Ep. 81 Do You Have Open Loops?

Mark, I have a question for you.

Yes, sir.

But I'm not going to ask it.

Because something's going on outside, isn't there?

No, because I just want to make you curious what my question is. How mean would it be, Mark, if I just never asked you the question? Would that. Would that hang with you throughout the day? Later on, even when we're done with this, if I didn't close the loop?

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation? Ahas. Let's dive right in.

Mark. So many presenters are unintentionally mean and unintentionally confusing. So my question is, do you have any open loops?

It's funny you say that. I think about my pants. My trousers. That's really bad. And we're not gonna. We're not gonna delete that. It's my first bad pun of the day. So now.

I didn't know we're getting warmed up.

Well, do I have any open loops? You know what? Sometimes I may. You know, the open loop is we lead the audience down a certain path. We give them information and we believe they've got it. But there's something left undone. There is that question that you were going to ask, you never did. And I leave asked a question. And sometimes, you know, as presenters, we can be guilty of that. And I think it'd be a good idea for us today to kind of talk about some open loops. And I know you and I were talking earlier and there are four things we want to look at now. I'm going to say five and then give you four. But there are four things I want to look at that speakers sometimes do that leave open loops and unanswered questions in the minds of your audiences.

But first, Mark, let's just say, why is that bad? Why is leaving that question? And I think it's almost like you hand them a suitcase to carry and then they just have to keep walking. They're carrying that. They're thinking about everything else you're saying and everything else they're doing, but they're like, why am I carrying this suitcase? Because it's in their head. It's taking up space. We need it Resolved. Now, we're not talking about intentional open loops where you bring it up at the beginning, or let's say we call it a suspended story and then we come back to it later, that's intentional. The challenge that we're tackling this week, as we promised last week, is talking about loops that we open. And most of the time, we're not even aware that we do.

Yeah, it does happen. And I think one of the reasons is as presenters, we speak from our experience, we speak from our lives, we speak from our wealth of knowledge. And sometimes we're so close to it. One mistake is to make the assumption that our audience knows, Knows exactly what we do. We get to expound on it as the expert. But if we start off with an idea, a concept, a question, a thought that we are very familiar with, but they are not. They're beginning to ask a question. What is he talking about? Why is that there? It can create so many questions in their minds, and we aren't even aware of it. So I think it's wise for us today to talk about this, to tackle this, to take a good look at this and offer our listeners and viewers some ideas, some solid ideas to prevent some of these things from happening.

So number one is an unfamiliar reference. If you reference something that half a quarter, 20% of your audience is not familiar with. Well, those 20% just picked up that suitcase and they're carrying it through your presentation because part of their brain is, how do I close this? How do I close this? How do I close this? Oh, yeah, that's a good point. That's a good story. How do I close this? How do I close this? How do I close this? So your brain wants that. Wants to finale, wants the closing that loop, the check mark, to just let it go, move on. Now I understand. Now I don't have to worry. But, Mark, I remember early on when you talked about football, I'm like, football. What? That's not football. That's soccer. Mark is from Jamaica, if you're not aware. And he played football because you kick a foot with a ball. But we're in America, so football means something completely different. The ball is not rap.

Of course. Yeah.

And again. And it's not right or wrong. It's that unaware. It's an unfamiliar reference. So often we need to. It's okay to bring up something that is unique, but then we need to explain it. The challenge is when we bring it up, assuming the audience knows the reference.

Right.

If not, I want to close the loop. I want to Close the loop. I want to close it. That's going to be annoying, by the way, throughout this podcast, because that's the point. That's the point we're trying to get across. Yeah, you got to open the loop. You got to close the loop. Got to close the loop. Got to close the loop. We need a sound effects for that.

You know, Darren, in all seriousness, I remember one specific instance where that happened at a contest I was at. And the gentleman came up and he told a powerful story of a strained relationship with his father. And he built it around growing up as a kid playing sandlot baseball. It was so cool, you know, I can almost see it. My brain goes to the Disney film the Sandlot with James Earl Jones and the dog. I forget the dog's name. Hercules. Hercules. Come here, Hercules. James Earl Jones. Now they're gonna go. Wanna go and watch the movie the Sandlot? Good, go watch it. I won't get any kind of overrides. It's okay.

The point was, Mark, I have a question.

Yes, Darren?

