Powerpoint Presentation Inspirational Quotes

Studies have actually shown that people who simply listen to a presentation retain more content than if they hear and read the content simultaneously.

Ensure that the first thing that your audience sees or hears is related to them and leaves a question in their mind.

It is natural for human beings to dislike having an open question in their mind.

David Christian, who, in March 2011, narrated the complete history of the universe for a TED audience and took all of 18 minutes to do it (17 minutes and 40 seconds, to be exact). Christian told me that he teaches a world-history course that examines the entire history of the universe—from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago to today. The Big History course is offered by The Teaching Company in a series of 48 half-hour lectures. Christian’s deep understanding of the subject helped him condense the content into just the right amount of time to grab the audience’s attention and inspire them to take better care of our fragile planet. “I’ve been teaching Big History now for over 20 years, so I have a pretty good feel for the story and that means I can tell it in many different versions,”6 Christian told me. E. F. Schumacher, economist and author of Small Is Beautiful, once said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” Courage is the key word. It takes courage to keep things simple. It takes courage to put one picture on a PowerPoint slide instead of filling it with tiny text that most people in the audience won’t even be able to read. It takes courage to reduce the number of the slides in a presentation. It takes courage to speak for 18 minutes instead of rambling on for much longer. Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Be sophisticated. Keep your presentations and pitches short and simple.

We’re all “storytellers.” We don’t call ourselves storytellers, but it’s what we do every day. Although we’ve been sharing stories for thousands of years, the skills we needed to succeed in the industrial age were very different from those required today. The ability to sell our ideas in the form of story is more important than ever. Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century. In the information age, the knowledge economy, you are only as valuable as your ideas. Story is the means by which we transfer those ideas to one another. Your ability to package your ideas with emotion, context, and relevancy is the one skill that will make you more valuable in the next decade. Storytelling is the act of framing an idea as a narrative to inform, illuminate, and inspire. The Storyteller’s Secret is about the stories you tell to advance your career, build a company, pitch an idea, and to take your dreams from imagination to reality. When you pitch your product or service to a new customer, you’re telling a story. When you deliver instructions to a team or educate a class, you’re telling a story. When you build a PowerPoint presentation for your next sales meeting, you’re telling a story. When you sit down for a job interview and the recruiter asks about your previous experience, you’re telling a story. When you craft an e-mail, write a blog or Facebook post, or record a video for your company’s YouTube channel, you’re telling a story. But there’s a difference between a story, a good story, and a transformative story that builds trust, boosts sales, and inspires people to dream bigger.