Author Archive
Foster Steadfast Self-Confidence
Posted by: | CommentsDiscover Your Deepest Desire
I had a friend reviewing the first draft of my eBook – in which he read a question that made him consider his own level of self confidence. That question read, “If your success was unconditionally guaranteed – what one goal would take on?” He sat back and seriously pondered that very question for sometime. Shortly after that, he told me that his life was taking a turn for the better – in many ways and that this turn was having a very positive impact on his self confidence.
Having never considered this question before, he – like many others, never had the self confidence to truly mull over the question’s implications. Like me, after having given it some serious thought, he was hit with a blinding flash of the obvious. There it stood before us clear as day – our hopes and dreams were kept out of our reach only by our belief (or disbelief) in our own ability to reach them and that belief (or lack of it) has a correlation to our level o self confidence
Many of you are probably experiencing the same kind of self confidence ‘screen’ separating you from your dreams. You can see them through the screen, but you are unable to allow yourself to truly feel them as accomplished. You have so many things you want from your life. All the things you want to be, to have and to do; all the things you want to experience and give to your loved ones. But that thin ‘invisible’ self confidence screen holds you back. That ‘screen’ of the unsure will only be cut by a sharp and steadfast level of self confidence.
Take a moment to ask yourself that very same question: “If your success was unconditionally guaranteed – what one goal would take on?” Have the self assuredness and self confidence to honestly and the question about yourself to yourself. Get yourself into a quiet spot and sit down with a pad and pen. Write that question at the top of the page. Or, your could do like I do and say the question into a recorder and play it back. However, which ever method you use, record your answers. Don’t hold back. Let it all out. Let out all your dreams, desires and goals. You are after all unconditionally guaranteed success the moment you have the self confidence to go after it.
Feel the ‘power’ of having accomplished these goals as you describe them in detail via your pen or your voice. Now take another moment and think about what a difference it would make in your world if you lived your life with this level of steadfast self-confidence everyday. What would you begin to do? What goals would you set for yourself today? Tomorrow? What dreams would you take on head first if you knew with every fiber of your being that you could accomplish them?
Record all this today – don’t let this slip away without getting it all down. Let your heart pour out through your pen or into your recorder. The key is to let all that is true inside you out. You’re not trying to life up to the dreams, goals and aspirations of those around you – this is you having the self confidence to be honest with YOU. You’ll find that these quiet moments will always reveal dreams, goals and desires that are in direct harmony to your deepest values and highest aspirations. You will be able to reach down and find out what is important to you! You will uncover who you are and what you believe in deeply.
As you reveal these glints of the person you truly desire; have the guts and the self confidence to face yourself for who you want to be. Stand toe-to-toe with the man or woman that you truly desire to be; not the one that you might be, nor that one that someone else would mold you into. Stand there and give yourself a good look and realize – now that is the kind of person I WANT to be and the person I will become.
· Make A Plan To Achieve It
Being true to yourself means knowing exactly what you want and having a plan to achieve it. Lasting self-confidence comes when you absolutely know that you have the capacity to get from where you are to wherever you want to go. You are behind the wheel of your life. You are the architect of your destiny and the master of your fate.
· Use the “Act As If” Principle
Act as though it were impossible to fail. Act as though you already had a high level of self-confidence. And continually ask yourself, “What one great thing would I dare to dream if I knew I could not fail?” Whatever your answer, you can have it if you can dream it, and if you have the self-confidence to go out and get it.
Action Exercises
- First, have the self confidence and resolve to step out in faith in the direction of your dreams; just do it!
- Second, ask yourself, “What one great thing would I dare to dream if I knew I could not fail?”
- Third, be true to yourself, to the very best that is in you. Never compromise!
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
One Today’s TOP Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs
Consideration – Reaching Your Friends Clients and Employees
Posted by: | CommentsConsider this, one of the most important of motivators in a relationship, whether personal or professional, at work with your client/customers or at home with friends and family, is consideration. Employees report that the best friends and managers they ever had were people who considered their thoughts, cared about their feeling and about them as people as well as friends. These friends and managers were considerate enough to take the time to ask them questions about their lives, and to listen patiently while they talked.
The flip side of this consideration motivator is the demotivating feeling that the boss is inconsiderate and/or doesn’t care. This is almost invariably expressed in a lack of recognition, a lack of appreciation and a general failure to pay attention to the employee over time.