I got an open loop. I got an open loop. I got an open loop. I want to close it.

I want to close it.

I want to close it. Just letting our audience know what's happening in my brain.

So he mentions this and he goes through and it's a really powerful story. And I remember going to lunch afterwards and I had some Jamaican friends who would come to the event. And my friend looked at me and said, wayne, that was a really interesting speech. But I got one question. I said, yes. So my friend Jennifer says, mark, what's a sandlot? So I thought. I said, oh, well, you know, in Jamaica, when guys want to play football, soccer to you North Americans, we would play in the empty lot beside the burnt out building. We would turn that into a little soccer field. Oh, you mean the empty lot they play ball on? I said, yes. So why they call it a sand lot if there's no sand in there? I couldn't answer the question. But this individual, a fellow Jamaican who was unfamiliar with the American pastime of playing sandlot baseball, could not connect. For the whole time her brain was going, what's a sandlot? What's the sandlot? What's the sandlot? What's the sandlot? Gotta close the loop. Gotta close the loop. Gotta close the loop. Are you fully annoyed now, people?

You will be.

That's what happens in your audience's mind when they don't get your reference. What's your question, Darren?

What's a sandlot?

It actually happened, you know, this is a true story. But it made me realize right then that how easy it is for us when we are familiar with situations, circumstances, cuisine, locations. Remember we were doing Our lady and the Champs several years ago in Las Vegas live, and we were doing live coaching, which we love to do. We love to do live coaching at these events. A gentleman got up to give us a part of his speech and he said he was with his wife. One day, they were out somewhere, he said, and I went afib. And I said, stop. I looked out at 145 people and I said, by show of hands, let me know if you are unfamiliar with the phrase afib. The hands shot up in the air and I could tell. I called a guy Jeff. Jeff just kind of bowed his head and he said, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't have to say another word. He said, yeah. I assumed everyone knew what I went afib meant, and the majority of the audience did not. But that was his story. He was familiar with it. It was his experience with his atrial defibrillation, something to do with his heart. I got to look it up. Okay, my point is, what may be familiar to you may not be familiar to your audience, because to your audience, because you're too close to it. You have to put yourself in the audience's seat and ask yourself, will they get this? Will they know this? And if nothing else rings true, my friends, today it is this. You need to put yourself in the audience's chair and ask yourself, will they get this? When it's so close to us and so familiar to us, we tend to make the assumption it's familiar to the audience as well.

Yep, just kind of be aware. You've got to ask. But for us as presenters, again, becoming unforgettable is a process. It's not writing a speech once. Great speeches aren't written, they're rewritten. So we have to be hyper aware of the feedback in the chat. Even what one person asks, 10 or 20, or depending on how many people on your virtual presentation, zoom meeting, or whatever format you're on. That means there's many people who might not know that. So you've got to ask yourself and you've got to discern between, oh, yeah, that is a concern, or no, that's just one person being wacky.

It happens sometimes.

There's always 1%. But is it the 1% or is it the 2% who actually do want to know and are confused because you brought up something they're not familiar with? We've got to know our Audience, we've got to know what their references are. And it doesn't mean you can't bring up something they're unfamiliar with. You can bring it up, but then you need to explain what it is or they get stuck in the. I gotta close the loop. I gotta close the loop. I gotta close the loop. I gotta close the loop.

That's true. I mean, I have a market I use called a Forgettery. And if I say, you gotta activate your forgettery and I keep going, they're gonna go, huh? But I always say, you gotta activate your forgettery. That is the ability to forget the memories that weigh us down and sometimes stop us dead in our tracks. I've been using that line since 1994. Okay, it's 27 years. But it's a line that I have. My point being, if I don't explain what that means, they go, what do you mean? So I suggest, as Darren says, you want to ping your audience, I recommend you rehearse your presentation. And we have found that a Toastmasters Club is a really cool place to, to work on your presentation, to rehearse, to get instant evaluations and feedback. Because you want to know, what is my potential audience hearing? What are they seeing? What are they feeling? What are they thinking? And if you don't get feedback, you may never know. And we don't recommend you do a new program cold to a brand new audience, especially a paying one, because that could be disastrous if you aren't fully prepared to encounter what may be people who really don't get what you are talking about.

All right, so number one, super clear, unfamiliar reference, ironically super clear about being unclear. Number two, an unfulfilled promise. An unfulfilled promise. Mark, you're a bad boy. You watched your own video and realized.

