Transcripts
1. Introduction: You have a
presentation coming up and you've been getting
a lot of mixed reviews. One group is saying that you
should avoid the PowerPoint. Because when you
use a PowerPoint, it shows that you don't really know what
you're talking about. And your audience
is not going to be paying attention to
those slides anyways. But in the same breath,
there's another group of people who are like
PowerPoints are fine. You just need to
know how to use it. Powerpoints are simply a tool. In this class. We're going to be using
this philosophy more. We're going to be talking about how certain presentations
we'll have a boost in understanding within the audience by
using PowerPoints. The main thing that
you do want to understand is that it's a tool. And just like any
tool out there, you need to use it correctly. My name is armature three,
the founder of Vermont. He talks a media
company which helps engineers and entrepreneurs improve their
communication skills. The skill sets of the
Armani talks brand is public speaking. And I'm gonna be breaking down this public speaking
concept of PowerPoints. In this class, you will learn the effective way
to use PowerPoints. You'll learn the incorrect
way to use PowerPoints. You'll learn some
psychological principles to keep in mind when structuring
your PowerPoints, along with a final
project at the end, that will help you level
up your presentation. If you're ready to improve your public speaking
skills than I look forward to
seeing you inside.
2. Value of PowerPoints: Imagine this real quick. Imagine that you have a speech coming up on a random tanks. How are you going to
get your message from your inner world into your
audience's inner world. By the way, there's a caveat. Your audience. They've never
heard of a rank of tanks. They've never seen
a random tanks. What are you going to do? Assure you can use
descriptive language. You can get on a central stage and act
like an orangutan yourself. But don't you think it
would be a little bit more effective if you do
those first two. And then you also a complement your speech further with
imagery of an orangutan. Maybe you're capable of putting a video on your PowerPoint. And the audience can see
what an orangutan acts like, behaves like. By doing this. They are more engaged
in your words. They're more engaged in
you acting like a monkey. Up. Overall. Your message is a translating from your inner
world to their inner world. So overall, PowerPoints
are just a tool. Keep that in mind. There's tons of people that
often talk about, well, the phone is a problem.
But look closer. Billy is using the phone, uh, to build a business, to get smarter a two
network effectively. While John is using the phone to give
himself panic attacks. Is it the phone?
That's the problem or the user of the phones? Likewise, there are plenty of people out there that
are using PowerPoints effectively in order to amplify their message.
Is it the PowerPoint? That's the problem. No, it's the incorrect usage
of the PowerPoint. And in the next video, I'm gonna be talking about what an incorrect usage of
the PowerPoint is like.
3. Incorrect Way to Use PowerPoints: The incorrect way
to use a PowerPoint is to just read off of it. I still have a teacher that
used to do this before Ms. Khrushchev was her name. And I just recall she would get this a
three-legged stool. If you drag it in front of the
class, she would sit down. And for the next hour, she would just read off
the slides verbatim. And I'm not going to lie. That did a number on me. For plenty of yours. I looked at PowerPoints. It's such a negative
light because immediately it made me
think of Mrs. Khrushchev. And if you're watching
this class right now, you may have a negative
stigma of PowerPoints. For that same reason. Maybe you had a Mrs.
Khrushchev in your life. Not only are people reading
off the slides a lot, what they're doing is
they're also assuming that their audience members have supreme levels of concentration. And they also assume that their audience members
of law loves words. You may like words, but that doesn't mean that
the audience members want to read paragraphs and
paragraphs on center stage. All it does is that it distracts them from
you, the speaker. So a few ways to use the PowerPoint
incorrectly is to assume that the audience members have a supreme level
of concentration. It's actually much
better if you assume they have poor concentration because that forces you to get to the point
much more effectively. And another mistake in regards to the PowerPoint is when you're just reading off
of it and you're not putting in any
effort as the speaker. Once again, remember, the
PowerPoint is simply a tool. It is dependent on you. You are not dependent upon it.