Consider this, the amount of time that you spend talking to and listening to a friend, family member, employee (or even a client) is a signal to that person that he or she is considered important to you, to the family and/or to the company.
To empower and motivate your customers, your suppliers, your friends and so on, you simply need to be a genuine, considerate, positive and cheerful person. Develop a positive thoughtful attitude. Insure that you are easygoing, friendly, patient, and open minded.
Remember, everyone is primarily emotional. Everything that people do, or refrain from doing, is triggered by their deeper emotions. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to consider and connect with their higher and more positive emotions so they feel so good about you.
Here are two things you can to work these ideas into Your Success At Last:
- First, get out of your house or office and go mingle with your clients, coworkers, friends & family. Ask them about their personal lives and concerns, and then listen considerately to the answer. You might be amazed at what you hear!
- Second, resolve to be a genuinely positive & thoughtful person under all circumstances. Be the kind of person people feel happy being around and working with.
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s TOP Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs
Barriers to Personal Growth and Development
Posted by: | CommentsDo you find yourself busting your buns striving hard for every step forward and in the end you still feel like you aren’t getting anywhere? Well you are not alone! You, like so many others, have barriers to your personal growth and development, some you are probably not even aware of. I have found that countless people have barriers to personal growth and development, some small and easily over come, some larger, needing more thought, action and planning. All of these barriers are keeping them, and probably you, from achieving your personal or career goals in life. But, know this, regardless of the barriers to your personal growth and development, you CAN hurdle these obstacles and cross the finish line to your goals. How? Well here are a few living and thinking adjustments that will get you started:
- Imagination / Vision
One of the more common barriers to personal growth and development is your ability (or lack of) to imagine and/or create a vision of your desired goal, dream or destination. You need to know, I mean really know, that what you can accomplish is limited or enhanced by your determination and ability to imagine and envision your desired future. Like Mr. Ford said, if you think you can or think you cannot… you are right! - Yesterday’s Stumbles
Running a close second in barriers to personal growth and development is yesterday’s stumbles or you might call them past failures. Do not spend your time dwelling in the past. Do not forget it entirely, but rather then wallow in regret, rebound in education. Every stumble large or small can teach you something, learn the lesson and your personal growth and development will quickly feel the benefits. - Support Systems
This barrier to personal growth and development gets missed a lot by many. So many get use to negative message from parent, friends, family and associates. Often you can go so use to it that you subconsciously begin to believe the “I can’t” message. You need get rid of, or at least off set, these negatives with a positive like minded support system. Find others striving to grow themselves, find groups and meet with them, find blogs and websites (like http://YourSuccessAtLast.com) where you can feed you mind with positive messages. Having this crew spurring you one will do wonders for your personal growth and development. - Planning
You had to know I was to link personal growth and development to planning and goal setting. Anyone’s lack of planning and goal setting is going to have a negative effect on their personal development and growth. There are a number of posts here that give some great tips and techniques to help you hone your goal setting skills so I will not try and labor my point. But, know that setting goals, figuring out how to reach them and defining a timeline for their accomplishment is critical to your personal growth and development.
Remember, no matter what your barriers to your own personal growth and development are – you can overcome them. Use your imagination to create the vision of your desired future. Set your goals, define how you will reach them and by when. Use yesterday’s stumbles as learning opportunities and surround yourself with like minded positively motivated people. Take these few simple actions and I am willing to bet that your personal growth and development will far exceed your wildest dreams.
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s Top Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs
Expect to Succeed
Posted by: | CommentsOne thing in life is almost guaranteed, if you plan to succeed and prepare carefully then and only then can you expect to have success in your efforts. Your planning and preparation will allow you to reach deep inside and pull out all the successful winning qualities that you were born with. Once you recognize that you have these qualities you can begin to develop them, allowing the winner within you to emerge. Regardless of the goal set whether it is earning more money, saving for a new home, getting that promotion, losing weight, or furthering your education you CAN expect to successfully achieve the goal if you lay out your goal intelligently, then plan and prepare for it thoroughly. For example, when you plan and prepare to complete a project successfully, then and only then, you can justifiably expect to complete the project. Mind you, not each and every one of your expectations will come to pass, as you would like them too. But by having a positive attitude towards your goals combined with your planning and preparation you give yourself an infinitely better chance of successfully completing your goals as you have envisioned them.
