94: How to Give More Confident Data Presentations (even if you're an introvert) — Featuring Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

Hey, you're listening to episode 94 of DataViz today. I'm Ali Torbin, an Information Designer and author of ChartSpark. This show is here to help you become a more effective and creative information designer. Thanks for joining me. So, recently, I came to realize that there's a skill in our DataViz work that we don't pay enough attention to. It's not learning in a code or a color theory. It's the ability to speak in front of other people without feeling absolute terror. I definitely started out feeling terrified speaking in front of other people. I remember in high school, I had to give a presentation in front of my English class. And I thought that if I spoke quietly enough, then maybe people wouldn't notice that I was nervous. Turns out nobody could even hear me speaking and someone in the back row kept yelling out, "We can't hear you." And so I started talking faster to try to end the torture while still whispering through my presentation. So, needless to say, I am not a natural speaker, but through a lot of practice, I have lost a bit of the terror when I speak in front of other people. And I've come to realize that it's elevated my career in so many ways. When people hear you and see you, they know what you're working on and want to collaborate with you. When you're on a data team, your manager can rely on your superpower of speaking in front of people so they don't have to worry about it. Also, this is one of those skills that you can use anywhere you go, no matter the industry or your role. You can be a critical member of the team if you have the skill of not being terrified to speak in front of people. And notice, I didn't say that you need to be the orator of the century. All you need to do is take some steps to get over your terror and you'll be way, way, way ahead of most people. And then from there, your speaking skills will grow with practice. Now, I believe that this skill is so important that I called in the best of the best to back me up on this. We have Cole, Newspammer, and Naflick on the show today. Cole is a powerhouse data storyteller and presenter, the CEO and founder of Storytelling with Data, bestselling author of three books, Storytelling with Data, Storytelling with Data Let's Practice, and her latest storytelling with you, which shares Cole's step-by-step process of planning, creating, and delivering presentations. So in today's show, Cole shares how to identify those little nervous things you do when you present, and then specific exercises to overcome them, so you can become a more confident presenter. All right, now let's jump into my conversation with Cole, and first up, I asked her if she's always been a great presenter. No, no, and I think actually if I rewind and were younger Cole looking at me now, I would be in utter disbelief because I was never a stand in front of people, be comfortable sort of person. I'm an introvert. My comfortable space is behind my computer in a room by myself, reading a book, digging some tea. Exactly. Yeah, that's my happy place, right? But interestingly, over time, the stage has also become a comfortable place as well, and it's been through a lot of work and trial and error, because I think I realized early on that if I stayed in my comfortable space, I was never going to be able to have the impact that I wanted to. Right. Have you heard that analogy where someone said like a lobster outgrows its shell, and it gets uncomfortable, you know, because the shell's too small, and it gets uncomfortable, and then it sheds its shell and has to grow a new one, but the fact being like, if you feel uncomfortable, it probably means you're growing. I love it. Yeah, I think of it as productive discomfort. If you have a goal at the end of it that you can articulate, but you feel that there's this zone of discomfort in the meantime, that's when the discomfort becomes productive, because it's for a specific purpose. And so I think it's one way of just reframing when we feel nerves, or when we feel uncomfortable to actually look at that as a really interesting sort of chasm to cross to get to the other side. Where am I going with this? So in order to have productive discomfort, you probably have to be able to see where you're going with this discomfort. Like if you don't see anything at the end there, like on why I'm even trying to get there, then it's hard to think, okay, I got it. You may not know the where, but you know the why, right? Why do I need to do this? And for me stepping out from behind the computer, it was because I've learned these things about how to make a graph that seem to work. And I'd like to be able to teach other people that and have the enthusiasm and excitement around being able to get people to see something in a different way and maybe do smarter things as a result of that. I want to share this. And so for me, the passion around it, I think was really what got me around the first handful of like, you know, when I think back, really bad presentations, where people were willing to sit with me through it and be patient through it because of the passion that ends up being contagious. And that's one thing that's become apparent to me over time. I think both in presenting myself, but watching other people present, helping my team present