4. Slides to Amplify: The main thing you
want to understand in regards to using a PowerPoint is that you want to use it
in order to amplify. So what does this mean? Let's unpack that.
The first thing that you want to
ask yourself is, is this a speech that
really needs PowerPoints? In one of the public speaking
clubs that I was a part of. The first ever speech
that we had to give was called the icebreaker. And within this icebreaker, we have to talk about ourselves. I noticed that no one
used a PowerPoint because this is not a topic that really
needs a PowerPoint. When you're breaking it down. You could get creative
and be like, Well, if this person lives
in an article, then you may need a PowerPoint. And that would be a
great observation because that's something
that's an ordinary. So think like that. Anytime that you're about to
start off creating a speech, you want to ask
yourself the question, do I need a PowerPoint? And this is a very subjective question because it's going to depend on the topic that you're discussing is going to
depend on you, the speaker. And it's going to depend
on your audience. But simply asking
that question, uh, serves as one of those safe
systems that allows you to avoid spending a lot of time on the miners rather
than the majors. Next, let's say you're
someone that's like, Yeah, I do need PowerPoints for this presentation, especially
this presentation. Now, what you want to do is you want to engage this
thought experiment. Hypothetically, let's say a worst-case
scenario does happen where there's a technical issue and the PowerPoints
do not function. Am I capable of still
going on with my speech? And you want to know something, the whole PowerPoint
is not functioning. That is a very, very common issue within this public speaking
club that I was N for future presentations. A lot of the speakers did require PowerPoints
in their top. And I lost count of how many
times one wire was missing. And the PowerPoint I
couldn't function. And this is when we looked at
the speaker and we're like, you're still good to go, right? I mean, you can still
give your talk. And plenty of them
unfortunately, couldn't. Some of it was justified because they really
didn't need their slides. But for a lot of
the other speakers, they just didn't have the
confidence in their talk. So that's the next thing
you want to ask yourself. Can I still give the talk
without the PowerPoint? Now what this allows you to
do is that this forces you to only focus on the main points whenever you're
creating your talk. Because you're like, Okay, now I'm already validating that. I don't necessarily
need the PowerPoint. I'm only using it in order
to amplify my points. So if I'm only using it in
order to amplify my points, it doesn't have to
be too verbose. It doesn't need all
these different words. Instead, how about
I put stuff on the slide that I'm not just
capable of doing myself. Back to the orangutan examples. I mean, I can't necessarily show exactly what an
orangutan looks like, but I can put a picture of
the animal on the slide. So overall, this is a
very creative process. But simply asking the questions, do I need the PowerPoint? And even if the PowerPoints
were to not work, can I give this speech? This simplifies your
thinking and this allows you to focus
on the basics, especially when you're
designing your slides.
5. Bullets and Imagery: So at this stage, you've simplified your
thinking and now you're looking for certain content
to add onto your slide. There's two things that
you want to keep in mind. One, use imagery to use bullets. Avoid paragraphs. Because here's the psychology of a lot of audience members. It doesn't matter which audience you're performing in front of. Let's say the audience
goes up to 20 people. There's going to be a group of people that are not
going to pay attention. Even if you're the most
entertaining man on the planet. There's gonna be
a group of people that is going to be
on the fence about. Should I pay attention
to this guy or not? And then there's gonna be another group of people
that's going to be hanging onto each and every
single one of your words. The first group we don't
want to focus on too much. We just want to focus on the
people that are on the fence and the people that are going to be hanging onto
all of our words. Now the psychology of these two groups of
people in regards to the PowerPoint are
ironically very similar. They're mainly focused on
you every now and then. They're cleansing
at the PowerPoint, but they're not staring
at the PowerPoints. So if you can understand this mentality of your
audience members, that they're glancing,
they're not staring. This allows you to further
simplify your message in order to boil it down into bullet points and
necessary pictures.
