Recently I was listening to the Smartless podcast (one of my favorite pandemic finds) and the guest, Tracy Ellis Ross, referenced the movie Mary Poppins and the song “Spoonful of Sugar”. She used the lyrics as a metaphor to explain how the show Blackish addresses social and racial issues of our time. As in, they make the topic fun as a means to give the audience the ability to tackle difficult thoughts and conversations.
Genius!
You remember the lyrics to "Spoonful of Sugar", right?
In every job that must be done
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap!
The job’s a game
And every task you undertake
Becomes a piece of cake
A lark! A spree! It’s very clear to see that
A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way
And when I heard Tracy say this, right there, mid-stride, I thought, “Of course! Why don’t we do this all of the time?!” Adding a little bit of humor and fun helps *just about everything I can think of.
Sidebar
*I say just because…
When our kids were little we used to have “cleaning parties” (a la Mary Poppins) where we would turn on the music and all work for 10 or 15 minutes on a task and then celebrate with a snack or a swig of soda. It was all fun and games until they got older and caught on to my strategy… and yet, it still helped the drudgery of vacuuming the van or fully cleaning the basement.
Which leads me to the art of giving a presentation...
Public speaking is often a big hurdle for many people. The stress of having a group of people watching you gives most of us sweaty armpits (or is that just me?).
What do I say?
What will people think of me?
What if I forget what to say?
What if I screw up and embarrass myself?
What do I wear?
The best presenters make it look sooo easy and make us green with envy wondering how they do it!
Weeelll, upping your presentation game doesn’t require any sort of MacGyver-like moves (although according to my dad and MacGyver, it’s always wise to carry a Swiss Army knife), it just requires a bit of know-how.
It's wise to:
- Think about the audience, not yourself.
- Share content that is helpful and useful and do it in an engaging way. I mean I’ve never come home and told my family about a cool bullet point slide I saw, but I have shared a quirky bio or interesting vignette a speaker has told.
- Make your audience think and put yourself in their shoes.
- Be prepared. Sadly, winging it doesn’t work.
- Have open and respectful body language.
- Do your homework and hit the right tone during your presentation.
- Above all else, make things FUN!
It’s time to get your communication skills “Spit, Spot”!
Crank some tunes and start spiffing up your presentation skills.
And if you have an upcoming difficult conversation, presentation, important meeting, pitch, wedding toast, etc., try adding a spoonful of sugar to help the content go down.
Your co-pilot, (who can’t get this song out of her head),