is that if you can't find the reason that what you're talking about is interesting and be genuinely interested in it yourself, there's no way you're going to get other people interested in it. But conversely, if you turn that around, right, if you can find the interesting thing, the nugget, you know, the the thing that you found that nobody else knows and now you get to be the one to share at that, you can turn that into a really interesting energy to use when you're then talking to others about your work. Yeah. And it does, if you can lean into the passion, it kind of helps with the nerves a little bit. Yes. Yes. Because then you get, you know your stuff, right? If you can get into a space where you feel comfortable, because that's something that I think we maybe don't fully recognize. But when we feel comfortable when we're speaking, you know, whether it's to one person or to a room full of people, that helps the people who are listening to you feel comfortable. And when you feel discomfort and when that discomfort is palpable, right, shaking voice, shaking hands, body language where you're just looking uncomfortable, that makes the people with whom you're trying to engage feel uncomfortable as well. I think a big part of feeling ready, feeling good, feeling comfortable when you are presenting or when you're getting ready to present is just identifying the things that either scare you or that are going to make you uncomfortable during the actual presentation, so that you can try to take those away. We can talk about really tactical ways to do that if you want to drill into it. Yeah. And thinking more about the why too, feeling like a passion for the subject is one thing. But I have also found that being able to get past my fear of speaking in front of other people, like, I still feel it, but like, on the journey to getting past the fear, it has made me really valuable on my team. Because I remember a few years ago when I first started thinking, okay, I am going to try to be a better public speaker. I was in a team setting and our team had to present to other teams on what we were doing. And my boss, he was just like terrified of getting up in front of people. And so I was like, I could do it. And I did it. It was okay. But in his eyes, I was like the star team member because I took away such a huge pain point for him personally. So I was thinking like, if this team member, anybody on this team gets laid off, like, I'm going to be the last person getting laid off because I provide such a pain relief for him in terms of being able to speak in front of other people. Yes. And I think that's going to be the case for anyone who finds himself typically in a more analytical, more quantitative type role. Because it's not so often that you see those skills together where somebody, both is comfortable with the numbers and the statistics and the technical aspects and also able to talk about that in a way that makes sense to other people who may not have any of that background. And so for anyone who's listening and wondering, is this a skill set that makes sense to spend time developing? Yes, absolutely. Because to your point, it's going to put you ahead of most of your peers, if not all of them, when you can spend time focusing on yourself and how you speak and how you interact with others. And it's really cool because it helps you not only in the professional parts of your life, but else you just engage on a personal level with people in general. So whether someone works with data or not, we all need to talk to each other. And we got pretty, we out of practice in the past few years. And so spending time developing those skills so that they don't become inhibiting right where you're not the manager who's so afraid of talking in front of others that you can't do it. And the thing is you don't have to be the most amazing person in the world that's speaking you just have to be like the least terrified person on your team. That's yes if we're going like stepping stones. Yeah that would be a good place to start. You don't just have high bar just be the least terrified on your team. Yeah well and I think often people look at someone who you know oh I wish I wish I could present like that person that you know that professional that expert they are they're so natural look at just how fantastic they are. And I'd like to argue that nobody starts out that way. Some people might start out more comfortable there but nobody starts out as a good presenter. Anyone you see who does it well has honed that over time and I hate the excuse of well you know I'm just not a good presenter. You know that's that's so-and-so would be better at that than me. It's like no that's just an excuse not to work on those skills because anyone can be. I'm proof in that right I used to be the shaking leaf full of filler words and just I would have never put myself in a position where I would be talking in front of a group because of those nerves but getting over that and seeing how much impact you can have. And I think using the real-time data that you're able to collect when you present and for those of us who are analytically minded it's fascinating. You get it immediately and at scale when you watch people's facial expressions and body language and what they're doing where you can see pretty quickly when you do something that either causes people to tune out or to stay with you. And