Dealing with The Peanut Gallery That Is Your Inner Critic

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

Let’s start off this article with a conversation about that voice in your head. You know the one.  The voice that keeps coming back with the warning, “don’t say that idea out loud because people will think you are stupid or crazy.” Or, another favorite, “you have to be kidding me, you know you can’t speak in front of an audience – you will look like a fool.”  You know that voice… and it has a lot more to say on any number things – and none of it is good.  This is the voice of your inner critic.  

So what exactly is an inner critic?  According to the Good Therapy Blog, the inner critic is “an inner voice that judges, criticizes, or demeans a person whether or not the self-criticism is objectively justified”. A highly active inner critic can be paralyzing – it can take a toll on one’s emotional well-being, self-esteem – and in some cases, it can cause individuals to seek help from a therapist or counselor to help balance thought patterns and change their mindset.

Jerry Seinfeld has done a standup routine where he joked that people’s number one fear is public speaking. Their number two fear is death. So, they would rather be in a casket than giving the eulogy.

And it’s true. Chapman University conducted a recent survey that uncovered America’s top fears. Among those were: corrupt government officials, pollution of oceans, rivers, and lakes, and cyber-terrorism. However, at the top of personal anxieties is the fear of public speaking, well above the fear of death, as Seinfeld joked.

THE RELIABLE INNER CRITIC

That inner critic of yours never goes on vacation – it’s there continually giving opinions on anything and everything you do. In speaking, the closer you get to the time you have to present, the louder and more incessant the critic becomes. For many people, they can get sick from the stress that the critic brings their way.  Whether you are in front of an audience or sharing thoughts during a meeting, all you can see or think about are all those eyeballs leveled at you. While at the same time, your inner critic is constantly telling you how you are going to fail. So what can you do? How do you overcome this fear and silence the inner critic?

Improvisation!!!  Yes! And by employing the principles of improvisation, you will overcome the fear, and silence the critic every time! 

Improv will help you change the conversation in your head and start programming your brain to use “yes, and…” instead of “yes, but…”. Why does this matter? Think about the difference between “but” vs. “and”. Using “but” introduces a contrasting thought and stops the other in its tracks. Using “And” instead, connects one idea with the other – allowing both to be considered jointly. So, for instance, you could be saying to yourself, “yes, you have been asked to give this presentation, but you’ll do awful.” Or, you could turn it into the following, “yes, you have been asked to give this presentation, and you can do it.” Just a slight change in words and tone from “but” to “and” has an immediate and positive impact on your confidence, self-esteem and self- worth.

For example, consider the classic children’s story, “The Little Engine That Could”.  It teaches this very principle. Each of the different locomotives in the story could be considered inner critics – each pointing out why the little engine couldn’t accomplish the task at hand. Eventually, the little engine, which had been told she wasn’t fast enough, big enough, or powerful enough, was the best locomotive for an important job. Despite the doubts and criticism, the train, as we all know, repeatedly chanted to herself, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” And she did.

“You’re not fast enough,” “You’re not smart enough,” “You’re not interesting enough.”  “You’re NOT ENOUGH”!  The inner critic needs to be reprimanded and corrected for this. And guess what? You have the power to do it. Tell yourself, “I can do this,” and the more times you repeat it, the more you will believe it. This positive programming of the brain is real and can be used to overcome your immediate fears. The more you say it, the more you will silence that droning voice of doom that cycles through all your fears: “You can’t do this, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re a fraud, you’re going to fail, something will go wrong…” STOP!

THE PERFECT INNER CRITIC

This last part of the inner critic’s diatribe, “something will go wrong…” is very likely to come true, however.  Why? Because we expect ourselves to be perfect.  But there is no such thing as perfection.  Of course you will make a mistake, probably more than one.  Remember however, that most of the time, unless it’s a real blooper, the only person who knows about it is you. Your listeners and audiences won’t see it or hear it – only you and your inner critic.

When you’re overly focused on perfection, you can go into a downhill spiral if you make even a minor mistake, such as forgetting to make one of your less important points. If you maintain your confidence, something like that won’t trip you up. It would be best if you accepted the fact that you will make some slips. Think of them as opportunities to learn to do even better and roll with them… this is what keeps us interesting and interested.

Also, keep in mind, a certain amount of vulnerability goes a long way in winning over your audience. An excellent example of this is a TED talk given by Megan Washington, a premier Australian singer/songwriter. When she opens her speech, you are immediately aware that she has a speech impediment or stutter. She says that, while she has no qualms about singing in front of people, she has a mortal dread of public speaking. Throughout the presentation, the audience watches her struggle from time to time to get certain words out, but it doesn’t matter. Her vulnerability warmed the audience to her, keeping them engaged up until the moment she disclosed a deeply personal fact: you can’t stutter when you sing. At this point, she plays and sings a beautiful song superbly, ending with a roaring applause from the audience.

While we may not have the opportunity to leverage a vulnerability like this, it’s important to remember:  the inner critic will tell you far more than you need to know, and it is not true. You will hear what you cannot do or how you will screw up. And here is what you can tell that naysayer: “Yes, I know I will make mistakes, And they will not hamper me. Yes, I will not be perfect, And that means I can only get better.” Even today, whenever I get up in front of an audience, I get butterflies, AND I can control them now and make them flutter in the direction of my choice.