And you're wondering, what is it? What is, what does it mean? Unfulfilled promise. Yeah, close the loop. Close the loop. Okay. An unfulfilled promise occurs when a presenter, in this case moi, makes a promise to the audience. I'm going to give you three keys to X, Y or Z if you're English or Canadian or African. Right? I want to give you three keys to xyz. And you get into your story and you're doing your references, you're having a good time. The audience is responding. We're loving you. You're loving them. It's going great. You go through number one, and they got the idea, you, the concept, the story, the stats, the poll, everything is going great. They're responding. Number two, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And you're enjoying it so much. And then you. And then you go to your conclusion and you deliver the message, and number three is left hanging in the air. How do I know this? Ask me. I did. I saw a video that I did over 20 years ago, and I was shocked and embarrassed to notice I had promised three and delivered two. It still happens. I went to a Toastmasters meeting a few weeks ago where a speaker did just that. He said, the first thing you want to do is this. And he gave a very good tip, very solid, Went through some more stories, and before I knew it, he was done. So I told him afterwards, hey, you told us the first thing, but we never got the second. I'm going, what's the second? What's the second? Close the loop, close the loop, close the loop. I was guilty of that 20 years ago, but it shows. It happens even today. But of course, Darren Lacroix is so good. He would never, ever do that. But it's okay. The truth is, we have to be aware that we do not fulfill our promise to the audience. That's one more reason why I say rehearse, record yourself and watch it through the lens of members of your audience.

Darren, this ties back into number one. We've got to crave feedback. Crave it, because sometimes, look, we just made a mistake. But sometimes, just like the gentleman you just mentioned who said concept one, he might have actually said the second point. But if you don't say, my second point is right. So we've got to be clear. So he could have covered it. But if you don't state it, if you clearly state first, we need to hear a second. You just opened a loop that. Now if you say there's three now, you opened a loop to three. So we plan that you're gonna close that otherwise the rest of the day. And some people, Mark, okay, I love them and I don't love them, but the people who can walk through an amazing workshop or sit through an amazing workshop of yours, and you gave them a handout, it's got a full fill in the blank, and they come up and they cannot leave until the third blank is full on the paper. It's a guide. I get it, though. I get it and I understand it. And we might have said it, but that person maybe wasn't paying attention at that time. But they have to have that blank filled in. So think about that. It's not just that person. That's an extreme example, and that's a group of people in your Audience, if you give them a blank, you better fill it in. It's the same idea. They're not wrong. You are. Look, if you make a mistake, don't beat yourself up. But just know that just because you might not need every blank, even though you got great content, I still need the blank filled in.

Yeah, true.

Leave me a blank.

But you know, people think differently and we want to make sure we accommodate our entire audience. One idea regarding the unfulfilled promise. To me, it's very simply a case of being clear on the structure of your presentation. You have to have good structure. If you don't have good structure, you can be, quote unquote, lost in the weeds. And I know 20 years ago, I met a speaker who was very enthusiastic. He's quite experienced, actually. And when I mentioned structure and mapping and planning everything out, he told me, no, I'm spontaneous. I can go with the flow. I get my ideas and I just go. And it's awesome. But this individual was, after much back and forth on conflict and. And almost coming to fisticuffs, he eventually decided it was appropriate for him to leave the Twilight Zone. Coming to the real world and put.

Some of what you're talking about, Mark.

Some guy I met in New England back in 2001. I don't know if you know him from the Boston area, in Auburn.

I know what you're talking about. And to close the loop, if you're listening, he's talking about me. If you don't know that story. And it is truth. And I had a lot of growing up to do. I had a lot of loops to close. But he first had to put a pin in the ego bubble.

Well, I appreciate that. You know, it's. You don't want the audience wondering, you know, where you're going with this. You want to make sure the loops are closed. If you tell him you're going to give them something, then deliver it. That's why rehearsal is important. And now in the virtual world, it's easy to hop on a zoom by yourself, record a module of your presentation, watch it through the eyes of the audience and ask yourself, did I fulfill my promise? Have I answered the questions I posed? And I've called the audience to put. That I have placed. That I have placed in my own audience's mind. And we have to put the ego aside and really look at that. Because sometimes we don't.