so I think for me when I look back at it and I definitely wouldn't have recognized this at the time but looking back I learned how to present in a very similar way in which I learned how to make graphs and show data which is just trial and error and learning over time what works and what doesn't and doing more of the things that work less of the things that don't work because for me you act men in front of people hundreds probably thousands of times and whether it's one person or a group of people you get that instantaneous feedback and sometimes in a setting where you can even drill into it and ask questions about why something worked or didn't or you know you can try things like walking around the room and understanding how where you stand or what you do with your hands and your body can invite people in or make a barrier between you and them. And so honing that over time is something that anyone who wants to and is aware and yeah putting themselves in that productive discomfort sort of category anyone can do. Yeah yeah it's very accessible to anyone who wants to try and make those small steps but I I remember it feeling really hard to even take that first step because of those things you were just talking about how like you know the shaking or for me like I just get talking faster and faster and faster and faster and I can't breathe. So just knowing like those physically thick physical things that happen to you and you feel like you can't control them. Can you describe a little bit about maybe the things that happen to you and then how you try to start getting over that? Yeah and I think this is a valuable exercise for anyone to do which is really think about what pieces of presenting or talking in front of other people what parts of it make you nervous because if you can really get specific on that you can do very tactical things to help make yourself more comfortable. So let's go through a variety of those. If I am afraid I'm going to forget something important that I want to make sure I say you know maybe it's you know the somebody's specific name that I want to refer to or it could be anything right something specific that I don't want to forget and I'm afraid I'm going to forget. Well rather than just let that fear get to me I can write it on a post-it note and stick it in my pocket where I know I can pull it out if I need to refer to something or if I'm presenting slides I might put the words or you know something that's going to prompt me to remember on this slide itself or in the speaker note. So I can basically just take away that fear altogether by building my content or having something with me that's going to help. Stick in other examples or here's one of maybe too much information but that I'll share because I think it's something other people struggle with too which is if I'm nervous I overheat and then I sweat and so I don't want to look sweaty. Well then I should be careful about what I wear. It's over time I learned well if I do like a sleeveless top under a blazer that'll be a good scenario because either I have the blazer on you can't see my sweatiness right or I can take it off and be cooler so planning a tire which this sounds like a really funny thing but that's something I always recommend and particularly if you have any nerves is do a test run of everything you plan to wear from accessories right away in glasses or earrings what shoes you're going to hear up or down yes is your hair up or down which sounds funny but if you are if you have a microphone it's on your lapel and you don't realize until you're walking on stage that if you move your head to the right your hair brushes across it and it's this awful noise like that's really hard to overcome in the moment if you're already feeling nervous and so the more you can find out those things ahead of time and just change them if you need to so that they don't become one more thing adding to your nerves yeah and it does sound I think it could sound a little bit woo woo to people where you say like oh just think about your fears but it is so important to think about where that stuff is coming from I have found that in my own journey to where just thinking about why am I actually nervous about being in front of people and a lot of it came for me was just like feeling like I am not good enough I'm not saying something that's worthy of speaking in front of other people and that was a huge fear for me so like having all these eyes on me it's like who am I to be up here and once I dress that and it's still a work in progress but just thinking like I I do have a story to tell and you might not agree with everything I have to say but I can at least tell you my perspective and it can help you or not take it or leave it even just that little bit of mental shift has taken my nerves down a little bit yeah well that imposter syndrome I think is something that's coming anyone doing any sort of creative work has that at some point in some way and yeah recognizing that no but if you're the one who's been asked to speak or you have a reason to yeah that you have a reason and people want to be there or if they don't you're going to prove to them why they should and often you are doing better than you think you are too because I did one presentation once and I said I felt like I was I was really struggling through that and someone was like oh I thought you did great like people obviously