3.1. EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS
We've changed our expectations. We know what we've got to lose. We've mourned the old days, when our clients did business with us because they knew our old Aunt Ethel. Now Aunt Ethel can only get us a horse in the race, with no guarantee that we'll win. It's time to expand our horizons, to let go of locality and think bigger. Small-town business is great, but when small-town values become a comfort zone that smothers dreams and creativity, we need to branch out. The Presentation Revolution isn't about slick psychological manipulation; it's about improvement, each and every day, so that the best ideas, the best values, and the best people achieve success.
If we're going to expand our horizons, we have to lighten up. Not too long ago, people woke up to a day of hard labor, scratching the dirt, breaking the stones, surviving against all odds. This was accurately called work.
Nowadays, we make delicate keyboard strokes on ergonomically curved keys. We move a mouse a little to the left, a smidge up, and gently click. At times, we rise and walk to the bathroom. What we type, what we click, what decisions we make . . . are the things we get paid for now.
I'm not belittling what we do for a living. However, we need to recognize that we live in an "idea economy," one in which we get paid for our thoughts. Robots do a growing amount of mindless tasks on our behalf everyday. We cannot outmuscle them; we can only be paid for what they cannot do. We must stop referring to this as "work," as though it compares with the ancestral life of toil. We can have fun. We can enjoy this.
Despite this fact, many presenters make their presentations feel strikingly similar to scratching in the dirt, as if they are channeling primitive man. I see people every day who launch their presentations with charts. They begin with the assumption that people know why they are present, perhaps because of an agenda that says, "Marketing Budget Proposal." Easy, right? Everyone is there to hear about the upcoming marketing budget.
Wrong. Faced with the choice between indecipherable charts and battling a saber-toothed tiger for the one rabbit left in a five-mile radius, they'd all choose the tiger. But they don't have a choice. Everyone is there because they have to be. They tried to get out and couldn't. They will attempt to avoid doing whatever it is you want them to do unless it is one thing: fun.
Our job when presenting is to magically transform outwardly boring subject matter into inwardly fulfilling action. We want to get the board completely psyched about spending more money for more results or have an on-the-fence potential client feel loved, respected, and excited about the prospect of spending hard-earned money on something we have to offer.
Expanding horizons is about changing our perspective. If we can't find a compelling story in the information we're sharing, why bother to share it? If it doesn't somehow relate to some element of the human experience, why should your audience do anything other than play Pong on their smartphones until you're done prattling on?
We have to stop looking at audiences as mere receptacles for information and knowledge. The human mind is better than any machine at making decisions and choices, but it is far more finicky. Studies have shown that we learn best through stories. Do you know what a mnemonic device is? It is a one, two, or three word story: something that attaches meaning to data, something that touches the heart in order to stay in the mind. Attach your dull data to a compelling story and see if the audience doesn't (1) thank you for not devaluing their existence and (2) remember and apply the information more readily.
How expansive is this approach? Wouldn't you think that, by now, Hollywood would have covered every story imaginable? Yet the movies flow like the butter off Grandma's pancakes. We digest an incredible amount of information from stories but often fail to recognize it. Connect with the heart and you get the mind, but there's no such thing as connecting with the mind.