The secret of an effective presentation can be revealed in one word: enthusiasm!

How can your audience be enthusiastic about your talk if you aren’t? The funny thing is you almost certainly are, but, like me, you may have difficulty showing it. I’ve recorded practice videos (a good idea by the way!) in which I felt that I was emoting energetically, and when I’ve played the videos back I looked like I was auditioning for a part in a zombie movie. The last time I gave a talk on how to give a talk a nice young fellow asked me afterwards why, when I was discussing enthusiasm, I didn’t appear more enthusiastic! Think how deadly it would be if I wasn’t at least trying to convey my enthusiasm! I’m sure most of you can do even better.

You may feel that a scientific presentation must be very serious. Not so. You may worry about overdoing the enthusism and appearing undignified. The fact is that it is almost impossible to overdo your enthusiasm. If you are a young person, older audience members are delighted to see an enthusiastic young person working in their field. If you are an older person, younger audience members are pleased to see an older colleague who still retains enthusiasm for their work.

You may be worrying so much about what you are saying that it gets in the way of a natural, enthusiastic presentation. Let me tell you a dirty little secret: most of what you say your audience will soon forget. Quick, how many details can you remember from the last talk you heard? You’ll be lucky if your audience remembers anything that you say, especially at a conference where they are going from one talk to another. Being enthusiastic can help with that!

You also may simply be nervous when public speaking. There are ways to address this, which I plan to discuss in a separate post; in fact, getting in touch with the enthusiasm you have for your work could help with this too.

Of course, extroverts have an advantage here. But Carl Jung said that there is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert, that such a person would be in a lunatic asylum. So use your inner extrovert!