What is the reason we need to focus on ourselves first before even starting with the presentation preparation?
Every person walks around with a backpack on his or her shoulders. The backpack represents the way you observe the world around you. The backpack contains the tools you have gathered over the years either consciously or unconsciously to make sense of what goes around you.
The backpack content is mostly experienced unconsciously however very active nevertheless.
Everything in the Backpack has its origin. It contains all the aspects of your education, upbringing, bias, expectations, and assumptions. How you view the world. All these beliefs have served you at one time.
The question today is: are they still serving you now?
Sabotaging activities in communications are these activities that do you more harm than good. They all have settled nicely in your backpack. As every backpack is unique and fits only the person carrying the backpack, the first step is becoming aware of the content of your backpack in order to dismantle sabotaging activities in communication.
Dismantling sabotaging activities is a personal journey inwards and therefore makes communication a complicated matter. What works for someone might not work for someone else. There is no standard in communication. The only element that is useful to all is becoming aware of the content of your backpack first.
The Focus phase of the GET CLEAR method does just that. Find out how you are sabotaging or could be sabotaging yourself before you even start presenting.
Paying close attention to the Focus phase will help you become your real Ally during the whole preparation, rehearsal and delivery phases to become this speaker you want to be.
Once you are aware of it, you can act upon it. With a clear understanding on how you are wired, you can find out if you are either supporting or sabotaging your own success.