don't know all the time yes we often are our own worst critics because we in our heads build this ideal version of what what we should look like or how we should sound or how we should look and so when we perceive a gap between that ideal that we built in our heads and what actually happens we feel the gap whereas nobody else has that vision in their head they only see what you present and yeah you're right that it's it's typically better than we think if there are areas that weren't ideal then that's how you learn and fix it for next time and speaking of closing that gap you have a really great exercise in your book that helped me a lot about videotape in yourself and being really strategic when you watch it back which I thought was really cool can you expand a little bit more on that absolutely and actually this came from when I worked at Google I had an opportunity to attend a train the trainer type of program it was as I was going to be starting to teach courses on data visualization and one of the really impactful things that we did as part of that was recorded ourselves and watched it back and I was able to pick up a couple of really awful irritating things that I did and just immediately put a stop to them and so the way that I put together the exercise in the book straight along with you is it's part of refining which I believe is chapter nine but basically get some content that you know well could be a slide or two or graph you want to talk through or it doesn't even have to be work related just talk about something a topic that you know reasonably well and record yourself for maybe about five minutes of content you want to record both audio and video and if you're doing this with a particular presentation in mind try as much as you can to emulate how you'll be doing for example if you'll be standing stand when you record yourself if it's virtual and you're sitting at your desk think about how you might record in that setting so that you can see how you'll fare in an environment that's similar to how you'll be presenting so I want to record about five minutes and then I'm going to have you watch it back three times the first time is really just to get over yourself to put it bluntly we all sound and look different then we think we do. And it is always a painful process to watch and listen to oneself. And so that first viewing is really just to get over that initial reaction of, I don't really look like that. The self-loathing version. Exactly. Get over that. And then the next two are the pre-talked two plums. Oh, I guess that's productive too. So for one of these and it doesn't matter which order you do it, you're going to want to turn off your video or not look at your video and just listen. This allows you to really understand the words that you're using. If filler words are an issue, they will jump out at you at this point, but just understanding how you sound. And you will pick up on the things that don't work likely. But the sorts of things in particular you can listen for is how's your speed? Are you too fast? Are you too slow? Is there some variety? How is your volume? Can you hear yourself? Do you go in and out? Are you moving in any strange ways that's making the volume come across in a not ideal way? Which would be probably even more useful if you're speaking into a microphone in a virtual setting. But in any case, what are you doing with your voice? Are you pausing? Allowing time for important thoughts to sink in or to allow yourself time to breathe so that you have enough voice to get through what you want to say? You'll hear these things, but those are some specifics to listen for. And then on another review, you'll mute the volume and just watch yourself. And again, you'll note the things that you do that work well or probably you'll pay more attention to the things that don't work so well. But this is where you'll see, I'm making any funny faces or how's your body language? Do you look comfortable? Are you doing anything off-putting? So this is one of the things. When I first did this at Google, I watched myself back and I was wearing heels, as I often do when I present and I was rocking on them. I had no awareness that I was doing this, but it made me do this sway throughout the entire five minutes that I think if someone had said to me, you know what, you're swaying on your feet, it's a little distracting, it would have been easy to wave off as feedback. But seeing myself do it, wow, that was really annoying and unnecessary and I was able to put a stop to it immediately. So recording yourself is a way of just getting this lens into how you look and sound from another perspective that can be fantastically useful when you're trying to hone those things. And I would say out of that, you know, if you come up with a laundry list of things you want to change, just focus on one or two at a time and make small improvements and over time, those small changes will add up to big progress. When I read that in the book, it was pretty close to a big presentation that I had to give. So I decided to try it. I was like, okay, let's see, let's see what I'd see. I found that the third one where you watch without any audio was the biggest thing because I realized that I wait, I gesticulate a lot. So I waved my hands around a lot. And if you don't have the audio that goes with it, you can just see like how crazy you look. I was