyone together? What is the purpose of the message that you want to deliver? What is your promise, and can you make a declaration behind that? So that's the first thing I like to start with is for this experience. What do I, what promise do I want to make to a participant that shows up here? What promise do I want to make to the group that you're going to walk away with? And that's where I start. And then everything else gets built in behind that. And I think about this process. When I'm going to deliver something, when I'm preparing educational material, I'm thinking about, you know, what are they going to walk away with? What will they have or what will they be capable of after this experience that they may not be capable of today? And just getting super clear on that myself, it really helps me prepare a lot of my workshop material and when I'm having meetings.

Tony: Yeah. And I think even the fear of failure can drive you a bit, right? You said, like, you can tell when someone is given a speech or someone's leading a workshop or an event, and they're not prepared. You can tell. And as a speaker or presenter yourself, That can drive you a bit because you could say, I don't want to be like that. I don't want to show up like that and use that as a benchmark to remind yourself of why it's important to be prepared. I think one of the keys to being prepared is really knowing your audience as much as you can. Sometimes you're going to walk in blind. Sometimes you're going to walk in not knowing who's in the room. Sometimes you don't know anything about the crowd. Sometimes you don't even know how many people that happens. I think it's important to know the demographic, to know what they've been through. If you're going to lead a workshop to help encourage, motivate, inspire, things like that, you want to know what exactly is the problem that they have and what am I bringing. What are you expecting of me to bring to solve their problem? Or what are they expecting to hear? There are certain questions you can ask to help frame not only your presentation, because it's not as much about your presentation as it is about you, right? So when you are in those in-between moments, and you're in between one of your speaking points, That's your opportunity to engage your audience. So if you're inside person or you're the person that are the people that brought you into the event workshop meeting, if they've told you something specific about a person or about a problem that they've had, and it's not necessarily related to your presentation slides, you can use those moments to create connection, right? So if someone told you in advance that, hey, we have a couple people that are transplants, you know, they're not, they just got to Houston, and that's a big part of what they're facing is just connecting to the city or just connecting to the country, depending on where they're from. And you can be giving your presentation and say, how many people in the room are native Houstonians? And ask the question. How many people are new to Houston? Ask the question. And how does it make you feel being here? Maybe they haven't had a chance to say how they feel and their colleagues don't even know. Their colleagues may not even know that they're new. So those type of moments create connection. Are you and the people from as you as a speaker to the people that are in the room and then also you can create connection amongst the people in the room if you have inside information so i think knowing your audience is super important. But again, sometimes you just don't. You just don't know, but you can find out if you ask. So getting to know your audience, but also the people in the person that may have brought you in, you can use them as your leveraging tool to just enhance your experience.

