A few years back, I was cajoled by some buddies to be in a golf tournament with them. First of all, I never golf enough to really get better. And if I would have thought for a second, I would have realized their motivation wasn’t to just hang out with a good friend for a few hours, it was to wax my sorry…
But they underestimated a deeply rooted competitive streak in me. So a week before the big tournament I scheduled a golf lesson to fix, what was up until then, a mild slice. It meant that when others were playing in the sun and enjoying the fairway, I was usually searching for my ball in the woods.
The golf pro showed up and I was pretty excited. A few quick fixes and I’d be good to go! (I hear a few of you chuckling already). During the course of the next 60-minutes, I would have a number of things “corrected”. First my stance. Then my swing path. Then onto my hips and then my head.
One hour and $75 later, my mild slice had morphed into what golfers affectionately refer to as a “duck hook”. I’ll save you the description. Suffice it to say, it’s not very pretty and now meant I would not only be playing in the woods, but most likely the next fairway over.
What happened to me is what happens to many presenters today.
They get a little coaching, lose anything natural in their delivery and abandon their newly found skills before they can take root. (The same skills others admired so much at the end of the training day!) What is too often missing is an important breakthrough period of time when the repetition of the mechanics become second nature. When the practice (repetitions) of better skills simply become what we do subconsciously.
But most presenters never get to the game they have a passion to play.
A few weeks back, we were working with a senior manager at Reebok. He had requested many coaching sessions with Distinction. Because he was so bad? To the contrary, because he was so exceptionally good. When Fred asked him why he kept signing up for coaching, his answer was refreshing…
He had been a tennis coach at one point in his life and knew first hand that it took a thousand conscious repetitions of a new movement before it became second nature. “That’s why I keep coming back – to get more reps.”
So, are you practicing good skills today? If you’ve had some personal coaching, are you applying the skills at every opportunity? If not, you are missing what every pro understands about the nature of personal change.
We’ve got to want it.
We’ve got to commit to it.
We’ve got to believe that the benefits of mastery are well with the effort.
“86.1 of business professional believe a solid set of solid presentation skills directly affect their career and income.“ December 2009, Distinction Presentation Impact Survey.
Do they really?