like, okay, I've got to take the gesticulations on just a little bit because it feels like I'm like flailing a bit. And another thing was that when I'm trying to like talk about something that I find very serious, my passion kind of came out as like your own brow. As soon as you started talking about it, you did. Yes. And it's a really hard for me to stop. But I just knowing that I do that, it helps me correct it a little bit more because I look angry. And I couldn't really see that when I was listening to it. But when I'm looking at it, and I don't know what I'm saying, I can see, why do I look so mad? And nobody wants to watch someone talking who looks mad. Right. Well, it's funny. So Alex on the team always refers her onboarding as like the hazing period. And it didn't even strike me at the time, but I was in, so Alex and Mike were hired at the same time. This was a few years back. And we had an offsite. Everybody was together. And then they were training to be able to deliver workshops. And so all of it was done remotely where they every week would send me a video of the lesson that they learned. And the video was of them teaching. And you know, she just talks about it like, wow, you know, that was a lot getting used to seeing myself present and like coming up with something I was happy with to send you every week for the first of like eight or 10 weeks. But it also built such a cool habit and comfort with recording oneself and using that to improve. And that's something that we do across the team in ways that I think we didn't design. Maybe that way or didn't think about this benefit of it when we were doing it, right? We did it that way for other reasons, but that has been hugely helpful. One really cool thing is if you let some time pass because you know, oftentimes when progress is slow, we don't necessarily see it in ourselves. But when you can go back to one of those early recordings, all right, I do this on YouTube sometimes. I'll see a clip of myself from years ago and like, oh, I'm glad that I'm glad that I'm more comfortable. Look at all my growth camera now that I used to be right. Look at all the growth that that can be useful. That's why I'm a fan also of when you are presenting, I think going into it, knowing what you want to improve that time, but then reflecting afterwards as well. And if you do that as almost a diary entry, then you have that to be able to go back to over time as well where you can say, wow, hey, look, you know, two years ago I was focused on not saying the word like every other word. And now, you know, I'm still focused on a filler word, but it's a very different. You see the progress over time, which can be fun and just help you recognize the progress that you are making over time. Have you noticed how nervousness shows up in your presentation or like, you know, just in your body? Has that changed over time for you? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. There are scenarios where I would feel, I would feel nervous, I would be shaking, I, you know, it would be questioning me, you know, it's a group of surgeons, I remember one time, a group of surgeons, like, what am I going to teach them? Why am I here? Those sorts of things that today, if it were the same group, like, well, no, I might still have some nervous energy before I walk out or in those first few moments, but now I'm able to harness that and use it as productive adrenaline as opposed to something that's going to inhibit me. And you can, you can feel this, anyone can feel this. And oftentimes people will feel it naturally before they're going to present or before they're doing something that makes the nervous, but body language, we have a way of internalizing it. And so actually anybody listening can do this exercise along with me, which is assume some not great body language, right? So like hunt your shoulders forward, kind of roll into yourself. You could even like make your hands shake on purpose and just notice, I mean, you can hear it probably right now, my voice sounds and versus if we put our shoulders back, smile, breathe deeply. I sound different. I feel different and those things are going to help me come across more confident, more positive. And so you can assume this body language of confidence, even if you're not feeling it. And over time, you'll internalize that. Yeah, that's a great point. I have noticed that if I move my hands slower, then it leads me to speak slower. So that's kind of something I've tried to do over time is since my nervousness comes out and speaking fast and my hands go with that. If I slow the hands first and then everything will follow. So I like the idea of like doing the body stuff first. And then hopefully like the emotional things kind of follow. Yeah, and they do. And it's a great feeling when you're able to contrast how it felt before and then how it feels. And there definitely is a helpful fake it till you make it aspect here where if you do these things, or you assume good body stance. And especially in ways that allow your lungs to be able to inflate fully so that you have full voice, right? For me, shaky voice was a big thanks. The problem would be I'd be nervous. And so I wouldn't be breathing deeply. I'd be talking fast. So I also wouldn't be taking full breaths in between anything. And then over time, my voice would start to flutter because I didn't have enough air crossing my airway and