John: I love that. I love thinking about helping your audience work for you in a way. Right? Like what you were saying about that specific example of folks moving to Houston and you're trying to create connection from the folks that are already there. So it's like, how can you employ your audience to help solve their problems? Oh, you know, native Houstonians, what's one thing that you think that they should do within the next month to help them get to know the city? You know, it's like bringing them into the fold. And then what I find when I'm leading a group experience, like people learn more from each other than me half the time. It's because you're immersed in each other's worlds, you know, especially if this is in the office environment or at work, there's you're immersed in each other's world. So you're going to be able to Relay on a different level. And, you know, that's when that's why I plan to in my preparation. Break folks out into small groups that way, you know, folks are a little bit more comfortable sharing around any topic or things that we have coming up. and then bring it back to the larger group and let folks share that are willing to share from the groups. And a lot of times I'll say, who's not speaking up and who in your group wants to speak up on their behalf, like something that everyone should hear. Because then sometimes, then the group can help the person that doesn't want to speak up and speak for them. Oh, so-and-so said this, and I think everyone should hear it. It was so powerful. And then the audience gets to benefit from that. Now, when you're prepping this agenda, so you have your program promise, you're thinking about your audience, how they are going to best receive information. How do I get them engaged? But then there's also, you know, what materials do you need to create that experience? Right. And then in what order do you need them now? This is a lot of thinking about what exercises, what topics do you want to speak about in your meeting, your workshop, your talk, and to be fully engaged in that part of the experience. What are the people going to need? Are they going to need a pen? Are they going to need a notebook? Are they going to need Post-it notes? Do you need one of the big Post-it boards? Are you going to type things out on a slide? Do they need handouts? Do they need a piece of scratch paper? You know, what questions are they going to have? And try to think about those in advance because and. And when it comes down to the exercise and the materials that folks are going to need. Be extremely clear about those directions and in your preparation. for a specific exercise, I would highly, highly recommend testing that with someone that's in your circle, even someone at home, you know, ask your kids, your wife, like, Hey, tell me if you tell me if you understand this, give them the instructions for the, for the exercise with the materials that they're going to need. and see what questions they have. A lot of times you'll find that what is so clear in your mind that, you know, take this piece of paper, draw these four shapes, and then draw one more shape that's within these four. Then, you know, some people draw the shapes inside of shapes, some people draw their own, some people follow the prompt. It's like, is it an elementary level type instruction? Now, you know, when you're doing that, when you're prepping your materials, when you're prepping the agenda for an exercise like this, think about, you know, a lot of times it's, you know, a recommendation when you're writing copy is, you know, for, you know, third or fifth grade reading level. But when you're giving instructions, we're talking kindergarten. You got to keep it super simple. Everyone in your audience has to understand this and be able to take action on it on their own immediately. So it's like, make it as easy as possible. Steps one, two, three, and how you know who will go first, when they should start. you know, when they should know when they're coming to a close, how it should finish, just getting super, like, almost annoyingly clear on your exercise directions. And, you know, I know this from experience and having you know, a lot of ambiguity or some distraction caused by folks not understanding what we're putting in front of them. So that's my number one advice when it comes to materials and exercises within your talk, meeting or workshop is, you know, make sure you're extremely, extremely clear on your directions.

Tony: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's important. And I think that to your point about elementary explanations is if when you are having to explain your material or explain a command to your audience, if it takes too long to explain it, you need to change it. You may need to throw it out completely, honestly, because it really should not be complicated. If you have to make it complicated, that's because you're making it complicated. If you are having a large audience, even a small audience of people and you're instructing them, Just instruct. Don't try to scientifically make them have a recalibration moment in the presentation. If you want to do that, there's experiences that you can bring in to do that. Take someone through a demo or read something that's mind-blowing. But if you're trying to make them move, your puzzle might not be jiving with the room. So if you take too long to explain, throw it out and redo it for another time. I think another thing for preparation is to make sure that your speech flows naturally, or your information flows naturally. And the best way to do that is honestly just repetition, especially if it's your material. The more you give it, the more you say it, The more you know about the information, it's going to flow naturally. area of expertise and it's something that you really know a lot about. Don't focus so much on the PowerPoint or the information on the screen. Use your voice to be the way that people learn and use your visual aids as an aid. You know, use it as a secondary component to it. And of course, people love visual, I'm a visual learner too, but when you have a human body or a human figure in the room giving information that's teaching and you're the teacher, lead on that. I have a really, really, really close friend. He's one of my fraternity brothers who's a comedian. He's a pretty big-time comedian in Houston. He always says, stand in front of the microphone. Not the microphone, but the microphone stand. He's like, when you grab the mic, stand in front of the podium or stand in front of the microphone stand. Put that behind you. Don't stand behind it. Now, in the sense of comedy, I'm sure that's That makes sense. And sometimes when you're giving speeches, you may want to be right there at the podium. But what he's saying by that is stand on whatever it is that you're talking about. Like, don't feel that you have to hide behind your material or hide behind the visual aids or even like the podium to shrink yourself to try to just get it out and say whatever needs to be said. No, stand in front of everybody boldly and let them know that you're the expert in the room or that you know what you're talking about. And I'd add part two to this is don't focus on memorizing your speech or your information. I think that it catches a lot of people up, especially if you are not a frequent public speaker or not a frequent presenter or even a host, if you're hosting a game night. Don't focus on memorizing everything that you wanted to do and everything you want to say to make it be perfect. Focus on the key components of your speech or of your planned event, and make sure you get out the must-haves. So if there's things that people must know, you must say, or they must take away, Focus on those, it's almost like bullet points in your mind, as opposed to trying to memorize every single word of a speech, because then you're not focused on the audience. You're focused on your premeditated plan, and then you're not present, present professional. Because if you're focused on the stuff you wrote, that's where your mind is. It's like, did I say everything? Or if you're reading, am I reading? The people want to hear you. That's why they brought you there. That's why they came to your event or your game night. So be present with the people, let go of your agenda, and use that only as your preparation tool, not your in-the-moment or in-the-facilitation tool.

