Ok, during this week, we had some presentation in our M COM class, and all groups did super great I believe. While the presentations were happening, our teacher asked for some feedback from the students in class. We did have some great feedback, in fact, I was able to learn so much from that class that I am actually trying to apply those things not only in business presentations, but also in some others aspects of my life. 

One of the feedback some of the groups received, was really the one that caught my attention for two main reasons. First, because of this:

It's funny, isn't it? How many "but umm" did Robin does in this interview? I don't know, I didn't count, but sure that was a lot.

Second reason, some of us, (or many) has the tendency of repeating many times certain word in a short amount of time. When someone gave that feedback in class, I automatically remembered of this episode in " How I met your mother ". 

"But umm", "like", "stuff", "you know", and etc. These are things that we do not realize, but it happens with us and we usually do not notice mostly because we perhaps are too distracted to pass the message to the audience, but the audience surely notice that.

The hard thing is that we, the speakers, do not realize that. We do not notice these repetitions and we keep going on. So how can I improve that if I do not notice that I am doing this mistake during my speech?

Well, one of the things I can think of, it is that, if you prepare well yourself to give a speech, you are more likely to notice these mistakes during your presentation. The reason why is that perhaps you will know much better the content, so you will have less tendency to commit any mistake, and if you commit any mistake, you will notice and be able to fix that still in the speech without losing focus of what you are saying.

I have problems with that, but now that I am aware of these mistakes, I will be able to avoid them in future presentations. Like I said before, I am usually committing mistakes with English and because of that, I become more hesitant when talking to people, and that is when those "but ummm" appears. Now, I can work on that, and hopefully improve the level of my presentations.

If you have any ideas of how I can overcome that problem, I would be more than happy to hear it. As an student, I am sharing my thought most likely to hear your feedback, and learn from you.

Thank you.

How can we improve the way we present in front of people?

During my years here in USA, I noticed that especially in the business and academic environment, you are always taking the risk to give some sort of speech of any kind at any time. As an international student, I came to US without any knowledge of English, and as I become more familiarized with the language, I learned not only the language, but also, some tips of etiquette that are surely important to use when addressing any speech. Much can be said of someone just by looking the way that people try to express themselves by words and gestures as well as personal grooming. When giving an speech, the way you express yourself is very important because you are basically selling your image. How you present yourself, will result of how people will treat as well. Here is an example of that kind of situation.

It might look funny, but would you hire someone  that does not know how to present himself to be the face of a company?
Some of his speeches it is clearly visible that he did not prepare properly to speak in public.
So what does that this topic has to do with me? Well, I want to be a successful business man, but to do so, I need to act properly. These last four years living in US were full of experiences that helped me to improve about how I speak in front of people. During this years, I could see a good progress due to the improvement of my vocabulary, I became more confident, and the English language wasn't so hard as it was once before.
Now what? I surely improved a lot in the last couple years, but that doesn't mean I don't have anything to work on. I know(and I am aware of) that I still have many things to learning and improve. There are many manners and rules of etiquette that I need to learn so I can become a better speaker. Learning about the culture, learning about my audience, asking questions, using an understandable vocabulary, being direct, avoid some gestures, these are some of the things that I will try to improve from now on. I hope this topic might be somehow productive to you. If someone of you has a different point or any different ideas, please I would love to have you sharing that with me.

Thank you,

Yukio.