into my lungs to be able to project. And then I'd hear myself get nervous. And then that cycle just like everybody's hearing it. Everyone's hating this. Yes, this is my voice on loudspeaker, right? Cause I'm talking into the microphone. And I can hear it shaking. And yeah, bad, right? But if you can exude the confidence, breathe deeply, pause, pauses are fantastic, both from a just generally punctuating the way in which you speak. But also it gives you time to breathe, which is really important. and pauses are super powerful. And I think often overlooked, because when you're talking in front of a group, they can feel very uncomfortable. So if you can find ways to do that, so you're about slowing down your hands, helps you slow down. Actually, just stop talking for a while, can be another way to do it. And again, it feels super awkward at first, and you can decide when might it make sense to pause? When do I need to work them in? I can remember notes that I would have to myself in presentations where I would actually write the word pause in big, bold letters, just as a reminder to myself. And so I'd plan ahead of time when I was going to pause and let my breathing catch up so that I wouldn't get into this cycle of, you know, I'm talking, talking, talking, breathing enough and getting out of control. And so where you can either work in times when other people are talking, right? So maybe you pose a question and take some time where other people are weighing in or you turn something back to the group or you have a co-presenter so that you can bounce things back and forth, but also just actually pausing. And at first, you can count. If you are working in a pause and it's for effect, or if I'm going to pose a question, and I want to allow time for people to absorb that question, decide whether they're going to respond, gather their thoughts, and then respond that takes time. It takes even more time if you're virtual, right? Because people have to physically tie or unmute themselves or do these things. - So I'm multitasking. - Exactly, that gave me a great place to say, all right, I'm going to pose this question. I might say it a couple ways so that it gets across and then we'll pause until somebody says something, or I'm going to pause and count to 10. And then if it's more the like stand on stage, give a presentation, decide when you're going to do that to make a point and punctuate that important point with pauses. And those are the sorts of things that you, I'm never a fan of memorizing, because if you forget something that you meant to memorize, that can really throw you off in the moment, but I'm a big fan of committing certain things to memory. And that can be if there's an important point that you want to make, right? So you have those words down, you're able to hit them, you're able to say them with force as needed, pause around them, can also be useful to commit the first few things you're going to say to memory. And again, not necessarily the words you're going to use, but if I know in the first five minutes of my time in front of this group, I want to hit these five points, then I'll practice talking through them, allowed multiple times where I know I'm going to get to the five points, but I might talk about them a little differently, or me and or through them differently, or connect them differently every time I talk through them. But after doing that a couple of times, now I know that I can, I know what those five points are, and I know that I can gracefully get from one to the next in a variety of different ways, which means now when I have the nerves of standing in front of somebody and doing this, I'm already practiced, I know it, I have it committed to memory. This is particularly useful at the beginning of your time, 'cause that often is when people have a bit of nerves if they're going to, and those first few minutes are usually enough to get you past that, so that once you've got past the five points or whatever it is, now you're in your element, you're talking, your feeling in can be in the moment. Another excuse to pause can be to take a sip of something, have water or coffee or tea within reach, you can say something, and then you can pause and give yourself a little breathing room. I have noticed that when other people pause, it gives me a chance to catch up, and I appreciate it. And when someone isn't pausing, I just think, "Oh gosh, this is getting a kind of overwhelming," it's just an information. - Yes, one thing right here. - To the next, and to the next, and to the next. I think, right, if you're ever writing down a note, you wanna remember something that someone just said or a point that they made, and if they're still talking, they're, you're now missing what they're saying versus if they paused, you're absolutely right. Gives everybody else a moment to let things sink in, because you as the speaker likely know where you're going to go next, and you kind of just wanna get there. But other people are hearing these words, probably for the first time, or hearing you say them for the first time, and so letting there be space so that people can come along with you, or ask questions or participate along the way, can be really useful. - Yeah, that's a good reframe. It's not, the pauses aren't awkward, it's a service to your audience. - Yes. - Okay, last question, which is very important to be personally, so my personality