Presentation Skills | Varga & Associates

What’s your warm-up routine before a big presentation?

by maripat | May 19, 2025 | Communication, Personal Development, Presentation Skills | 0

My “S.O.P.” (standard operating procedure) has three parts: 1) A minute to visualize...

What can Oscar acceptance speeches teach us?

by maripat | Mar 5, 2025 | Communication, Presentation Skills, Storytelling | 0

If we are lucky, we will all have a moment or two in our lives when we are celebrated or...

Stage Presence: Call up your Most Social Self

by maripat | Jan 20, 2025 | business strategy, Communication, Engagement, Influence, Presentation Skills, video | 0

Anyone who presents wants to command attention, engage the audience, and elicit interaction. ...

Jump In, Jump Up, Jump Out – Stories Make Facts Stick

by maripat | Sep 9, 2024 | Communication, Presentation Skills, Storytelling | 0

When you don’t have a lot of time to tell a more involved story – jump in, jump up,...

Communicate the Givens – unapologetically and enhance innovation

by maripat | Aug 14, 2024 | Communication, Employee Engagement, Presentation Skills, Uncategorized | 0

Recently, a leader I was advising was sorting out why her team’s engagement scores were low. She...

Exuding Main Character Energy when it Matters

by maripat | May 16, 2024 | Communication, Engagement, Leadership, Main character energy, Presentation Skills, Storytelling | 0

You may have come across the term “main character energy.” Most recently I heard Charlamagne tha...

Clean a Closet, Find a Story

by maripat | Apr 1, 2024 | Engagement, Presentation Skills, Storytelling | 0

I have a closet in my home office space that is a disaster. It is bulging at its seams with old...

Barbie and The Hero’s Journey

by maripat | Aug 6, 2023 | Communication, Presentation Skills, Storytelling | 0

As I sat in a darkened movie theatre this week with salty tub of popcorn watching Barbie – I...

Bring story-telling into your living room – build friendships and develop skills

by maripat | Mar 31, 2023 | Communication, Interpersonal Skills, Presentation Skills, Storytelling | 0

If you are a fan of The Moth Radio Hour (https://themoth.org/radio-hour) as I am, you know the...

Jumping The Gun – 5 Ways to Avoid a Communication False Start

by maripat | Mar 6, 2023 | Communication, Effective meetings, Interpersonal Skills, Presentation Skills | 0

There is always the intense excitement when you see runners in the starting blocks waiting for the gun to go off to signal the race is on. There is also the heartbreak of a runner who ‘jumps the gun’ which is also called a false start. There is absolutely an equivalent of the false start in communication and five ways to avoid it.

Personalize your Presentation with a One Sentence Story

by maripat | Dec 19, 2022 | Communication, Interpersonal Skills, Presentation Skills, Storytelling | 0

When you hear a speaker share a brief snippet from their life, you instantly feel more engaged and connected to them. “That’s just like me!” “I have kids too!” It may be a simple reference to where they grew up, a sport they played, or how many children they have. When you share a bit of your human experience with an audience, you instantly become more relatable, and in turn, the point you are trying to make is better retained. Can this be accomplished in just one sentence? YES!