Yeah, Mark, I remember one of our get coach to Speak camps that we had. We had a VIP there. And I don't want to Use names. So we'll just call him eager entrepreneur. And Mr. Eager Entrepreneur was up on the hot seat with you and me. And Michael Hague was there as well, and we were coaching him. And he was telling a story about giving birth, his wife giving birth to his son and things happening and his business. And he knew the story, but he never took the time to really understand the structure we were getting across. And he was trying really hard. He was eager, and his intentions were good, but there was times he just wasn't listening because he knew that. He knew this, he knew this. And that's one of the big challenges we all, as Mark just mentioned about me, thinking that we know this or that's not important. And then Mark, you just finally to get it across, because he wasn't getting it. You grabbed him by the hand. You said, come with me, and you started walking him around the room at a quick, brisk pace. And finally he gets to the other side. It was like it was scripted. And he turns and goes, where are we going? And you go, exactly. We need to know where you're going. And then. So step one is give us that clear structure, that clear path. And then step two is that not giving us the path to know where you're going. Which leads us to concept number three, which is unclear concepts. So we got unfamiliar reference, unfulfilled promise. You set up the promise, and you didn't fulfill it. And then next is unclear concepts.

Now, Darren, before we jump into that, I want to close a small loop because we may have listeners who are here for the very first time. And we made reference to one of our faculty members, Michael Haig, for those who may be unfamiliar with Michael Haig. Michael Haig is a story expert, and he is a Hollywood script consultant to the megastars. And he's on our faculty, and he's a master of story. And we do our live events, and Michael Haig and Darren and I were together at that particular event delivering a presentation about the stories. And that's the framework around the reference to Michael Haig. So no one can accuse us of leaving the loop open with reference to Michael Haig. Darren, the unclear concept, especially when you're.

Trying to illustrate an abstraction concept.

Yes.

Often it's in our head. We've worked on this speech over and over. We got the idea, we know it, but something happens, Mark, in the ether between our lips and their ears.

I like that.

And there's all this gas going on that deflects thoughts in different directions because it's not clear. I remember When I was working on my. My sponge speech, a famous keynote that I did at Toastmasters and for lady and the Champs. And it was fun because I love illustrations. And I had these three bowls. Two bowls. One was filled with dark water, one was filled with clear water, and one was empty. And I developed it, but I knew that I had to work it out. But at the beginning, it was very unclear what I was trying to get across. What's the third bowl symbolize? Oh, well, that's your audience. Well, duh. Like you should know that.

Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah.

It was clear in my head. I never told you. I never even gave you a clue. But why don't you get it? So the more you give it. That's why we need to crave feedback. And that's why my preferred writing style is to get an idea, go give it in a free setting, just to get that feedback, to tweak it and make it clearer and make it clearer and make it clearer. And so eventually I realized I had to stop. And when I set up this illustration, take the bowl of dark liquid, hold it up, and say, look, these are your negative thoughts. Okay? This symbolizes your brain. Okay, Pick up this. This clear water. This represents wisdom. And slowly put it down. While I'm putting it down, they're absorbing it. They're like, okay, got it. That's right. They need time to absorb it. And then I would hold up the empty bowl and say, this is your audience. You can only give to your audience what's inside you. And I put the empty bowl down. And so I realized that I could easily say, so, this represents negative thoughts. This represents wisdom. This is your audience. If I do it that quickly, even though I've almost said the same thing, it's not clear to your audience, Especially when we're setting things up, they've got to absorb the concept in order to go with you. Because then we have Mark in our audience, 100 different brains going in 98 different directions. And so we think it's clear, but it's not clear. It's clear to us. And, Mark, we talk about this in training, especially virtual training, when we send people out to the breakout rooms. Your concept has to be super clear. You almost have to daren it down, as I say, and you even need to still say it twice, because if the concept is unclear, you just opened a mega loop. So there's loops and there's mega loops, and now they just cross their arms. They're not involved because they're not with you, and we lose the audience lose, and then you become unforgettable for a negative reason.

