Ballast. The weight that rights your boat when it gets knocked over.

Ballast is great. It prevents capsizing. Snaps the boat back upright after something knocks it down. Did you ever have a Weeble toy? Ballast.

Want the physics? Ballast is weight as deep and low in the hull of the ship as possible and exerts a “righting arm” of leverage to keep the ship upright. In a knock-down, ballast pulls the top of the boat right back up above water. Excellent.

But too much ballast can be a disaster. When the boat gets knocked over, water floods in and adds to the ballast weight. The now over-ballasted boat rides lower in the water and slower. It also becomes much easier to tip. So ballast needs to be rearranged and reduced after a knock-down, usually by pumping out any water that flooded aboard.

So, my personal ballast gets me thru stuff. But then it has to be discharged so it won’t slow me down. And that’s what my new years re-gearing has been, pumping off the excess to build up speed and get underway. So I can start sailing — really sailing — again.

Ironically, I formulated this entire post *before* we learned that my husband was laid off today. I even have some drawing board sketches, trying to make it a cartoon post early this morning. (These will never see the light of day as, alas, I am not Hugh.) But as to this new development, well… Fortunately the pumps have been hard at work and we’re in fine trim. The ballast is doing its job. On we sail.

I’m a big fan of layoffs, as they always seem to lead to something better.

“Failure” is important in all human endeavors. How do you right yourself, pump and sail on? What do you rely upon? What can you call on for ballast when you’re presenting? Making any kind of communications?

UPDATE (1/23): Anand accepted a new job at www.wegohealth.com yesterday. We were very, very lucky this time. More than that, we were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from my professional network here, on Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. My first social media birthday was astonishing on Monday, the number of folks who reached out, but our first social media layoff was even more moving. Thank you all. For all of it.

I presented to BNCA, a women’s architecture college in Pune, India in November. The client wanted their female students to feel more comfortable voicing their opinions and ideas, presenting their work and even interacting with their instructors.

A big challenge was to connect “skill at presenting” to all areas of their lives, since realistically, not all students are terribly motivated about achieving top honors in school or even becoming successful architects.

The “secondary” goal (mixed audience) was to challenge instructors to make their material more engaging and appealing to students. I gave them all tools, motivation and enthusiasm to apply to developing their voices, taking risks and communicating well to achieve whatever goals matter most to them.

We did exercises to engage everyone with the material. Students “worked on” (yes I made them get out pen and paper and run scenarios) presentations ranging from totally personal (man thinking about his 1 year old) to career (woman who focused on her thesis project).

To get your audience to connect with your material, you REALLY have to suss out (and SHOW them) why they should care.

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*”Vivas” refers to important oral examinations.

My good friend and social media guru Bryan Person was kind enough to host me on BlogTalkRadio yesterday, fielding questions and talking about how to do a great job presenting this weekend at PodCamp Boston 2.

From his blog:

Here’s the audio from my 58-minute conversation with Laura Fitton earlier today on BlogTalkRadio.

Laura was my guest on a show about “delivering killer presentations at PodCamp” and offered excellent advice for both first-time presenters and accomplished speakers alike. She also took several call-in questions from a listening audience that ranged between 15 and 18 for a solid hour.

Enjoy — and see you at PodCamp Boston 2 this weekend.

The show is archived at BlogTalkRadio, so please, take a listen and let me know what questions you have about your presentations!

UPDATE: I am deeply indebted to mdy for her careful notes on the show, and the excellent “key points” summary that she posted at her blog. Wow, if you want a gig writing up show notes for my speeches, you’re SO hired! She writes up detailed notes on:

• (1-to-1) Interactions can be presentations
• Be effective and useful for your audience
• Don’t lose sight of the purpose
• Stop worrying about what you’re going to say. Factor that in last. First think: who am I talking to?; What result do you want to achieve?
• Get to your room early and chat with people as they come in
• Prepare for a wide range of audience expectations
• Communications is 2-way
• Make things interactive
• De-personalize the experience of presenting
• Get the Q&A flow going
• Don’t end with Q&A
• Do not confuse the call to action with a call to buy
• Think of setting up a website around your whole presentation, so people have a place to go to continue the conversation
• One-on-one: Don’t ambush people with your 30-second pitch
• Start with the A-ha! The so what? The why do I care?
• Think about what you can control in the room
• Watching videos of your presentations
• Body Language: Walk. Smile. Care.
• Dealing with The glassy-eyed room

I’ve added in links to some articles on this blog that flesh out the principles in more detail.

This post is a good musing on confidence, but what really caught my eye was comment #6 by Marina of Sufficient Thrust. She relates:

The CEO of GoDaddy, Bob Parsons, explained it best when he shared a story of how he was hesitant to take a leap and his father simply asked him: “Can they eat you?”

If they can’t eat you, do it.

True confidence isn’t empty. It’s not “brass ones” or ego or faking it. Confidence lies in getting down to business. It’s in focusing on your purpose for being there. Confidence comes in forgetting yourself, in forgetting all the fears and judgments you worry* others are making about you, and in connecting strongly with your purpose.