tends to be, well, it is (laughs) just more giggly and bubbly, even though I am an introvert, but just, you know, that's just my personality. And I am always at this tug of war internally should I tamper that down when I'm speaking in front of people, or how much should I tamper it down, so I come across a certain way. You know, so what is your take on how much you should let your personality come through, and even if it's maybe undermining you in some kind of way. - Ooh, okay, I love, I love, love, love this one. So I think one, I'll start off by saying, we always want to be authentic when we're communicating, because if you try to put on somebody else's style, or somebody else's voice, it's not going to work. It's going to not feel comfortable for you, and others will pick up on that. So while I think it's useful to watch others and say, okay, here's some things I might want to emulate, you want to do that in a way that's still genuine and feels authentic to you. But that said, we all have these dials that we can dial up, or we can dial down. And I think the thing you want to think about when you're trying to decide, do I dial it up, do I dial it down, is what are you trying to get across to your audience? And actually, in the penultimate chapter I'm sorry, talking with you, chapter 11, it's about the art of the introduction, which I love as a case study for practicing presenting, because everybody knows this topic super well, right? The topic of yourself, you know yourself, you know your story. And one of the things that I have people do, as part of this, is get a specific scenario in mind, and think about what are the perceptions you want to create in the others who are listening and watching you. And being really specific about this, and you can start by brainstorming a wide swath of perceptions, usually these are adjectives, right? I want to be funny, or I want to be engaging, and then narrow it down to maybe two or three primary things that you really want to get across. And so maybe I do this exercise, and for a given setting, I want to come across as competent, knowledgeable, and articulate. And so those are the perceptions that I want to create. Then what dials do I dial up and dial down? So in that case, I might dial down the gagaliness, if that's a natural thing. On the other hand, though, if I do this exercise, and I want to come across as friendly and approachable and kind, then I might actually dial that up. And so it really depends on the situation, and what feelings you are trying to create on the part of those with whom you're communicating. So if you can do that, then you can say, all right, well, I can still do this, right? Or I can still laugh when I want to appear competent. I just may now have to dial something else up that's gonna help me balance that out. And so you can take this really strategic, optimizing approach to communication. And that's the part I love about this, and kind of hate about the history of people thinking about communication as a soft skill. Like, no, this is not, you can be so strategic and specific in how you do it, and what you play with, and what you would just, and in the same way, you can think about adjusting a statistical model for the best fit. We can do that when we present, it's just the inputs are different. - That's great. Thank you so much, Cole. Is there any last piece of advice that you'd like to give our fellow introverts when they're trying to give data presentations, maybe taking that first tiny step? - Yeah, I think anytime you find yourself bumping up against a deadline, and you are wanting to spend that time continuing to iterate on your content, right? You're continuing to play with the graph or the slide, or don't let the content be what it is, and take that remaining time to think about how you can prepare yourself. What are the things you can do as we've talked about to help identify anything that might be making nervous, and take steps to take that off the table, practice, and I mentioned this in passing earlier, and I'm a huge fan of practicing aloud, so being here yourself and vocalize, articulate transitions between things, you never want the first time you're going to say something to be in front of the people. - Yeah, it comes out different. - It's different. - Yes, and so practicing aloud and just spending time on yourself, not just your materials, because at the end of the day, your ability to talk about your work is going to be the thing that either engages or doesn't. And so the more time and thoughtful consideration, you can give to that, the more you can use that super power in really awesome ways. - And it is a very, very important super power. Thank you so much, Cole, for coming on the show today. - Thanks for having me, Ali, this has been fun. - Thank you, Cole, for sharing so many great presentation tips with us. Here are my final takeaways on how to be a more confident presenter. First of all, no more hiding behind the excuse that you're just not a good presenter. You just haven't spent the time practicing. You may need to spend more time practicing than someone else, but you can learn the skill. Second, if you stay in your comfortable space, you may not be able to have the impact that you want. You may need to seek out productive discomfort. That's discomfort for a specific purpose. Also, you may feel this huge discomfort while speaking and think everyone