These past two days, I've been holed up in a training room, attending a course on "Think on your feet". It wasn't the best of time. Who would have thought a training session with such an innocuous title could be so stressful?
Apparently, "Think on you feet" involved more than just thinking. Participants were asked to stand in front of the class and talk about a given topic by the trainer for 3 minutes, using various methods to "collect our thoughts", "organise our thoughts" and then "presenting our thoughts". How neat. Somehow, the course ended up like one on giving presentation more than anything else. It didn't matter that some of us got "cold feet" (no pun intended). I was obviously "not thinking" when I signed up for the course.
By now, you'd probably guess I hate giving presentation. You just stand there, feeling naked and vulnerable, and when you open your mouth to speak, you think you heard a voice that sounds pretty much like yours, yet you're not quite sure it's yours. For yours surely is not one that quivers or even sounds so shrill. Then you look around the room, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone in particular. You don't know where to put your hands. They may be in your pockets. Or one of the hands may be holding a pointer. If it is, you'll find the beam "quivering" too. This is so surreal. And it seems to take forever to end....
Yet, if one is confident and sure of the subject matter, one needs not fear. I think most of us are fearful of leaving a negative impression on the audience. We worry too much about the audience's perception of us.
I've come across several tips to make one feel at ease while giving presentation. But the one that takes the cake is surely the one that tells you to "imagine everyone in the audience is naked or in their undies". I can't fathom how this would help me. Just looking at the many different sizes of my fellow co-workers, big and small, the thought is even more frightening than the presentation itself! I'm sure Victor would agree with me.
Next time before I sign up for a course, I know I'd better do some homework.
Oh. I just remembered. I've been told to give a presentation in the office sometime this month....Damn.
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2 comments:
Shucks, another spammer beats me to commenting on your blog again. I wonder why you have attracted 'Flower Gardening' to comment when you didn't even mention anything about gardening. Ah... must be the flowery language that you use. It is attracting the bees as well as the flies. You got to be more careful in future. As for me, I must strive to be regain first position... and I believe the only one too, since you have adopted anti-spam measures. (The wriggly letters are an added strain on this old failing eyesight of mine, you know. But what to do, I will do anything for a friend, hee.)
I haven't got a clue as to why the bees and the flies are attracted to my blog. Hmmmm... if I blog on my sex life (which is near non-existant, sniff), I may even attract the birds and the bees hor?
It's not just your eye-sight that's failing my dear friend. It gives me no pleasure to tell you that when you're in your middle-age, "Everything just seem to wear out, fall out and spread out". In fact, the first thing to go is your memory which explains why you ought to take leave to reset your PC password. The next thing you realise (if you CAN realise) is that you don't even know whom you're writing your comment to.
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