6. Practice: You've taken some time in order to simplify your PowerPoints. Instead of the big paragraphs, you have bullet points, you have pictures,
you have videos. Now, you want to practice
with your PowerPoint. See during the practice
sessions is when we discover what are our strengths and
what are our weaknesses. You'll be surprised. There's a lot of people
who create the PowerPoints and they don't practice with the actual PowerPoint in
their practice session. The reason that
this is not good is because during
actual speech day, something about it is not right. You don't have that right
rhythm with your PowerPoints. Your timing is a little off where during practice session, let's say you make
a certain point and you could be like, Okay, now I'm going to tell my audience to look
at the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint can amplify
the point that I just made. Let's say you're over here
talking about the effects that Poland has on bees. Hypothetically,
your PowerPoint has a certain chart that breaks down the effects of pollen on bees. Now, you can boom, reference at these sorts
of movements are very, very important for a speech. And you build the fluency for these movements
during practice session. So do not be one of
those people that are spending time practicing
your speech and being like, well, I already know
what's in the PowerPoint. Understand that during
the practice sessions, you and the PowerPoint
become one. And the more that
you to become one, the more that your audience
loves and enjoys your talk.
7. Recap: We covered a lot of topics. Let's go ahead and just
distill it down to the basics. Powerpoints are not evil. Powerpoints are a pool. We do not always need
the PowerPoints. Some speeches are
better without it. Therefore, we want
to ask the question, are the PowerPoints needed
for this presentation? If the answer is yes, then we want to make sure
that the PowerPoints are something that we're
not dependent on. And to make sure that we're
not dependent upon it, we're going to ask the question. Let's say the PowerPoint do not get set up
our speech date. Can we still give
the presentation? The more debt you
have this philosophy, the more that you will simplify your points as you are
creating the PowerPoint. If you are too dependent
upon the PowerPoints, the more that you are
going to have these big, complex paragraphs that the
audience will not even read. Because the psychology
of the audience is that there's going
to be a group of people that's not
paying attention. A group of people that are on the fence and another group of people that will hang onto
every one of your words. We're only focusing on
the people that are on the fence and that
are die-hard for us. These two people will only
glance at the PowerPoints. They will not stare. Therefore, keep it
simple with a bullets, with pictures and
videos if necessary. Once you have created
the PowerPoint, you want to practice with it. The more that you practice
with the PowerPoint, the more that U2 go from
distinct entities into one. And you become one as you have mannerisms that guide the
audience to your talk. The more that you can
perfect your mannerisms, your gestures, the more that your audience
will thank you for it.
8. Final Project: For the final project,
your goal is to create a PowerPoint on a topic
that you know very well. It could be a hobby. It could be a certain skill set. It could be your job profession. What do you do at work all day? And you have to create your PowerPoint in
a certain way to deliberate to me the
person who's on the fence. I sort of care about
what you're saying. But I'm not truly hooked. Engaged me in a way where
I understand your topic. In order to do this,
you want to make sure you create a
simplified PowerPoint. A PowerPoint that has bullets, or possibly some pictures and possibly some videos to further
amplify my understanding. Once you're done with
creating your PowerPoint, go ahead and practice
the talk a couple of times to make sure that
your gestures are on point. To further amplify
my understanding, once you are done
with this PowerPoint, create a report on it. What was it like? Where are
you someone who found it easy to compress your points down into simplicity was a difficult. Did you see that compressing your points further helps you understand what your
talk was about. Get as detailed as
you possibly can, and a post the final report in the final project
section, right. Envelope. I look forward to reading it. And if you have the guts for it, you can even post
your PowerPoint. So I can go ahead
and check it out. If you enjoyed this
beginner's class on how to do PowerPoint
presentations. And you want more content
from the Armani talks brand. And be sure to check out
our money talks.com, which has plenty of my blogs, my videos, podcasts,
and much more, uh, breaking down topics on public
speaking, social skills, emotional intelligence,
creative writing, and much more, money talks.com, go on and check it out.
Arman Chowdhury, Confidence thru Communication
