One idea a week to help you teach and present with more clarity, confidence, and calm. No fluff. No scripts. Just practical tools that land.
Say Less. Mean More
|
I went to a talk last week.
The title was fine. Slide two. Nine bullet points. That’s not a presentation—it’s a confession.
💡 ONE IDEA WELLToo often, we treat presentations like a dumping ground for everything we’ve ever learned. We forget that our job isn’t to say everything—it’s to help the audience remember something. Nine bullet points don’t show how clever you are. But here’s the truth: nobody remembers bullet six. The best talks aren’t information-rich—they’re message-clear. So here’s a better way to think about your next talk: What’s the one thing you want your audience to remember three days from now? You’ll say less—but you’ll mean more. 🧰 LESS MESS, MORE MESSAGEHere’s a quick fix you can try: Now reframe the slide around that. 🔄 Before:
📸 Here’s what that shift might look like in practice: 🧭 ASK YOURSELF THISWhat’s the one thing you want your audience to remember three days from now? Everything else supports it—or distracts from it. |
GIVE TALKS PEOPLE ACTUALLY REMEMBER.
One idea a week to help you teach and present with more clarity, confidence, and calm. No fluff. No scripts. Just practical tools that land.
I was on my laptop at home after a day at the hospital with my daughter, looking at three lines I still hadn't sent. Talk withdrawn. Slides already submitted. Apologies for the short notice. Three lines to unwind months of preparation and tell a room full of people, a week out, that I would not be walking onto their stage. I didn't press it straight away. I was thinking. Who would I miss? What would I miss? What does it cost the guy who is trying to build a small career on being the one who...
Five minutes into the monologue, and the room had gone still. I was on stage at the Goodwood Theatre in Adelaide, working through Vinh Giang's Stage Academy course, in a small, old room that usually holds school plays and dance recitals, close enough that you can see every face in the crowd. The lights were warm and near. I was telling the story of driving to the hospital, and the sentence that ended that drive. My daughter had died. Five minutes built from the worst day of my life, said out...
Men in clown masks climb out of a van outside a bank. Nobody has told you their names. Nobody has explained the plan, or why they're wearing rubber grins, or what any of this has to do with anything. Guns come up. Glass breaks. An alarm is already ringing before you've decided whose side you're on. It took me fifty-six words to do what Christopher Nolan does in forty-five seconds. 💡 ONE IDEA WELL That's the opening of The Dark Knight, and it's the clip I played at a workshop at Creative...