TJ Walker shares quick communication fixes: use a giant cheat sheet during presentations, hit B in PowerPoint to black out slides, kill verbal tics by printing the word with a red X and taping it to your phone for a week, and record yourself speaking on your cellphone to practice.
Chapters
Your time is valuable, so I want to give you some quick wins to help build your communication skills. Right away you may be thinking that if you're nervous, uncomfortable giving a presentation, how do you remember what to say? Well, you should cheat with this. A cheat sheet. I never give any speech without a single sheet of paper. Very large font so I can look at it without having to put my glasses on or bend down. It's a single sheet of paper so I don't have to turn the pages, I don't have to pick it up. It's a simple little thing, nobody ever does it. Everyone's thinking about, oh, I have to type up all these long bullet points on my PowerPoints. No you don't. You can have a cheat sheet. It's amazingly effective and you'll give people the impression that you're confident, authoritative, and not just a beginner when it comes to your communication skills. Another quick, easy thing to do. Lets say your boss or someone has given you a really boring PowerPoint presentation and you're afraid of putting people to sleep and you want them to focus on something you're saying. Well, if you have a slide up and you're in PowerPoint, all you have to do is hit the letter B instantly blacks it out. You can now talk. Everyone has to look at you, focus on you, hit any key whatsoever comes right back to the screen. Very few people know that, but it's a way for you to come across much more commanding and confident when you're giving a presentation and when you're trying to communicate with people. Another quick tip. Doesn't matter if you're doing a TV interview, radio interview, giving a speech, going on a job interview, if all of a sudden lots of ums and uhs and ers come out, it sounds unprofessional. Here's a quick tip. I use this when I'm conducting training sessions with presidents of countries, prime ministers, Nobel Peace Prize winners. I just type up the word that they say too often, that verbal tic, the uh, the um. I type it up, print it out, draw a red circle around it and a slash, you know, the international red. No sign for no parking, no left hand turn, no dumping. It's it now is a little sign that says no or no or no er or ya know, or like. I cut it out and just tape it to their cell phone or their watch or a computer screen. And after a week it will reprogram your brain so you don't have that annoying verbal tic. Cost you nothing. Highly, highly effective. And you don't have to hire me for a day. Final really quick tip to help you with your communication skills. Doesn't matter if it's preparation for an important phone call, a conference call, a TV interview, a speech. Practice with your cell phone using the video record. Now. It's the simplest method. It's the most effective method. It costs you nothing if you already have a phone. It's also not very popular because people don't like to look at themselves. Hey, I didn't tell you every tip in this course would be popular, But I can tell you it's extraordinarily effective and it will cost you nothing. More tips like this to come.