Connect your purpose to the audience through the message, and allow your anxiety to fall by the wayside. This involves listening, parsing, knowing your audience and desired results, until your message has real purpose. When your presentation is truly all about what you need to achieve for that audience, the spotlight’s not on you anymore and the confidence flows.

Take the focus off the project of presenting and the stress of being the presenter, and put it into what needs to be said. Connect soundly with what needs to happen. What needs to be heard? What needs to be done? Believe that you are the one to say it. Own that, and let go of your fears about your personal success and failure.

What you’re trying to achieve is way more important than “how you do” at presenting. Be confident about your purpose for being there, and let the rest follow.

*They probably aren’t making the judgments you *think* they are, and frankly, your fears themselves create most of the insecurity and perception that you’re being judged.

Need better body language fast? Walk, smile and care.

Mastering presentation body language gets confusing fast. It takes time learn effective body language and eliminate “wrong” messages. Overused body language “tricks” ring false and irritate your audience. So here are three simple ways to dramatically improve your body language – fast.

Walk…
Take a hike! Practice relaxing your walk. Head up, shoulders back and relaxed, breathing deeply and walking with confidence and purpose. Try to lead with your sternum or collarbones. Practice by simply going for walks. Occasionally “scan” your body for relaxation, paying attention to how you feel and where you hold tension.

Smile…
Even if you’re not feeling it, put a genuine smile on your face. You will relax and engage your audience better. With a real smile – not a forced one – a lot of other better body language will follow.

Care…
You’re talking to someone, a lot like you would if you were simply sitting together. They matter to you. A lot. Show them you care about the experience they are having. Look at them, talk to them. Using the right gestures and posture can be effective, but avoid “tricks.” If you wouldn’t do it in conversation, you probably shouldn’t while presenting.

Walk. Smile. Care. Got it? Great. Have a nice day.

UPDATE: What are your favorite tips for better body language? Tell us in the comments!

Confidence is an overwhelmingly important part of presenting well. Where to even begin? You guessed it, with a recurring feature. Below are just a few posts in the pipeline, but you tell me you’d like to see addressed. Or, ask your questions about confidence. Then watch this space for answers..

• Confidence for the unconfident presenter: owning your topic
• Rent-A-Confidence: finding the confidence to get through your presentation, even if you’re shy
• Confidence for the overconfident presenter: confidence is not ego; obnoxiously brazen usually = insecurity
• Confidently handling questions: why do they want to know? what do you want to achieve?
• Confidently controlling the experience: handling the situation, managing the room
• What you want to know?

A riff about what you THINK while you are presenting…

That voice inside your head, can I speak with it for a moment?

Look, you need to lay off. Your person has been trying pretty hard lately, and I just don’t think you’re adding to the effort.

Honestly, if your person were my client, I’d tell them to fire you. Even you know that. If you heard someone in the audience heckling your person the way you do — nonstop — and creating all kinds of insecurities and problems, you’d put the smackdown on THEM too. Why do you expect special treatment?

Try a little kindness. No, seriously. It’s pretty much the only thing that really works, per Dale Carnegie via Scott Adams. Get your supportive, considerate talk on. If you’re not even rooting for yourself, how can you hope anyone else will be? (Psst, don’t tell but they will be anyways. the audience WANTS you to succeed!)

Link roundup: podcast on confident speaking; blogs entry on fear and likeability…

Blogging and Beyond: Public Speaking with Confidence Patsi and Denise interview Guest Expert: Dr. Larina Kase, co-author of The Confident Speaker. LOVE Larina’s points about being good at your own individual style of speaking, and agree strongly with the myths she busts. But? I was a little disappointed? by how much she used the Little Girl Voice?

Step Forward Scott Schwertly on fear. Key points: A fear of public speaking is healthy, Fear is your friend, Public speaking is abnormal

Create Your Communications Experience: The Likeability Factor money quote is a paraphrase of Dale Carnegie: “‘You will win more friends in the next two months developing a sincere interest in two people than you will ever win in the next two years trying to get two people interested in you.’”

I’m going back to school and I couldn’t be more psyched.

Here in Boston, the Improv Asylum offers 6 levels of training in Improv. Why not join me and sign up for the next round of classes starting in July? Yeah it’ll be fun, but I’m also “in it” to keep getting better at what I do. Want to increase confidence, think on your feet, read your audience and fellow “presenters” better and of course, practice, practice, practice?

I heartily recommend acting classes, Toastmasters, improv, karaoke (especially if you can’t sing) and any public speaking op you can get, no matter how good you already are. Read all the good ideas you want, to get substantially better you need practice, training and coaching. Penelope Trunk blogs today about the excellent speaker training she just took at TAI Resources. John Wesley of Pick the Brain talks about “brain plasticity” research that monks can literally re-wire their brains through ongoing meditation practice. There is measurably different brain performance between the novice who has “learned” mindfulness but hasn’t done a lot of it and monk who has practiced for years.

Sharpen that axe, baby.