John: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like really having the bullet points there. Like, they're really high points that you don't want to miss. I completely agree with that. It's just something that you can glance at. If there's a whole section of your talk that you just don't want to skip, you don't want to miss. So I completely agree. Just having those high points in your mind and cues for those. And then so you can move forward and speak from experience. And that's another thing is A lot of the things that you're talking about, that you're meeting about, unless you're really leading a discovery session or strategy session where you are going into the meeting with an open mind and trying to create the process there, and it's more of a creative type meeting. But if you're delivering something that you know, and it's based on your knowledge and your experience, then it has to be something that you've lived, like that you have experienced, that you embody, like teaching something based on someone else's material that you haven't lived personally will come out in, in your audience, your audience will understand that it's something that's not resonating with your core. And that doesn't mean that you can't use other research, other methodologies, so many things like, so there's so much information out there that You know, maybe the researchers just aren't great at communicating, but maybe you are, you know, maybe, maybe there's a piece of research that will never reach the ears of the people unless you communicate it. But the thing is, is the insight that's coming from that research from that book from anything that you're going to digest and deliver, have you fully digested it? Have you taken it on personally and seen how this is reflected in your life? And the best thing when it comes to that is providing examples. You know, giving people a visual aid to. Fully understand what you mean by. A story of how it was lived and preferably something that you've lived personally, because then the story will come off and be authentic, but then it could be vicarious through someone that you know someone in just an example that folks can say, oh, this is where this concept applies. Oh, I see how it made a difference for this person in this situation. You know, it's providing an example can be a really great way to connect with your audience across many different topics. So that's two sides of that is, you know, provide examples, and especially great if they're your own examples, your own lived experience. And then, you know, before you talk to or teach or deliver content on anything, it's like, make sure that you've lived that personally. Make sure that you've spent some time with the topic and some time with that insight before you go to deliver it, or the people will know that it's not really yours.

Tony: And a side note to that is if you've been asked to give a certain presentation or asked to do something for a group or even host something to, if it's not really in your area of expertise and you don't really have the time to truly engulf that and learn that, then Pass it on, you know, decline. Say no, say not right now. This one, I'm going to have to let this one go or I know someone who can do it. You know, good luck to you finding the person that can like you don't always have to do. everything that comes your way. You don't have to take it on. I think that actually shrinks your ability to be effective if you take on things that are outside your purview or outside your expertise, because then you're just kind of more broad in the sense of you giving the material. Because like John said, if you can't deep dive on it and if you can't really explain the information, then you can be seen as someone who's, I'm not going to call you unprepared at that point, but you may be seen as someone who just is not really a true expert or master at a certain subject. And at the same time, that doesn't mean you can't do it. Just make sure that you Let them know that up front. Hey, this is some really great material that I'm excited to share. I am not the expert in this area, but I do love presenting about these types of things and this type of material. And then share your experience or share maybe why you were considered or then share maybe your expertise to tie in, hey, this is what I'm really good at. This over here that I'm talking about today is something that I know of, but I'm going to tie in my expertise to this subject and make it work for us today. How about that? And the people will love your upfrontness, your candidacy of just saying, hey, OK, he's one of us. He doesn't know it either. But he's really good at that. And I'm glad he said that. So now I can connect with. who he really is, or who this person really is, and then the subject matter today. So I hope that kind of makes sense for you all. And just saying that, again, you don't have to do every single thing that comes across your table. But if you do, and it's not really your thing, it's OK to be upfront. I know for me, if I'm an audience member and I hear that, but I also see their credentials, I'm like, cool, I'm still engaged. But if halfway through the material, I'm like, What did he say? That doesn't even make sense. Now I'm questioning you, right?

