How do you get it all into someone's mind..?

Mar 27, 2009   //   by Steve Wooding   //   General  //  No Comments

Odd, isn’t it, how we manage to keep some shelves and cupboards reasonably tidy and others are a total jumble?

I was speaking to a legal boffin at a local networking group last week about presenting and public speaking and came up with a metaphor for one of the powerful techniques derived from hypnosis of creating speeches that really, truly work.

It’s a bit like filling an empty cupboard with stuff.

You can, if you want, just try to cram it all in there, and it may well fit too. However, you might not be able to get at the stuff you need to use most often, you may not be able to find that really important thing when you’re most in need of it, and you won’t be able to find what you need quickly either. You may not even be able to open the door without it all falling out all over you.

No. What most sensible people do is sort through all the stuff they want to store and then work out some system for putting it all in there so the most useful or vital things are easily accessible, and so that the order in which things are stored makes sense and makes it easy to find what you need when you need it. And they also DON’T put anything in there that isn’t of use any more, is irrelevant or broken or might’ve been interesting at the time but has no real practical use.

For a presentation or speech to work properly we need to go through the same process – create the right mental space in the audience to receive what we’re about to talk about, put all the things we offer them in the best places in the best order for them to access and use it and make it easy to sort through it afterwards, and just as importantly, we DON’T say anything that isn’t vital to the goal for our presentation.

However, if you want to know exactly HOW you do that, drop me a line at steve@iceandlemon.com and we can talk some more…

Leave a comment

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. More information

This website runs on the WordPress CMS, which requires the use of 'cookies' to operate at its best. Cookies are very small data files that are stored by your browser. We do not use any of the information stored by these cookies to learn anything about you and there's nothing in them that identifies you personally. If you prefer, you can tell your browser not to allow cookies to be stored, but to do that you'll need to change your preferences or settings. Since every browser is different, you'll need to find out how to do that for the one you're using. Remember though that switching cookies off will affect the way this website works, and may stop other website you use from working altogether. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.

Close