Now just because you have planned thoroughly and prepared exhaustively does not mean that the path from where you are today to where you want to be in your tomorrows will be a smooth one. In all likelihood it will be bumpy, full of twists and riddled with quick perilous turns. Know that none of this has anything to do with you personally or how much you prepared. It has far more to do with the fact that no one else is as interested in your success as you are. There will be those along your path that either accidentally or through conscious and malicious undertakings will hinder your efforts to reach your goals. You can reduce the accidental hindrances by working closely and keeping in constant communication with those that you need assistance from. As for the malicious, remember there will always be those out there in competition with you that have little or no integrity. Keep your head held high, work through the problems with dignity and the expectation that you will succeed and you will come out on top in the end and with a level on honor unmatched by those that would take the low road.
Always keep your character and dignity held in the highest regard as you hit your roadblocks. Your attitude, character and commitment to your goals will be the deciding factor on whether you successfully prevail over them or not. When the roadblock presents itself, go back to the basics: Review your plan of action, modify it to go over, through or around the roadblock. If you are unable to conceive a method to overcome the obstacle then seek advice from a trusted source. And as always constantly fill your mind with good information through books, CDs, MP3s, seminars etc. If your mind is filled with positive, optimistic thoughts and ideas you will be far more likely to come up with the creative solution you are looking for.
For more information on maintaining a healthy attitude towards your life, yourself and your goals may I suggest reviewing the following post found in my blog – just click on the title below open the post in a new window:
Expect to succeed by
Thinking successfully & Taking Action!
Tracy
One of Today’s Top Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs
Memorial Day Gratitude
Posted by: | CommentsHow Personal Development Enhances Management Skills
Posted by: | CommentsIn my experience I have found that most management level employees came into their management role right out of college. While this is a great boost to their ego, and their incomes, the honest ones find that they are ill prepared for their new role. Why? Most schools of choice did not give them the basic personal development skills that are required for good management practices.
These fine institutions of higher learning give great information on management theory and its practice but many are lacking in its practical even real world application. Because of this many quality companies are paying to put their management level employees in personal development courses.
Why? Well here are a few ways that personal development training enhances management skills.
- Personal Development almost always starts with a self assessment. Management to not only learns how to assess others but more importantly they learn about their own strengths and weaknesses – a strong and important step in becoming and effective manager.
- Personal Development teaches how to set goals. Not just setting a single goal to meet some objective but to set a chain of goals that lead to some major definite purpose. This goal setting training helps in not only their personal development but of course in business planning and creating goals within their team to support the business’ and departments major definite purpose.
- Personal development training also focuses on time management as well as goal setting. Without either one of these skill their deadlines will not be met (personally or professionally). One piece of time management that certainly serves management level employees is delegation. A manager cannot do it all themselves, they need to learn to delegate relevant task to the person best suited for the task.
- Personal development stresses the “Learn, Do, Teach” mentality. Learn how to be better at a life or business impacting skill then go do it. Once you are doing it, you can further engrain that new skill into who you are by teaching it to someone else. Management get better learning and doing then grows themselves and their team simultaneously by teaching it.
- This leads to the next place personal development enhances management skills. Communication and social skills are enhances via personal development. Management learns to communicate better, to assist and deal with problems and disputes. The communication method for problem resolution is different from the method for teaching in the “Learn, Do, Teach” situation but both methods are enhanced via personal development.
As you can see I have only scratched the surface here on how personal development training assists management. The list could continue on to leadership skills, motivational techniques, customer management skills and many more. All of which can be improved through personal development training. How many more can you think of? How many have you as a leader in your home, business or organization learned? How many do you need to learn more about? Well then get started NOW! “Learn, Do, and Teach!”
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s TOP Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs
Time Management and the 26 Hour Day
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the most perplexing, yet one of the most understandable rules of the world – to me is – your outer life trends into the direction of your inner life. It makes perfect sense to realize that how I feel inside is going to impact how I handle things, people and situations I encounter. But the perplexing side is that the very same rule tends to keeps you from seeing things as they are. Instead your perception of how things are is colored by the direction of your inner life. However, I have good news! If you want to change what is going on in the world around you, whether that be your work life, home life, relationships or rewards then you need to change what is going on inside you – and this is the single factor in your entire life over which you have complete control!
I can hear you now “Wait a minute Tracy I thought this was to be about time management not a touchy feely emotional post.” Well the starting line of time management is desire and motivation. After all, I have found that most of us feel that our time management habits could use some (or a lot of) improving – which is probably why your still reading this article. The kinds of people that take the time to read an article on time management have the desire so that leaves motivation. The key to motivation is the ‘motive,’ or more plainly the benefits. If you want to motive or fuel that desire to enhance your time management skills then focus on the benefits you will enjoy.