It's a good point. And, you know, we've been teaching for a long time, for years now, the famous triad, clarity, clarity, clarity, or clarity, clarity, clarity. It may be clear to us, but how do we know it's clear to our audience? Again, that's why even the best speakers, in the same way, the best comedians go to a place where they can test and practice and get responses from people who may end up giving us look like, I don't get it. What do you mean? You know, I was so. I was actually saddened some time ago when I heard a speaker talk about the reaction an audience gave to his presentation. The particular speaker had talked about a childhood experience of ethnic bias in his life. And he was very innocent at the time. And he learned later that he was actually victimized by. But he was too young to fully understand initially. His father educated him, and over the years, he has become an advocate against ethnic bias. And he spoke to an audience of his own ethnic group about it. But the way he told the story and the way he delivered the presentation, the audience took offense and thought he was opposed to his own ethnic group for one reason. He simply was not clear in his references. So what happened was they completely misunderstood. They didn't get it. Their brains did not connect the ideas he was trying to string together, which were fine in his own mind. Mind. But the concept wasn't clear to his audience. So they misinterpreted, misunderstood him. And he found himself having to revisit the presentation, go through every piece of it and discern and understand where his audience may have not received it. That's why it's so key for us to realize and to get this. It's clear to us if the door, the loop is closed. We totally get it. We live in that loop. But your audience is outside looking in. You open that loop, and they don't get all the concepts. They leave with a closed loop, totally misunderstanding, and everyone loses. Everyone loses unless you close the loop. So to be very careful, is the concept clear? And of course, you said, darren it down. My wife and kids, and they're not children, they're in their 30s. They laugh at me and they roll their eyes because one of my constant mantras is, hey, talk to me like I'm five years old. Oh, dad, I'm serious. Talk to me like I'm five. I want to be really, really clear on this. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if you Give it to me. I'm five years old. Then chances are I'll get it. And friends, I don't mean to insult anybody, but if Your audience of 5 year olds can pretty much get where you're going, then, you know, you're clear. This is a call for clarity.

Okay, Darren, are you smarter than a fifth grader?

Oh, you know what? I'd forgotten about a TV show. Now you open the loop now you got to close that one now.

Okay, clarify that it was a TV show. I think Jeff Foxworthy took over hosting it.

Yeah.

Are you Or. Or was the host of it? Are you smarter than a fifth grader? And it was a game show format, but it was with actual fifth graders on there.

It was very smart.

Either way, interesting, interesting, interesting. And Mark, one last idea on this one is the audience brings their whole life experience with them to your presentation, not yours. They bring their life experience with them to your presentation, not yours. We bring our own life experience to the presentation. Theirs is different. That's why the references, the promise, the concept. Mark, we talked about this last week, but as a reminder, when I'm working on a new keynote. 17 minutes. And in my practices, I've. I'm finding all these things that are unclear because my. I ask when I get feedback, I ask, what made you think? What inspired you? What was unclear?

Nice.

I even want to know that. Why? So I can clean it up and clear it up. And I talked about 17 minutes. Taking at least 17 minutes a day to step forward to your dreams. And somebody asked why 17 minutes? Duh. That was. It's an obvious thing, but for me, what difference does it make? They want to know what difference it makes. Where did that number come from? And it came from my high school football jersey on my practice. For football. American football, not Mark, football. It was a time in my life that I transformed myself in practice because I was tired of wanting to be in the game. I needed to do what it took for the coaches to want me in the game. Didn't matter what I want. They were the decision makers. So I used it as an idea. I realized I brought this up and I was unclear. And close the loop, Close the loop, close the loop. I didn't do it. So, Mark, we got number one, unfamiliar reference. Number two, unfulfilled promise. Number three, unclear concepts and finally, underdeveloped characters. Number four.

By the way, before we jump into that, Darren, I just want to make one word clear. It is the context. When you said 17, you knew why 17 was there. If we have Context, then you'll give us clarity. If we have context, we will have charity. When you give us a context, you give us a character. Don't forget that. Now, the underdeveloped character, that's really interesting. And there are a couple of ways we often see underdeveloped characters. And the first is they're introduced early in the presentation. They seem to have relevance and value, but then they disappear in the story and they're never to be heard from again. Someone tell a story about an important event in their life. And they had a co worker who was really helpful in getting them the promotion. And their co worker was Bianca. And Bianca was so meaningful to her. Okay, and the story goes on. We go through the speech, we get all the ideas, we get the concepts, we get the principles. And I'm wondering, okay, so what did Bianca tell her that helped her get promotion? Bianca is never heard from again. Now, maybe somewhere in the presentation, the value Bianca brought was referenced, but not by her name. So my brain is going, okay, so Bianca was the one who helped her. What did Bianca say? How did Bianca guide her? Bianca was a guru. What did Bianca tell her? Teach her instructor? And the answer never comes. If you've heard that before, you might be nodding your head. The question is, have you said that before? Have you done that before? So examine the characters in your presentation, because if you're underdeveloped or unresolved, that leaves a question in our mind. What's open to fill the loop? Close the loop. Close the loop. Close the loop. Close the loop. Darren?

