How to Completely Kill the Moment

Imagine you’re making love. You’re in the middle of the steamiest moment. You’re excited, engaged and completely involved, when all of a sudden, your partner stops, flips the page in the manual, reads the instructions, and then tries to pick up where he or she left off. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

I get so frustrated when a speaker has my attention, and is on a roll with a captivating message. When the speaker has me enthralled, both mentally and emotionally, but then has to stop to check notes. What a way to completely kill the moment!

Here’s how you can prevent such a showstopper. Instead of notes or a script, consider using a mental picture stack.

In my training programs, the first thing I do is give my students a very simple mental picture to follow for their first presentation, and here it is:

In your mind, picture a huge name plate with your name on it, and picture it balancing on edge on the top of your head. You struggle to keep it balanced as it sways to and fro, but you manage to keep it balanced on your head.

At the same time, there’s a rolled up map being stuffed up your nose, as if by some magical force. With your right hand you’re trying to pull the map out of your nose, but it keeps pushing itself back in there.

While all of that’s happening, there’s a giant Cheerio stuck to your bottom lip, and it’s pulling your bottom lip down. It’s very heavy, and it’s pulling your face down while you’re trying to keep that map out of your nose, and you still have to keep balancing that name plate on your head.

As if that’s not enough, your left hand’s holding a goal net, like the ones used in ice hockey. This net is in front of your stomach, and it’s very heavy, plus very awkward. Your left arm’s tired from the weight of this goal net, your face is being pulled down by a giant Cheerio on your bottom lip, your right hand’s fighting with the map that’s pushing its way up your nose, and that name plate’s still trying to fall off your head.

What on Earth could all of that possibly mean? It’s a visual roadmap for the first presentation my students give in class. Their first assignment is to stand in front of the class, and tell us their name (name plate), where they’re from (rolled up map), what their occupation is (Cheerio is “O” for occupation), and what their goal is in the class (goal net). See how that works?

This same process can be used for a presentation of any length of time, and it can completely remove the need for written notes. When it’s time to move from one topic to the next, a moment of silent thought is all that’s required to think about the next picture in the stack, and then to move into that topic. Your audience has no clue that you’re using the notes, because they’re in your mind.

The key to success in using this strategy is to exaggerate the pictures, and include motion. The more ridiculous the scenes, the easier it’ll be to recall them. I’ve done entire workshops with this method. There’s no limit to the number of items that you can recall, with a little practice.

So, what’s the lesson? To keep the momentum going, get rid of the paper notes, and use picture stacks in your mind instead.