Wouldn’t it be great to have an extra two hours per day? Could you get more done with a 26 hour day? Of course you could. Think about how that little bit of time would add up… let’s see: Two hours a day times five days in a week (because you want to take the weekend off) equals ten extra hours per week. Now take the ten hours and multiply that times fifty weeks (Because you want to take a two week vacation) and you get FIVE HUNDRED extra productive hours each and every year. WOW – if you have a forty hour work week then you have just gained twenty four more weeks – WOW AGAIN that is three months. So I ask you again – wouldn’t it be great to have an extra two hours per day? Do you think those three extra months per year would change your life?
Okay okay I can feel the energy coming thought the website – I can almost hear you saying “HOW?” How can you get an extra two hours per day turning your 24 hour day into a 26 hour day? Well here are a couple time management tips to get you those three extra months a year:
- Spend a few minute every hour and track where you are spending your time
set your computer, cell l phone or egg timer to go off every 60-90 minutes then immediately make a few notes about where you spend that last batch of time. - Review your list and see where your ‘wasting time’ – a few of those areas might be extended times chatting it up with fellow associates, television, personal phone calls, etc.
- Where are you waiting and doing nothing, when you could be doing something? I personally bring notes, books, marketing material, speech topics, etc to doctors meeting and on road trips with me. That way whenever I have some downtime in an airport, at the dentist office or any where I can pull out something I need to get down and work on it. Heck I work while I am on the treadmill or stationary bike!
- PRIORITIZE – get the important done first! When you start your day ask yourself what I HAVE to get done today. Then set to getting it done – don’t go stray until it’s done or until it is at a point where you can no longer advance it further today.
- Delegate – sometimes it’s better to have someone else do it! I really learned this in the revamping of my website – I can and could do it. But it would not only take me twice as long but the results would be half as good as someone who specialized in website set up. So I bartered some services and got what would have taken me a week or two, done in two days.
- Set Limits – there will be routine and/or regular tasks that you need to do, i.e. read and respond to emails, make phone calls, review reports etc. Set yourself a reasonable time limit to execute these tasks then stick to it. You will find that if you tell yourself – SELF you only have 45 minutes to do this that you will be far more focused at the task at hand.
When you utilize some of these tips to leverage the power of time management and get a sense of control over your time, yourself, your work and your life you will begin to feel like the master of your own destiny. This will positively feed your self esteem and push you to new heights – these powerful positive feelings will have a definite impact on other areas of your life. I mean think about it, you will have more time to spend as you choose. You can spend it with your family, friends or other loved ones as YOU choose. You will have the time you desire and deserve to build your business, your relationships or yourself both personally and/or professionally. So follow the time management tips here and become a master of your own time so that you can get that extra three months every year to chase your heart’s greatest desire!
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
I Believe You Have An Attitude
Posted by: | CommentsI am writing this today to remind you successful people that the human race is the only species that comes into this world in a natural state of discontent with that world. Look around – the other creatures you see about you are guided by instinct alone. We however have been given a God-like power to shape our life and thus our destiny. Moreover, this is just what we do each day of our lives, as we put into play actions & ideas that will determine the state and significance of our tomorrows.
For some, these ideas lead to extraordinary achievement. But for most, it leads to a middle ground where they mull around taking their life’s cues from those around them – not questioning why or how – nor considering the consequences of their actions be they good or bad. For still others, their actions & ides lead to recurring disappointment and problems. This leaves these folks to spend their days at the bottom of the socioeconomic PYRAMID.
You see the ignorant would have you believe achievement or failure is a matter of luck, or circumstances, or fate, or the breaks, or any of the old tiresome wife’s tales. Let that be the excuse for the ignorant I say. Success is simple matter of following a commonsense standard of rules or guidelines that anyone can follow.
I think we would all agree that we all want good results from our lives. Be it in our home life, our career or in our friendships – and the most important single factor to that success – the one factor that will guarantee good results day and day out is our attitude! And, I believe you have an attitude.
