53. Presentation Advice from Musicians and Athletes: The Value of Effortlessness

Three famous musicians and two athletes share a performance quality that any presenter would do well to emulate. The musicians are jazz pianist Art Tatum, violinist Jascha Heifetz, and dancer Fred Astaire; the two athletes are baseball great Joe DiMaggio and any good trapeze artist. All of them are celebrated for performing their specialties with supreme effortlessness—or, in the idiom of trapeze artists, without a net. The lesson for presenters is to stand up in front of a mission-critical audience and appear supremely confident in describing their businesses. But this is far easier said than done because presenters, unlike musicians and athletes, are not performers.

In a Wall Street Journal article, Terry Teachout, the newspaper’s drama critic, referenced Mr. Tatum’s effortlessness in a YouTube video of his 1954 performance of “Yesterdays” and then commented:

Close your eyes and it sounds as though someone had tossed a string of lit firecrackers into the Steinway. Open them and it looks as though you’re watching a court reporter take down the testimony of a witness in a civil suit.

Mr. Teachout went on to describe Mr. Heifetz’s ease: “[He] brought off his stupendous feats of technical wizardry without ever cracking a smile or looking anything other than blasé.”^F53.1

Fred Astaire and Joe DiMaggio were both noted for the consummate grace with which they performed their vigorous physical activities.

How can a presenter achieve that appearance of effortlessness? The answer goes back to the old vaudeville joke about a visitor to New York City seeking directions. The visitor stops a man on the street and asks, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The man replies, “Practice.”

The best way to practice your presentation is to Verbalize, the subject of Chapter 13, “Do You Know the Way to Spanish Bay?” Verbalization means rehearsing your presentation aloud—just as you will deliver it in front of an actual audience, and doing it many times over. You can achieve your own effortlessness by implementing a further variation of the presentation equivalent of the real estate credo “Location, location, location” with practice, practice, practice, or, Verbalize, Verbalize, Verbalize.