Infuse Your Personality Into Your Presentations
Personality is persuasive. Be your audacious best. -Dr. Michelle Mazur
Personal note: I'm taking a 4 week blogging hiatus to finish my book, Speak Up For Your Business. Never fear great content will still be here, but it will be other bloggers from around the web. Enjoy.
Personality. It is what separates good speakers from exceptional ones. Too many times I see speakers who are stiff and unnatural. Speaking like they would write for their 9th grade English teacher (Yes, Ms. Dodge – I'm talking to you. You scarred me for life).
Personality makes speaking far more interesting and visual. If you were sitting in an audience, which sentence would make you lean forward?
I took my dog for a walk.
OR
I took my furry little pee machine for a walk.
Infusing your speaking with personality is about being conversational. It's about talking the way you talk with friends. It's about kicking your high school English teacher to the curb and being yourself.
Loved, loved, loved (and wished I'd have written) this article from Ash Ambrige at The Middle Finger Project:
3 (Top Secret Ultra James Bond) Ways to Add More Personality to Your Writing
Yes, it's about writing – but you've got to write a speech, and although you might not script it word for word having great turns of phrase transforms a good speech to great!
Hi Michelle,
How are you? I’m excited about your upcoming book. This post is awesome! Thanks for sharing these valuable tips.
To Your Success,
Stacie Walker
Woman in Leadership Founder
Hey Stacie! Thanks for stopping by the blog! I’m excited about my book too. It’s coming along really well. Looking forward to being on your show soon.
Interessant article, thank you for this pertinent content!
Rds
Abdellah
Thank you Abdellah!
Hi Michelle – I’m not sure I’m with you here (unusually!). I think you’ve elided ‘being interesting’ with ‘showing personality’.
Certainly you can make your presentation more interesting by adding a bit of personality (unless you’re an accountant and therefore don’t have one 😉 ) but there are times when that might get in the way of the message… and the message is everything.
… and there are other ways of being interesting, of course 🙂
I think the article gives some great writing tips about how to let your personality shine through. I’ve never seen how someone being themselves and expressing their “real” self has ever gotten in the way of a presentation.
Can you give an example when it has?
Bringing your personality into your writing and presentation is as Ash says in the article “The difference between liked vs. loved.” People connect with the human being behind the PowerPoint – personality (your uniqueness) is key to that happening
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