Yeah, Bianca. The other idea about that is the words you said. So when we bring up a character, what we say about the character, we'll either need to know more or it doesn't matter. So in that situation, when the person said, Bianca was really important in my life or had meaning in my life, now we want to know what meaning and why. Okay. Don't bring it up if it's not relevant to this moment and if it opens a loop. So earlier when we talked about Michael Haig, Michael Haig was there. Okay, it's a little bit of an open loop, because I didn't say Michael Haig said this or Michael Haig pointed out, because now there's a bigger loop. Well, why Michael? Who is he? Should we listen to him? Does he not matter? So every character we introduce, does it open a loop? So we've got to remember for the telling of this story, forget reality, forget the literal truth, and it's the emotional truth. The point of telling this story to this audience is that they walk away with the concept. That is the important part. So is the character relevant? The maybe if the character adds to the conflict, so then the outcome is better. The cure is more important or more relevant. So we've got to just take time, step back, and ask ourself, is this important character to the story? Are we introducing something especially right at the end of the whole presentation?

Wait, wait, stop.

Hold on. Back up. Rewind. And sometimes even Hollywood does this, that they have to. They compress characters. They take two people and put them into one character for the sake of the telling of the story. We referenced it a long time ago, but Rudy, you know, one of my favorite movies, there's he had 13 brothers and sisters, or there's 13 kids. He was the oldest, but in the movie, they made him younger, and they gave him an older brother to be the naysayer. So we feel that coming from his older brother. Yet the truth is, Rudy was the oldest. But we compress the characters. We move things around for the sake of telling the story. Our point on this podcast is taking or introducing a character that you don't develop enough that we understand the importance, or maybe you don't even need to introduce that person because it sends us open loop, open loop, open loop, open loop. Mark.

Yeah, I want to jump on. I want to expound upon the last point. Maybe we don't need to introduce them because by introducing the character, you pique some interest and there's some subtle nuances here. Sometimes you will bring a character up and they sound familiar. If I say, yeah, my character's name was Lance Armstrong, we put a cyclist name in there, somebody who's familiar. It sounds like, ooh. Our brains go off in a direction that creates a loop in itself. So, one, is the character really necessary? Two, how are they introduced? Do we present them as someone of increasing value or value to the story? Who has an impact on the hero's life or the concept? We're trying to teach. And sometimes, Darren says, we introduce them towards the very, very end. You know, I'll pick a really wild example. You talk about a struggle you've gone through. You had to overcome several obstacles. You left home for six months, and you finally get back home. The family was with you when you left, and we all wish you well. You went through a struggle. You toured Africa. You learned so much. You come back to the family, and you're glad to have made it. And as you end your journey, you saw your mom, your dad, your sisters, and my favorite uncle Bob was there, you know, he was my favorite uncle and we all had a wonderful time together. I'm going, wait, wait, he's your favorite uncle. You know, your family's there, so why was your favorite Uncle Bob there and why was he your favorite? And you just ended your speech and I'm going to tell me about Uncle Bob. I want to know who was Uncle Bob? Close the loop, Close the loop. Close the loop. Close the loop.

Yeah. Are you fully annoyed for the telling? We hope we annoy you because we're trying to make the idea unforgettable. Why? So you don't open any loops or if you do open them, you close them. So we gotta know, why is Uncle Bob there? Does it matter in the telling of the story? We know in your life it was important, but in the telling of the story for this audience. All right, Mark, we've covered four unfamiliar reference, unfulfilled promise, unclear concepts, and the underdeveloped character. Mark Brown, what are our final thoughts for this episode?

I would ask everyone here, whether you are an emerging presenter or a seasoned professional, to revisit perhaps your signature presentation and look at every concept, every character. View your presentation from the eyes of the audience and ask yourself, do I have any open loops? And if I do, what's the best way for me to close them? Because your seamless, well structured presentation with all the loops closed, with all the questions answered and with all the concepts explained will make you unforgettable.

Absolutely. Either close them or don't open them in the first place.

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