Freelancers and Entrepreneurs — Let’s Examine Our Present and Recently Past Influences

What are the influences that are either helping or hindering you in your business and personal life? By making ourselves aware of them, we are more likely to work toward positive changes. In this article, my goal is to get you to examine your present and recently past influences.

The people we know, work and play with. Yes, we are heavily influenced by the people we let into our lives. If we hang out with negative, critical, complaining people, we can easily lose our enthusiasm and drive. If we join groups and make friends with those we want to emulate, we will be on our way. It is just like tennis and chess. The way one gets better is to play with someone who is better than we are. I am not suggesting that you drop the friends you have now, but I am suggesting that you join groups of winners, network with people who are known as successes and volunteer for worthy causes.

Life-long learning with books, tapes and magazines. It is astonishing to find out how few people read a book after graduation. I am sure that none of you reading this article would fall into that category. However, I must mention the wonderful scope of topics available today in book form, the plethora of tapes that inform and motivate — I listen and re-listen to tapes by Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale and am always influenced to take a new action step toward success.

Visit your public library. It offers a wealth of influence — I always use my driving time to listen to tapes and CDs. In addition, there are almost too many magazines to read. I have found that the best way to benefit from the great information is to scan and then only read those articles that pertain to some part of my business or life. No matter what your specialty is, there are magazines that address your problems and situations.

Physical activity and a focus on health. One of the strongest influences on my well-being, business acumen, and energy level is daily exercise and sensible nutrition. Studies have shown that there are so many side benefits from regular exercise and proper eating that one could easily fill a wall with post-it notes listing them.

By pushing oxygen to the heart and brain, we keep both healthy and smart. If you are having a difficult time getting started, I suggest finding a buddy to go to the gym with you or work out with you. In the fitness classes I teach, the people who participate have become friends and they cheer each other on — another positive influence.

I ask you again, what are the influences in your freelance living? Are they helping or hindering your progress? What new and better influences can you and will you embrace in the future? What bad influences and toxic companions are presently draining you of your energy and passion for living?

It is time to make two lists — one with the bad influences (past and present) and one with the good influences. Congratulate yourself on the good influences and continue to pursue them. On the list with the bad influences, add an action step and a new influence to replace each one. Take action and you will be on your way to success!

Five Tips For Choosing the Best Christening Presents

Invited to a christening? If you’re determined to give the most meaningful christening presents, there are some important things you need to know before you begin. Just follow these five tips for giving christening presents.

1. A important factor when you start to shop for christening presents is making sure that you put some thought into it. The reason why this is important is because many people just buy some sort of silver item and think it’s ok. If you don’t put some thought into it, then you run the risk of giving yet another silver rattle or comb, and they will not get much use because everyone gave it!

2. Another important consideration for finding unique christening presents is to think about your relationship to the family and child. It’s critical that you don’t just give a Holy Bible because this is a common gift, and only the godparents should do that. If you make sure that you don’t give a gift the child can’t use, then you’ll be fine.

3. You don’t have to spend lots of money in order to give good christening presents. Even what you spend at a restaurant would make a fine gift. All you need to do is shop around, and make sure that you give something useful.

4. Instead of complicating yourself by looking for a perfectly fitting piece of clothing or hat, try it this way: give something the child cannot outgrow! In fact, if you give something that will be more useful down the road – maybe like a pocketknife – then you will find that your gift keeps on giving!

5. Have you considered giving an investment? It’s not as difficult or expensive as you might think. Anything will help. What you need to do is talk to a financial advisor, and within an hour you can have one of the most useful christening presents for boys or girls setup.

So if you really want to give good christening presents, follow these tips to ensure success.

Melding Written Materials With Your Oral Presentation

There are a number of ways that written materials can support and enhance an oral presentation.

I do a lot of public speaking, teaching, and training. I utilize PowerPoint slides extensively.

I also prepare written materials which I distribute to participants to take with them which serve as a reference tool so that when they have a question later, they can use those materials to refresh their recollection and clear up any confusion they may have. I make it a practice to include a cover and table of contents, as well as appropriate authoritative citations, so that the packet will be “user-friendly” and, thus, have an increased chance of being added to the participant’s library. I generally include a printed copy of my PowerPoint show, as well.

I believe that communicating information in three differing formats is the best way to assure comprehension and retention. The PowerPoint presentation serves primarily as an outline containing only key words, terms, and concepts. The written materials are extremely detailed, of course. And depending upon the topic, my speech may contain a lot of examples and illustrations that are not included in either of the written formats, along with some personal recollections.

Whether or not you should utilize such tools in your presentation depends upon a number of factors.

First of all, you must consider the subject matter, of course. What type of presentation are you making? Does the topic lend itself to the use of visual aids such as a PowerPoint show? Will such tools enhance or detract from the main points you are communicating? Will text, graphics and/or music assist your audience in not only understanding your presentation, but also in recollecting the main points over time? Will such displays “pound home” the message or can it be delivered more effectively with just the inflection, dynamics, tenor and tone of your spoken words?

Once you have decided that you want to utilize a PowerPoint presentation as you speak, there are some things you can do to maximize its effectiveness. Most importantly, bear in mind that a slide show or other graphical display should never be a script (although it can effectively serve as an outline, as explained below). I have suffered through too many interminably long presentations where the speaker thought that every salient point should be included in the PowerPoint show and, as if that weren’t bad enough, decided to read the content of the slides to the audience. Sadly, the information being imparted on most of those occasions was of interest to me, but the speaker could not hold my attention once he/she decided to stay “on script” rather than speak contemporaneously.

A PowerPoint show or other graphic presentation should be used solely to augment and clarify your oral commentary, but should never overtake or overshadow it. This is one area where the old adage “less is more” is applicable.

Note that I said bullet points. Not lengthy, rambling paragraphs of text, but, rather, short, concise synopses that the audience can jot down if they’d like. Bullet points can also be read quickly by the audience as you are speaking without deflecting attention from what you are saying. There is nothing worse than looking out into the faces of your audience to discover that they are no longer listening to you because they are focused completely on reading all of the verbiage set forth on the slides you are projecting.

I use custom animation so that I can dictate when specific key words, terms or phrases appear on the screen. For instance, I find that the audience remains engaged if you pepper your presentation with questions. Ask participants if they know the answer to a particular question and open the floor for discussion and questions. When you are ready to conclude the discussion and move on, you can announce, “Here’s the answer” or “Look at how things turned out,” at the moment that the relevant information is projected. This is particularly effective if you ask your audience to guess numbers, percentages or the outcome of hypothetical scenarios. It is fun to hear the gasps when the group is surprised by the correct or actual answer, leading to further enthusiastic discourse and a memorable presentation.

By organizing your PowerPoint slide show, you will find that you have organized your discussion. This is a great way to stay on track. Make sure that you include each and every important point you want to make during your presentation as a bullet or outline point. That way, when you glance at the slides as you are speaking, your memory will be jogged and you will be sure not only to mention those key points, but also elaborate upon them.

Finally, as to the aesthetics of the PowerPoint show, let your topic and audience guide your selections. If you are talking about a very serious, thought-provoking subject, the colors and graphics that you select will probably be different than those appropriate to a more light-hearted or fun conversation. The possibilities are limitless, bounded only by the constraints of your imagination.