Prime Your Day & SLAP Your Audience

On this blog I like to share tips with you in different areas that are all related to success in business, and in public speaking. ... these could be mindset, speaking, pitching, comedy or writing. Today I've got a couple of golden nuggets for you. 

But first...how is your day going?

Did you nail it? Did you jump out of bed this morning with a spring in your step? Are you kicking the day's backside?

Ermm...I meant to do that but what actually happened to me this morning was that I slept through my alarm because I was dreaming about doing a keynote speech I hadn't prepared for...and I was literally writing it in my sleep. (I did make some notes when I woke up, 'cause some of it was pretty good.)

Anyhoo, although it wasn't the perfect start, I then took the dog for a walk and listened to a podcast, which is always good, and then I reset my day with something I heard on my walk, which is a nice segue onto tip number one...

​Priming Your Day...

Tony Robbins, the world renowned high performance coach, says that if we are not in a positive state when we sit down to plan or do strategy, we'll only see the problems and not the solutions.

To make sure he is in the optimum state to begin his work, he does what he calls 'priming' his day. It takes 10 minutes and this is how it works:

1) Find somewhere in your home, or outside, that you like and is quiet. (He goes outside so he can feel the sunshine and warm air on his face, but he lives somewhere sunny...I went outside this morning in Swindon, (England), to try this and I just got rain on mine...but you get the idea).

2) Get some relaxing tunes on your phone, iPod, (or walkman if you are a hoarder)... I can recommend 'Relax Melodies', which is a free app. This morning I chose 'Birds' and 'Monk Chant'. I have a teeny water fountain so I whacked that on too...(just a word of warning though, avoid water sounds if your bladder is weak).

3) Overall you'll be doing this for 10 minutes or so, but it's broken down into three segments of 3 mins 20 secs, (although it's fine to do longer). So set your first timer for the first chunk and shut your eyes.

4) Segment 1 - Gratitude

I know, I know...I can hear some of you moaning about this...

"all we hear is bloody gratitude these days, I'll be grateful when I win the lottery!"

But...there are so many rich people that are unhappy, and as Tony says, if you live your life based on expectation, rather than appreciation, you will be unhappy no matter how successful you are. (This resonated with me...I'm always getting told off for not appreciating the progress I've made).

Anyway...back to the gratitude...this is about saying thanks for the things in your life that bring you joy, the opportunities to grow, and the people that you love, and anything else that you want to appreciate.

5) Segment 2 - Connecting with God (or whatever works for you), and the Universe

I know this is a bit woo woo, but I've seen so many people use abundant thinking and trusting the universe to achieve great results, that I am convinced there's something to this. I did it and I felt calm, peaceful and positive.

6) Segment 3 - 'Three to Thrive'

For the final segment you think about the three things you want to achieve today... (I combined this with the 'one thing philosophy'...this is from a great book written by Gary Keller called 'The One Thing'...essentially you consider everything and pick "the one, (or in this case three things), that you can do, such that by doing, makes everything else easier, or unnecessary". You visualise doing and completing these three things.

I'm going to continue doing this for the next 30 days to see how I get on...and as Tony said...if you can't find 10 minutes spare, then you have a problem! Feel free to share this post if you found it useful and let me know how you get on if you start doing it.

SLAP

This is a useful model I wanted to share for a great way to use stories in your presentations.

S = Story - as you probably know from being in the audience yourself, these are excellent for engaging the audience. Since the dawn of mankind, humans have been telling stories, and we are conditioned to pay attention, to get drawn in, as soon as we hear the trigger words of a story starting... "once upon a time", or "there I was", or "I called this general election.." The thing that you need to keep in mind though, is that there must be some link to the main theme of the presentation.

L = Lesson - following on from the story, there should be a lesson, or takeaway...which again relates to the theme of the presentation.

A = Application - here you need to show your audience how they can practically apply the lesson in their lives, perhaps one or two examples.

P = Participation - this is where you get them to participate...share with the person next to them, or write down how they think they can apply it, etc.

That's it...I hope those couple of tips are useful, leave a comment if so.