One of the most common misconceptions I see when it comes to public speaking is that it is a discipline best performed by extroverts. In the more than a quarter century I have owned Missing Link I found this just not to be the case at all.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say that introverts make better presenters.
Why? Because they are a whole lot more teachable than extroverts.
I myself have been a professional speaker for 20 years. I have spoken to audiences all over the world, to audiences as small as can fit in a boardroom, to 5000 people in a convention center (the small rooms are way harder – fact) – and I am the most introverted person that I know.
To be clear, extroverts are people whose energy tanks get deleted when they are on their own and filled when they are with people, introverts are people whose energy gets depleted when they are around people and filled when they are alone.
Despite this, I love speaking on a stage, as mentioned the bigger the better! It’s so fun, nobody speaks back 🙂
And I’m not alone, speakers, presenters and performers from Bill Gates, to Barak Obama, Emma Thompson to Christina Aguilera, Nelson Mandela to Tim Urban (one of my all-time fave TED talks) are all introverts like me, that are very comfortable on stage.
The reason is that they understand (the presenters anyway) the value of structure over skill. A speaker with no natural speaking talent that has structure will almost always be more effective than an unskilled speaker without one. The reason is that a structured talk may not always be entertaining, but it will be actionable.
That’s what I cover in this video:
A small amount of skill with a healthy dose of structure is all you need to deliver a great presentation, if you want us to help you with that, then certainly reach out to the team here. And if you want to just DIY it, no problem, we got you covered there too, here is everything you need to know to structure your next killer presentation.
Don’t listen to this story that you have sold; being an introvert is a feature, not a bug. Don’t take my word for it though, watch Susan Cain’s fantastic TED talk:
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