I was recently involved in some and asked the participants to answer the question, “Before you even get up to make a presentation – what is the context of making a presentation?”

As usually happens, they were all stumped – both by the question itself and by what context meant.

So, with a little education we came to realise that context is that which makes sense of everything. It’s like having a helicopter view or a map of the maze below. It brings with it crystal clear clarity.

If you have clarity about your purpose, when you stand in front of a room to make a presentation, it gives you a position of unwavering confidence and focus.

What is the context of “Presentation”? To make this simple, just look at the word itself. The stem is Present. Therefore you need to be both Present, i.e. attentive to your audience, and be a Present or a Gift to them.

When you give someone a present, what do they have to do? They have to unwrap it to get to the gift, do they not?

Hence, whenever you make a presentation, the key thing to hold in your mind’s eye is that you’re there to unwrap yourself, to give to the audience the gift of yourself.

Do this honestly and the audience will stay with you.

Addendum: Talking of gifts…

My next Gift Day, where I share with people the simple structures for building successful businesses and careers, is on May 22nd.

Please book quickly as places are limited.

It is the seekers who make the prophets. Why do we not hear and heed the prophetic voices that are in our very midst? There are voices of great clarity and with a quality of insight equal to that of any age, speaking cogently all the time. It is the level of interest and seeking, the responsiveness of the listeners, that enables a prophetic voice to grow in stature. The challenge is that we see current prophecy within the context of past wisdom, we tend to live in the past when it comes to wisdom, we have decided not to live in the present. So listen carefully to the prophetic voices that are speaking now.

An example of this principle in action was the leader of a large, important, and difficult to administer public institution. One day he realised things weren’t the way he had hoped they would be. His solution was unusual.

For three months he stopped reading newspapers, listening to the news broadcasts, watching TV; and for this entire period he relied wholly on those he met in the course of his work to tell him what was going on. In three months his administrative problems were resolved.

There were no miracles; but out of the sustained intentness of listening that was produced by this unusual decision, this able man learned and received the insights needed to set the right course. He and his team were strengthened by the process.

Why is active listening so rare today? One problem is that people are very quick to look for someone else to blame, to pin a problem on rather than admitting, “OK, I have a problem. What is it? What can I do about my problem?”

Do we listen to the one we want to communicate to?

As we approach confrontation, is our attitude one of wanting to understand?

The only true response to a problem should be to listen first. The spin off is that true listening builds strength in other people. Saint Francis said, “Grant that I may not seek so much to be understood as to understand.”

One way of learning to listen is to not be afraid of silence and of asking the question of oneself, “In saying what I have in mind, will I really improve on the silence?” which reminds me of something that Blaise Pascal said in 1652, when I was just a lad. “People’s misfortunes stem from one thing and one thing alone and that is their inability to sit in silence on their own.”

‘But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means?’ – Oscar Wilde

‘The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it!’ – Remy de Gourment

‘On action alone be thy interest. Never on its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be thy motive, Nor be thy attachment to inaction.’ – Bhagavad Gita

‘Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it.’ – Indian Proverb

‘Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you…Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question…Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; If it doesn’t it is of no use.’ – Carlos Castaneda

‘The heart has its reasons which reason does not understand.’ – Blaise Pascal

‘Genuine love ought to be founded on the mutual recognition of two liberties; the lovers would then experience themselves both as self and the other; neither would give up transcendence, neither would be mutilated. Together they would manifest values and aims in the world.’ – Simone de Beauvoir

‘Art is unthinkable without risk and spiritual self-sacrifice.’ – Boris Pasternik

‘Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.’ – Oscar Wilde

‘As far as we are able to understand, the only aim of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.’ – Carl Jung

‘An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?’ – Michel de Saint-Pierre

Places are limited. Please sign up quickly.

‘Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions: reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.’ – Simone Weil

‘Energy is the only life … Energy is eternal delight.’ – William Blake

‘In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.’ – Isaiah

‘Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of Liberty is the history of resistance. The history of Liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.’ – Woodrow Wilson

‘Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.’ – George Santayana

‘A child becomes an adult when they realise that they have a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.’ – Thomas Szasz

‘Four things come not back: the spoken word; the arrow sped; time passed; the neglected opportunity.’ – Omar ibn Al-Halif

‘I knew what I wanted and determined at an early age that no man would ever tell me what to do. I would make my own rules.’ – Mae West

‘Oh heavens, how I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. Just enthusiasm – that’s all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I’m alive!’ – John Osborn

‘Like the flowers I need dew and night air.’ – Georg Buchner

‘Liberty means responsibility. That is why most people dread it.’ – George Bernard Shaw

One thing I have always said is that it is always useful to carry a small notebook with you – Those that know me know that mine’s red and within the 60 I’ve amassed over the years are all the ideas that have translated into my books and creative ventures

Just looking through No. 59 and the core of the book I’m writting now jumps from every page

Quite often I would never have remembered the insight, or concept quickly added as it dropped into my waiting consciousness – So I urge you, as I recently urged a group of students I’d been invited to talk to, get yourself a notebook you can easily carry around with you and capture your muse before it delicately slips away

How cool is that? – They also happen to be incredibly good at what they do – Don’t hide your light – Let it shine

‘Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man, afraid of the light?’ – Maurice Freehill

We’ll be posting regularly with our thoughts, and on the progress of our newest book The Freedom Tree Volume 2.