Attitude is defined as “a position or bearing as indicating action, feeling or mood.” I can think of no truer definition of attitude for it is your actions, feelings, and moods, which determine the actions, feelings, and moods of those around you
The world is a stage is what many say. Perhaps that is true – but I feel more strongly that the world is a mirror – often a cruel mirror that reflects back to us the actions, feels, and moods that we carry around. Our attitude tells the world what we expect of it. If our attitude is cheerful and hopeful, then, it conveys to all that we expect the best in our dealings with our world. If it is a skeptical, pessimistic one then we will convey that as well. Moreover, we will receive that in return because of two reasons:
- Each of us tend to live up to the attitude you carry around
- Others give us, as far as their attitudes are concerned, what we expect.
The good news is we can control our attitude. We can put in place the attitude of our choice each morning. Actually, we do so whether we are aware of it or not. Unfortunately, most do not look at their attitudes in this way. Thus, they start their day off in neutral, poised and ready to react to the first stimuli that they encounter. If the first stimulus is positive then their attitude follows suit. If it is negative then they mimic that instead. They are attitudinal chameleons. We as successful people have to prevent ourselves from becoming an attitudinal chameleon.
Here are three ways you can attain, and maintain, a healthy attitude (and avoid becoming an attitudinal chameleon):
- Physiology
- Focus
- The Platinum Rule
- PHYSIOLOGY - Try a little exercise with me. Stand up and breathe deeply inhaling and exhaling fully. Then look up at the ceiling and smile, smile like an idiot or a child on Christmas morning. Now while still breathing deeply, looking up and smiling – get mad – go on get angry! You cannot do it. If you maintain the body posture I described you will be unable to get angry. How you carry your body affects your attitude – have a seat. Now am I saying walk around with your head held high, breathing deeply and grinning like an idiot? Sure why not it is far more attractive then a frown backed by slumped shoulders! But, seriously, walking around with your head low, your face long with a frown, and your breathing shallow will negatively affect your attitude. That is how physiology influences your attitude; use it to your advantage.
- FOCUS - During the course of your day your attitude can and will be impacted by the questions you ask yourself. If you ask the questions like “Why do I get the projects nobody wants?” Then your attitude will go downhill – quickly. If however you ask empowering questions, “How can I complete this project and enjoy the process?” Then your focus is changed and your attitude will be healthier for it. To avoid becoming an attitudinal chameleon what you need to do is develop some morning questions for yourself. A set of questions that will focus your mind on things YOU want to focus on. Some examples could be
- “What can I do today to build/strengthen my career?”
- “What am I proud of in my life?”
- “What am I confidant I can do?”
- “What can I do for my spouse/child/significant other to let them
know I care?Develop your own set of morning questions and answer them each morning. This will do wonders for your attitude as well as raise your awareness to things around you that will lend themselves to aid you in completing your goals.
- THE PLATNIUM RULE - We all know the golden rule and are well served to apply it. However, a person that wants to maintain his healthy attitude at its peak and become a moniker of success will apply the platinum rule. The platinum rule states “Do unto others as THEY want done unto them.”You see how you want to be treated is not specifically how everyone wants to be treated is it? If you go out with the servant’s attitude that your going to treat others in the manner THEY wish to be treated, then this will be reflected back to you – tenfold!
Remember – successful people come in all shapes and sizes, creeds, colors and backgrounds. However even in this diverse pool, they all have one thing in common – they expect more good out of life than bad. This positive expectation is reflected in their healthy attitude. So, in all the things you want, in all the goals you have set yourself upon, let your attitude reflect the fact that there are far more reasons why can have them, then not. Know there are far more reasons why you can reach your goals, then there are reasons to cause you to fail in the attempt.
Use your physiology, maintain your focus, and apply the platinum rule to attain and maintain your healthy attitude (and avoid becoming an attitudinal chameleon).
I believe you have an attitude!! However, is it the one you want?
Think Successfully & Take Action.
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s Top Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs
Public Speaking The Practice Process
Posted by: | CommentsAs with anything you want to improve upon, whether that be breaking a habit, building your savings account, being a better sales person or giving better presentations, but you must first master the basics – walk before you run, tread water before you swim and of course practice before you present. A perfect example of this is in my martial arts class – Master Jeoung would remind us constantly that we had to learn, practice and master the basics. In Tai-Kwan-Do you would practice forms, which are a series of moves put together in a specific order to help imbed them into your muscle memory. The seven fundamental moves in the first two forms he said will make or break everything else. You can be a black belt easily once you master the fundamentals. The same principle is true in public speaking.
