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Know yourself



Weaknesses

When you were reviewing the strengths earlier, you most likely spotted some categories where you know you're lacking. Maybe you have a terrific personality but you are short on technical expertise. This is a great opportunity for improvement: make time to research your subject and strengthen this area.

The quest to understand your weaknesses provides yet another opportunity to ask for feedback from your friends and coworkers, but beware: if you ask for honest feedback, you are likely to get it. You may not always like what you hear. This could be the time you realize that, although you always thought you had a great sense of humor, that your jokes are not always well-received. Don't take the feedback personally, but use it to keep improving.

Presentation Style

Who are you, really? When you strip away the PowerPoint, and forget the fact that your boss is sitting in the back of the room, and assume that your job is guaranteed for life so you can forget about ever getting fired, who are you? If you could skip back in time, to a point where you weren't all that worried about impressing anyone, say Kindergarten, and you were doing show-and-tell, and describing the really cool new toy you had talked your parents into buying you--how would you have talked then? Would you have put up a series of arguments in a straightforward bulleted list, or would you have explained all the really cool features of your new toy so that each child in your class got so excited they were all asking questions like, "Does it fly?" "Where did you get it?" "Can I play with it, too?"

The purpose of thinking back on a time when our presentations were less complicated is remembering who we are when we're just being ourselves. A lot of people want to use humor in a presentation, but for many of us, it just doesn't come naturally and it ends up feeling awkward. Others want to draw in audience participation, but they don't quite know how to handle it when it happens. Some of us can't stand to be the only person talking for an hour, so we find ways to shift the burden to the audience. Whoever you are under all the conventions and habits you have adopted over the years, whatever your natural presentation style is, understanding your inclinations can help you build a presentation that not only makes you feel comfortable, but allows your audience to pick up on your enthusiasm and get a whole lot more out of the experience.

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