Presenting with focus is the foundation of every memorable presentation. At Mindful Presenter, we believe the most important thing to focus on is simple but often overlooked: how you want your audience to feel.
We’ve been communicating with each other since the dawn of time. Many believe it’s a complex skill reserved for the gifted. It isn’t; it starts with focus, which begins with the image you hold in your mind.
When you’re clear on how you want your audience to feel when you finish speaking, fear fades, doubt quietens, and confusion dissolves. Clarity creates confidence.
The battle for your attention
Right now, countless things are competing for your attention: your phone, family, team, boss, customers, email, and social media.
Your to-do list grows faster than you can manage, and just when you think you can’t take on anything else, you’re asked to deliver an important presentation.
Finding the time and headspace to craft it can feel overwhelming.
Most people respond by opening their laptop and diving straight into slides; that’s the first mistake.
Where to begin
Step away from the laptop
Before you type a single word, give yourself time and space to think, breathe and reflect.
Ask yourself a few essential questions:
- Why do I need to present?
- What’s so important about this message?
- How can I genuinely help my audience?
- What is the one message I want them to leave with?
- Why should they care?
It’s estimated that the human mind wanders nearly half the time. If that’s true, then presenting with focus isn’t optional; it’s essential.
Don’t multitask
Presenting with focus requires uninterrupted, high-quality time to think, craft and practise.
Multitasking is a myth, the human mind cannot focus effectively on more than one thing at a time. Every time you switch tasks, you dilute your clarity and compromise your message.
When you’re preparing a presentation, your audience deserves your full attention, not what’s left over between emails and notifications.
Filter as you focus
Many business presentations are filled with unnecessary noise; data, facts and insights that sound impressive but offer little real value.
At Mindful Presenter, we coach professionals to focus on the gold.
Imagine panning for gold. Most of what you sift through is dirt, dust and gravel, but if you filter long enough, you find something precious.
Presenting is the same. If what you’re sharing isn’t relevant, meaningful or valuable to your audience, it isn’t gold.
Presenting with focus means finding the gold and letting everything else go.
Stay mindful
Stress is the enemy of focus. If you’re tense, rushed or overwhelmed, your ability to think clearly diminishes.
Before you work on your presentation, take a few minutes to sit quietly and reset your mind.
- Take slow, deep breaths.
- Notice the sensations in your body.
- Pay attention to sounds, smells, or the feeling of your breath.
- Don’t analyse or judge, simply observe.
A calm mind is a focused mind.
“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Steve Jobs
When you know how you want your audience to feel, when you filter for gold, and when you give yourself the space to think, you create presentations that move people, not just inform them.
If you need help presenting with focus:
– Book yourself onto a powerful public speaking course.
– Invest in some really good one to one public speaking coaching.
– Get yourself some excellent presentation training
Image: Courtesy of Canva.com
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