One fundamental you must master to become a competent and proficient speaker and give great presentation is – Practice. Now while everyone attempts to pound that into your head, I’m going to take it one step farther and give you a Practice Process that will greatly enhance your material retention as well as help you hone your public speaking presentation.
This is not a process you can skip steps in because each step of this public speaking practice process builds on the previous step allowing you to build your speaking style and presentation technique into your speech as you practice the content.
- Read the material to yourself 5-10 times quietly.
While doing this begin to make mental notes as to where you want to speak faster or slower. Where to change the pitch and volume of your voice in your presentation. - Read the material 5-10 times aloud.
While doing this step practice the mental notes you made on rate, pitch and volume in your speech. Test it out, change it, and hone it to fit both your material and your public speaking style. - Make a voice recording of your practice.
Now that you’ve practice the speech 10-20 times (5-10 in step 1 and 5-10 in step 2), make a voice recording of your performance. I say performance because if you sit down and read it into the tape recorder then you’ll get a different speech. Are you going to sit and read your message to your audience? If you said no, then you need to stand and present your speech to your recorder in the same active manner your audience will receive it. Listening to this recording will give you more insights. You’ll notice things that you’ve missed during your previous readings. Make changes, practice them a couple times and record yourself again. Do this until you are comfortable with how you sound. - Practice your presentation in its entirety in front of a mirror.
Here you’ll begin to focus on your facial expressions, your posture, gestures etc. Public speaking isn’t just speaking, they are looking at you too! Put in effective gestures and expressions at those key and impactful moments of your speech – you want get to your audience both visually as well as audibly during your presentation. Again, make changes, and practice them until you are comfortable with the results and the body language is fluid with your speech. - Video tape yourself.
This one will sometimes take you all the way back to step 3 or sometimes even 2. Watching yourself in the mirror is one thing. You are involved in your speech and can miss little things. But when you use videotape, you are performing and that’s it. So now you can go back and review that performance and hone it to the public speaking razors edge you are striving for. - Give a practice performance to a safe audience.
This safe audience could be a family member, close friend, or trusted associate. I found a great place for my practice presentations – Toastmasters. Here a group of people, who want to improve their speaking skills, gather to present to, and constructively critique one another. When you present to a willing party, be sure to be open minded when receiving the response to your performance. Don’t put up your defenses when they make suggestions – because that’s what you want.
This process may seem long the first couple times you go through it. But if you make it a habit to follow all these steps, then each and every one of your public speaking performances will be the best it can be. And your audience will thank you for that!
Think Successfully & Take Action
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s TOP Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs.
Get focused
Posted by: | CommentsOn your journey along your personal development path I once again cannot focus you enough on your ability to speak, one-on-one as well as to a group. It makes no difference the size or scope of your audience. Whether you are giving a million dollar presentation to the board, stressing the benefits of your product/service to a group of people or a parent passing along life lessons to your children – your ability to speak to an audience will have a huge impact on your growth personally as well as professionally. One thing that every audience will appreciate from you as a speaker is focus.
In order for you to get focused in on your topic you will need the following three things:
- A Message
- An objective
- Knowledge of your audience
- Message – sit down and write a single sentence that states what you want your audience to focus on and remember. Make sure it is simple. Make sure it is clear. This will become your overriding message and theme of your presentation. Whether that message is three minutes or 30 – your message needs to be repeated throughout your presentation at least six times and most importantly driven home at the end of the speech. Weave it throughout your talk like a binding thread to insure your audience focuses on the message. Know this; if you cannot focus the overriding message down into one sentence – your audience will probably not remember the message you trying to convey!
- Objective – Going into your presentation you should know the answers to questions like; do you want to motivate your audience? Entertain them? Inform them? Gather input or sell a product? Sit down and answer this question – I want the audience to…from your own answers you will be able to focus your talk.
- Audience – In previous posts I have stressed the benefits on knowing your audience. Why are they interested in this topic? How you motivate a group of college students to save for their future will be far different then how you motivate a group of thirty-something business professionals that are parents. So be sure to focus your message to their needs and issues. Be sure to sincerely communicate to them how the action you want them to take will benefit them.
Gaining this focus early on in the creation of your presentation will guide you as you prepare the material. When prepare a talk knowing these three essential pieces of information the speech will begin to take a life and flow that makes sense. Attempting to write the speech without this information will fracture your focus and cause you to struggle harder for what makes sense to share. You will risk spending time on talking points that are irrelevant and will loose your audience. Give them what they want, give them what they need and stay focused.
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s TOP Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs