I remember being told once, long ago, way back in the mists of time, that you can’t make presentations if you’re not fit and that, conversely, presenting is such a high energy activity that you burn calories at a respectable rate.
I’m not sure how accurate either of these claims are, in that I’ve not come across any research (that I trust) about how many calories per hour a presenter will burn, but I do know that after a day’s training (six or seven hours on stage, performing) I’m absolutely shattered.
I guess if you’re not fit you just adapt your presentation style to what you can do – I don’t know – but what I do know is even a ‘trivial’ injury can have a significant effect upon how well I present. I’ve got Bursitis at the moment (an inflammation of the elbow – it’s not at all serious but it is painful) and I noticed this week how I tended to make fewer and more restricted gestures as a result.
Not only did that mean I wasn’t at my physical best, but the fact that I was noticing it meant my head wasn’t 100% in my game, either!
On the other hand, one of the best presenters I’ve ever heard presented from a wheelchair and was fairly limited in how much he could do with his hands, too, so maybe it’s not about not being able to do things so much as it is about not being able to do things that you normally could.
Or maybe it’s about a different sort of energy.
Head energy.
The guy I’m thinking here (let’s call him Ian) had one really big thing going for him – he cared. He never presented unless it was important to him – important enough for him to have done months of research, checking and rechecking – and so every presentation he gave was a labour of love. I never saw Ian with an un-necessary word, let alone an un-necessary slide!
The energy was in his head – and it came out in his voice, in his passion. As an audience member you never saw the wheelchair. It was only on a bad day for Ian, shortly before he died, that you even saw Ian himself.
Instead, you saw his vision – you saw what it was that mattered to him. You saw the problem he was wrestling with and you saw his proposed solution and you saw how he was going to work to implement that solution. In the end, you saw how the world could be just that little bit better.
It helped, of course, that Ian wasn’t ever talking about trivial things like how to make more money or increase your sales or… whatever… Ian presented about deprivation, economic growth, poverty. In that sense he had a head start of some other presenters.
But like I said, he only ever presented when, and if, it mattered.
It wasn’t about physical energy (I can’t wave my arms around at the moment because of my elbow), it was about his head-energy.
If you’ve not got that head-energy, if you’ve not found a way of getting it into your presentation, you’re wasting your physical energy and you may as well shut up.
And for many a high-physical-energy but low-head-energy presenter, frankly, I wish they would.
Citing Shakespeare, in Macbeth, they’re: “full of sound and fury, signifying nothingâ€.
Very good point Simon. I am presenting everyday and I cannot stress the importance of energy. It is so important.
I also find that a lack of sleep effects both my physical and ‘head’ energy. Too often when we prepare our presentations we leave it until the last minute and then spend the night before preparing, thus loosing much needed sleep.
I always make sure that I get a good night’s sleep before a presentation (sometimes taking a nap in the afternoon if I am presenting at night) This really boosts my mental and physical energy.
I agree with the above poster It is just as important to prepare the body as it is the mind when preparing for a presentation.