Presentation Zen [52]
One of the most fundamental things you can learn from the world of Zen is the art of mindfulness. You may know of mindfulness in its association with meditation (zazen). But the interesting thing about Zen is that it is not separate from the real world. That is, Zen makes no distinction between ordinary life and “religious life.” Meditation is not an escape from reality at all, and in fact even everyday routines can be methods for meditation. When you have an awareness that your actions and judgments are usually just automatic reactions based on a sort of running dialogue that you have in your head, then you are free to let go of such judgments. So, rather than hating washing the dishes, you just wash the dishes. When you write a letter, you write a letter. And when you give a presentation, you give a presentation.
Mindfulness is concerned with the here and now and having an awareness of this particular moment. You want to see this moment as it is without your ordinary filters, filters that are concerned only with the past (or future) and of how things should or will be and so on. True mindfulness is accessible to all, though it is not easy to obtain. Our lives are so crazy these days doing email, sending text messages, surfing the Web, or driving late in rush hour traffic to pick up the kids while ordering dinner on a mobile phone. There are so many things on our minds and so many worries. Worries are the worst things of all because they are always about the past or about the future, two things that do not even exist in the present. In our daily lives and in our work lives, including presenting, we’ve got to clear our minds and be only one place: right here.
Steve Jobs and the Art of the Swordsman
Much has been written about the approach to presentations taken by Steve Jobs. His slides, for example, are always simple, stunning, and highly visual, and he uses them smoothly and seamlessly, advancing all slides and effects by himself without ever drawing attention to the fact that he is the one advancing the slides. His style is conversational, and his visuals are in perfect sync with his words. His presentations are built on a solid structure, which gives them an easy feeling of flow as if he were taking us on a small journey. He is friendly, comfortable, and confident (which make others feel relaxed), and he exudes a level of passion and enthusiasm that is engaging without going over the top.
It all seems so automatic and natural. It all seems so easy, so you’d be tempted to think that it just comes naturally to Steve, and that it’s a pretty easy task for him to use his natural charisma to woo a crowd. But you’d be wrong. While it is true that Steve Jobs is a charismatic figure, I’m not sure giving presentations with multimedia support, and even giving live demos (how many CEOs do that?), is something that comes naturally to anyone. No, the reason Steve Jobs’s presentations go so well and are so engaging is because he and his team prepare and practice like mad to make sure it looks “easy.”
When Steve is on stage he is, in a sense, an artist. And like any artist, through practice and experience, he has perfected his technique and form. Yet, also like the trained artist, there is no thought of technique or of form, or even of failure or success while performing the art. Once we think of failure or success, we are like the swordsman whose mind stops, ever so briefly, to ponder his technique or the outcome of the fight. The moment he does, he has lost. This sounds paradoxical, but once we allow our mind to drift to thoughts of success and failure or of outcomes and technique while performing our art, we have at that moment begun our