John: Yeah. Yeah, man. And I think that's just part of being authentic and in integrity with what you're going to present, who you are, and really doing what you say you're going to do. Now, there's one last point that I want to make here and that's that everyone learns differently. Everyone listens differently and everyone digests material differently. Now, your best bet is going to be Maybe it's not, you know what that's like for every single person in the room and you can tailor your material to that. But in your preparation, how can you be prepared to engage multiple learning styles? Now there are parts of it. Can you make your speech, your meeting, can you make part of it reflective? Okay. Everyone sit down at the table here. And before we get started in the meeting, I wanted to present the, the topic here. And we ultimately in this meeting, we want to come to a decision on X, Y, Z. Now, everyone in your notebooks, before we even get started in the discussion, can you write personally what you think would be a good outcome for this? you know, what do you think would be the best outcome for the team? Then you have everyone provide a little reflective moment to look into themselves for the answers to the questions. And then it's what that gets ahead of is folks that usually take over the conversation and kind of lead with their ideas and folks that, you know, aren't quite as vocal, just, you know, kind of forward into that into the realm of that. So that's like, Just one example for a meeting where you're engaging that reflective learning style as opposed to just getting right into the conversational aspect of the meeting. Then there's the conversational piece of it. If you're giving a speech or giving a workshop, can you take a moment to let the folks in the audience partner up with the person next to them? Are the folks sitting at the table, sitting at small tables already? And then you can have them engage with their small tables and have a short discussion about one of the topics and then bring everyone back to the room. Can you provide a visual or can you lead a visualization meditation? Can you put a video into your slides that can be an example of what you're talking about? Is there something that's auditory, you know, listening to different sounds to get them to evoke different emotions? Or is it just the audio of just your voice and the delivery? Right, there are so many different ways. And then there's also the experiential aspect. Can you have them do what you're talking about? Maybe that's one exercise, one project, like a way to kind of get their hands dirty, if you will. To really learn about what you are presenting, to embody it, So I think it's super critical in your preparation to think about how am I engaging these multiple learning styles in the experience I want to create.

Tony: And on that note, I think that it's important when you are creating your PowerPoint or your visual aid to make sure that you condense your slides as much as possible. In my doctor program, we learned that you could actually just use a picture to explain everything that you want to say. And it took a doctor program for me to accept that that's true. Because knowing that people have different learning styles is obviously important, but Look at how we communicate today. Memes, emojis, pictures, funny things, TikTok. We laugh, we look at all these different, all this. We get really a cognitive overload of information on a daily basis. That's just point blank. But one picture on a slide is sometimes all you need to explain your point. Because that one picture can mean so much to everybody in the room. It can even be, what do you see here? And let everybody get a chance to share what they see. And then you can just simply explain what it means to you or whatever it is that you were trying to get across that you probably would have used about 30 to 40 words to explain. You can use this one image to get your point across. that can help you create even more connection with the people in the room. So just wanted to throw that out there too as my final piece and just really jumping on to what you were saying about how you create that experience and use those visual aids. But I'd also like to share, make it simple. Kiss, K-I-S-S. Keep it super simple. And you'd be surprised how often you get called back to keep on presenting to certain groups or people sharing their experience and talking about you in a positive way that keeps you booked.

John: Mm-hmm and on just adding on to your slides. No, no, I agree the the less slides and the less that is on the slides the better and One more thing is utilize the black screen as well. You know when you don't want folks to be looking at the slide clear it You know, when you want folks to be paying attention specifically to what's coming out of your mouth, blank the slide. It's another best practice that it can really divert people's attention from the slides into the moment. And, you know, it's and as as you go to prepare for whatever you have coming up, whatever group engagement experience and meeting that you're going to lead. You know, one last thing is just. Don't worry about it being perfect. Do the best that you can. Prepare the best that you can with the time that you have before the engagement, and then go in, know that you've prepared, and live in the moment. Be there, breathe there with the people and know that no matter how many times that you're delivering content, no matter how many times that you are speaking in front of a group, leading a meeting, that you're also learning during that experience. So as we go to lead different teams, go to lead in our organizations, know that through each of those experiences, we are also learning. So thank you all for being listeners. Thank you for being a part of our learning experience as podcast hosts. And let's continue learning together. So check in with us at the presentprofessionalpodcast.com and anywhere that you're listening to us today. Please rate us, review us. It goes a long way for folks to hear your thoughts about what you're listening to and any feedback we'd love to get from you on future episode topics, how you're feeling about the material, and something that you're getting from the material. So thank you guys. Until next time.