Boost Your Presentation Skills with Rituals and The Expectation Effect

Boost Your Presentation Skills with Rituals and The Expectation Effect

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John: [: 00:00:00

Today we're gonna take a quick look at how our expectations influence our outcomes. Now, no guest for this short episode other than a guest book, having just recently completed the Expectation Effect by David Robson, which I can highly recommend. Want to talk a little bit about how rituals may be able to help put you into a positive performance state and can be powerful performance triggers for you.

Now, if you'd like to set yourself up for success with your talks and your presentations, we'll find out today if I can convince you to add a little ritual to your pre-performance routine. Welcome to Present Influence the show that helps coaches, speakers, and communication professionals develop the skills to impact, influence, and inspire.

evel presentation skills. My [: 00:01:00

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So I love to read and I do love to give good book recommendations and a book that I have just completed this week based on a recommendation from a coach that I really respect it's called The Expectation Effect by David Robson. Now, one of the things I particularly love about this book is that I think for years in personal development, certainly in the areas that I've been working in, often talk about how expectations go on to create your outcomes for you, and that it's good to have positive expectations and to set yourself up for success.

The Expectation Effect [: 00:02:00

A whole group of people could get sick when there's no illness around, based on the concept of an illness that they may have seen on a TV show. These are things that have happened.

How things like the placebo effect and the nocebo effect might really work with us and the have, just having an awareness of the fact that you even know what the side effects of something might be or what the positive effect of taking something is supposed to be can influence us in unexpected ways.

al for speaking as a speaker [: 00:03:00

It is not superstitious. I'm not a superstitious person. It's not spiritual. I'm not particularly a spiritual person. But it is a practical routine that helps put me in a peak and optimal state for when I'm about to get on stage. So it will involve for me things like playing some great music from a playlist that helps to get me pumped up.

It will involve a little bit of mindset work focusing myself to make sure that I remember that I want to serve my audience, get out my own way, turn, try and turn down my ego a little bit before I go out on stage, get ready to have fun. I set an intention for what I want to do, and I put myself into what would call the presenter state, where I go into a sort of an expanded awareness state, which is how I want to be hitting the stage.

alked about or maybe it is a [: 00:04:00

Whereas if we don't do that or something interferes with that particular process, we may find ourselves having a less than optimal experience. Now I know for things like when I do learning and workshops and things like that, it can be really good to have a sort of opening ritual for creating that learning mindset and a closing ritual say, all right, we're gonna stop learning now and free ourselves up to go and have fun and socialize.

s us up with the expectation [: 00:05:00

Which is probably never a bad thing. Now, one of the things that I particularly loved with this book, it made me think a lot about one of my favorite books, which is The Luck Factor by Dr. Richard Wiseman. I love the Luck Factor so much because it is this whole concept of that if we believe that we are lucky, we will be lucky. We'll take more chances. We'll act more in alignment with the belief that we're lucky. We'll start those conversations with random people. We'll enter more competitions because we believe that we're gonna be lucky if we have the converse belief of being unlucky, we're far more likely to be protective, shielded, and less looking for opportunity, but more looking to shield ourselves from potential risks to maybe

to be said for having these [: 00:06:00

That's a book that's been around for a long while, and it still remains one of my favorite books because I found that particularly transformational to know that there is no magical or mysterious force at play here. Luck is a belief that we have. Success in our outcomes can be a belief that we have.

At least we can strongly influence those outcomes and set ourselves up for better results just by creating these expectations.

I got to have a conversation today with Chris Marr, who is the author of The Authoritative Coach, and we were talking a little bit about these kinds of expectations that we set for each other, like the way you get introduced to your audience that want to have control over that.

ey know who they're getting, [: 00:07:00

So there is a strong element of mindset work and ownership that needs to be done beyond that as well. We're not just saying, oh, do this ritual and everything's gonna go magic for you. This is just about optimizing your outcomes. You still have to put in the work. You still have to earn the right, you still have to show up and deliver for your audiences.

ations. So if we can utilize [: 00:08:00

rt thinking about putting in [: 00:09:00

You are setting your own expectations, maybe even setting your audience expectations before a word has even been said from the stage. That's pretty much it for me. You're gonna keep this one short and sweet. I hope that the book recommendations are interesting for you. Next week I'm talking to Emily Schneider, who is a professional in visual storytelling. She helps professional speakers create powerful slide decks that become an art form really within the presentation and add value. And I always say this thing, people always ask me, should we have slide decks?

t. Lots of really good value [: 00:10:00

Last week's episode with Cam Beaudoin about. Demo reels. We got so, so many amazing guests at the moment and some really exciting ones coming up for you that I can't wait to bring you. And consistently interviewing, pre-interviewing lots of great guests. I'm definitely looking forward to bringing you the interview with Chris Marr, Judy Carter, and bunch of other people as well.

ee you next time. Take care. [: 00:11:00