As I mentioned you everybody's nervous when it comes to public speaking, everybody has led some more so than others. Now in my day job I do day long, public speaking training workshops with beginners, intermediate and advanced people all over the world. And I'll often have people get nervous, their palms can get wet. The carpet in my training room before get moist because people's hands were so soaking wet with sweat. I even had people cry, believe it or not. And I usually say the same thing.

Relax. Nobody's perfect. Nobody's 21 anymore. My hair's falling out, getting gels, getting wrinkles, my hairs turning, relax. Well, one day I had a client who was a one on one training in my studio in New York City. We've just done the first exercise she'd given her first presentation.

We're watching it. And I notice she's starting to cry. Jennifer, what's wrong teach it I hate the way I look. I hate the sound of my voice. Now I was about to say what I normally do relax nobody's 21. But then I realized I couldn't say that because she actually was 21 years old.

In fact, she was Miss Universe and did not have a problem of what any one would normally think of is a bad voice or bad appearance. And yet, she still wasn't comfortable looking at herself because she just never looked at yourself on video before. And after a lot of practice, she got more comfortable and better and better. And to this day, she's very comfortable on camera, doing TV commercials, everything imaginable, but initially it was very awkward. So you're in good company, if you're not completely comfortable doing a presentation. So what did I just do there?

I told a story. It's a true story. But it was to make a point that, Hey, everybody gets nervous. Doesn't matter what you look like everybody's gonna get nervous. So you're in boat with everyone else. Why don't I do that by telling a story, it makes it more memorable.

The biggest difference between awful speakers whether they're beginners or intermediate or advanced, is that awful speakers never tell stories. great speakers, even if it's the first speech they ever gave in sixth grade, give stories. Human beings are hard wired to understand. Listen more carefully to a story. A story is just a conversation you had with one person about a problem where you were the setting, how it was resolved, how you felt, and what was learned from it. That's all a story is doesn't have to be funny.

Doesn't have to be dramatic. You don't have to bring tears to people's eyes. As your own eyes, the best source of stories is just recounting an actual conversation you had about a problem with a colleague, a co worker, a client, a customer, a boss, it's the ultimate example. You've isolated the five key messages you have in your presentation. Now you need a story involving a real conversation with a real person for each one of your messages. Now, if you don't have a story, for a message point, what that really means you've never talked to another human being about this message.

If that's the case, you got to ask yourself, Is this really an important message? If there are no stories, typically, that means it's not a very important message. So that's your job right now. Think of it interesting story. That isn't just fun to be fun or to be funny, but that's right. relevant and that makes the message points you have come alive.

So take a moment, write those down. Just a couple of words. You don't have to write out the whole story. You can just say, you know, the time I almost drowned or the conversation with our biggest customer who was unhappy about a late delivery, just one sentence to remind you of the story. Go ahead, write that down. post it in the discussion group now.