sees it, but it's highly likely that they're seeing just a small fraction of what you're feeling if anything at all. But we do have those little physical manifestations of nervousness to deal with. Some are more noticeable or dramatic than others. Cole recommends first identify those specific things that happen to your body. It's different for everyone. Cole said she used to be shaky. I talk way too fast and then can't take a breath. When you know this specific thing that you're trying to avoid, you can begin working on it. So if you're worried, you'll forget something, write it down somewhere, you can see it, or add a prompt to your slides. Maybe you sweat a lot, learn what clothes work best for that situation. Maybe eating before presentation has a negative effect on you. For me, I've learned to slow my hand movements down, tell me slow my speaking rate. It's a work in progress and that's okay. Just work on identifying it so that you can plan for it. Now try this exercise that Cole shared from her book, Storytelling With You. First, for this exercise, grab a slide or two of your presentation or maybe you can use how you introduce yourself and record yourself for about five minutes going through your slides and then watch it back three times. Once it's just to get over yourself, it's awful, it's okay. And then turn off the video and just listen to the recording. You'll hear your filler words, your speed, your volume, are you breathing, are you pausing? And then on the third watch, you're just gonna watch the video again with no audio. Like when I did this, I found out that I was frowning and I couldn't tell why. Maybe you are making huge hand movements or rocking on your heels. This is a really refreshing lens to see yourself through. And you'll likely catch yourself doing a lot of weird stuff which you can start working on. And Cole also suggests writing down those little things that you're working on and then occasionally go back and see what you used to be working on. And that will help remind yourself of how far you've actually come. Another little exercise you can do is to start making confident gestures and body language even before you feel confident. Like put your shoulders back, take a deep breath and smile. That's often enough to start signaling to your brain that, oh yeah, I am confident. So try making the confident movements first, even if your brain and your heart aren't quite there yet because they will catch up. And if you're like me, you get talking fast and blow past any opportunities to pause and let your breath catch up. But Cole points out that you can manufacture ways to pause like ask a question and then count to 10 in your head to make sure you give your audience enough time to think about your question and then respond. Another great tip from Cole is to lean into your passion. People will forgive so many mistakes and frowning and talking to fast and all these things that we do that we think are bad. They will forgive a lot of stuff if you're passionate about what you're talking about. And if you focus on your passion, it will also help you stop thinking about your nerves. Now, my favorite question that I ask Cole was how we all have their little quirks about our personality. So how much do you push those things down when you're presenting if those things might undermine your authority? Well, Cole suggests to think of it like dials. It's not on and off. Just consider what are a couple words that describe how you want to come across in your presentation, like competent or articulate or friendly. And then what dials do you need to turn up and down so you can make that happen? We're not hiding parts of ourselves. We're just turning down the volume if it's not serving us in the way that we want. And finally, if you find yourself making more and more tweaks to your data presentation, just stop. Use that extra time to practice your presentation out loud. And think about yourself and how you want to come across. How you talk about your work is going to determine how engaging it is. And I want to share a tip that my dentist of all people taught me I was getting some dental work done. And she could tell I was getting a little tense and nervous. And she said, breathe through your nose and wiggle your toes. And it actually works wonders. At the time, it totally got me out of my head and made me feel less tense. And since then, I have been using it all the time right before I speak. So try next time you find yourself mentally spiraling and getting nervous and tense. Think, breathe through your nose, wiggle your toes. Thanks again, Cole. Grab a copy of Cole's book, storytelling with you. If you'd like step-by-step help planning and giving presentations for your team. So many hard-earned tips and tricks are in this book. I believe in you. I believe that you can become a skilled presenter, just like I believe in you, that you can be a creative thinker and data communication. If you want to learn how to think more creatively and have a toolbox of nine exercises to use to coax out your creative ideas, then grab a copy of my book, ChartSpark. It's available in paperback, ebook, PDF, and audio book. Yay! Go to ChartSparkbook.com. Or there's a link to everything we talked about in the show notes at dataviztoday.com/shownotes/94. I'm Ali Torban and remember every creative act has value. All you have to do is begin. Talk to you soon, bye now.