REASONING WITH INNER CRITIC

With all this bad-mouthing of the inner critic – it does serve a purpose. If I were to consider delivering a speech on nuclear physics, I would hope that my inner critic would start screaming at me long before I stood at the podium. However, the critic doesn’t know when to shut up; that’s where you need to train it. You might know enough about a topic to deliver a decent speech, but the critic keeps nagging: “Your nose hair is showing. Your tie is crooked. What a nitwit.” If you pay too much attention, the prophecies of failure could come true. You get hung up on your shortcomings rather than focusing on your strengths.

Sometimes the key is just to confront it: “Shut up! Shut up!” You can accomplish this through the “yes, and…” approach of improv. “Yes, I hear what you’re saying, And I’m going to do it anyway.” The critic may still try to undermine you but not as loudly. You’ll build up self-esteem. You’ll feel confident. Now go and do it!

If you would like to know more and /or discuss on ways to silence your inner critic and become more confident in your presentations and meetings, please email me at peter@petermargaritis.com.

Virtual Presentations Don’t Have to Suck – 10 Tips so you don’t suck!

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

We were thrown into the virtual world kicking and screaming. Virtual meetings, virtual presentations, and virtual happy hours have become the norm. 

So, there are few things to keep in mind when facilitating virtual meetings/presentations AND when you are part of the audience. Here are some of them:

As a presenter, I don’t want to: 

  1. Look up your nose
  2. See you walking around your house
  3. See your cat in front of your camera
  4. Hear your dog barking 
  5. See a silhouette of you because you are sitting with a window behind you
  6. See you disappear into your virtual wallpaper – or watch various body parts appear and disappear.

And those are just a few observations and complaints from the presenters, not the audience.  

For myself, the number one challenge is remembering to look at the camera during the presentation. It is critical to make eye contact with your audience to help keep them engaged. Think about it, in a live presentation, if the presenter never makes eye contact with you, would you feel that the presenter cared about you or their presentation?

As to the audience, many things cause an extreme disconnect, and in some cases, disrespect – however unintended. 

My top three are:

  1. Audience members do not have their camera on. To a presenter, this gives the impression that you are not paying attention, are disengaged, and, more than likely, multi-tasking… taking the dog for a walk? making lunch? answering emails? You may or may not be doing any of these things, but it appears as though you are!  
  2. They forget that a virtual meeting/presentation is a professional event. Not taking into consideration the camera angle, personal appearance, or background that others are seeing. Many participants show up – often late – while driving their car with their phone in their lap.  
  3. You are forgetting to mute the audio line when not talking. Every noise in the background – dogs barking, kids screaming, car horns honking, Starbucks espresso machines screeching, etc., will be heard by everyone else in the virtual meeting – and be distracted and disconnected because of it.

These are the kinds of things that make virtual events suck. But here’s the point – a Virtual ANYTHING does not have to suck! And it is the presenter’s responsibility to make sure it doesn’t suck by engaging the audience.  

If you are the presenter or running the virtual meeting, here are eight tips to not suck and engage your audience. As a special bonus, two tips on how to improve your internet speed and stability. 

  1. Eye contact: Raise your laptop or desktop monitor, so you are eye-to-eye with the webcam. You can achieve this by a stack of books under your laptop to raise it to your eye level. Also, remember to look into the webcam 70% of the time. This will increase the engagement with the audience. 
  2. Stand up: Standing up in front of an audience and delivering your content is how presentations, preCOVID-19 were done, so why should they be any different when giving a live virtual presentation? When we are standing, we increase our energy and passion. Go out and buy yourself a standing desk, a desk riser, or use your MacGyver skills. A colleague took a basket and a lobster pot and put their monitor on top of it to stand and deliver their virtual presentation. 
  3. Purchase a good microphone without breaking the bank. Suppose your internet is running as it should, but the audience can’t hear you well, or there are crackling noises in your microphone. In that case, your audience will stop listening to you. You can get a decent microphone for under $100.00, and it is worth the investment.
  4. Breakout Rooms: If you are using Zoom, MS Teams, Gotomeeting,com, or Cisco Webex, utilized the breakout rooms for discussions, role-play, brainstorming, debates, strategy discussions, improv exercise, or anything that requires a minimum of 2 people. 
  5. Polling questions: Poll the audience frequently and often to ensure they understand the concepts and content you deliver. Also, get to know your audience with some demographic information. 
  6. Conferences IO: According to their website, Conferences i/o improves attendee engagement, participation & learning by empowering audiences to interact in real-time during presentations. In Conferences IO, you can ask multiple choice questions, short answers, numerical average, or brainstorming ideas. There is also a Q&A feature where someone can ask a question, and if others think it is a good or bad question, they can vote it up or down. I am starting to use more of Conferences IO than having the audience submit answers to my questions via the chatbox. The reason is that after your session is over, you can download a report to review and to give it to your client. Now they have something tangible to review from your presentation.
  7. Use a multi-camera shoot: When you are looking at your webcam, switch to another camera, and go back and forth. The audience will likely still be engaged because they get different video angles, which helps them pay attention. Go old school, use your 2nd camera, and focus on a flip chart or whiteboard in your office. That will raise some eyebrows and make it way more interesting and fun. 
  8. Simplify your slides and tell more stories:  When I say simplify, think like Abe Lincoln. Abe wrote the Gettysburg address using only 272 words, which, if spoken 100 words per minute, Lincoln spoke for just under 3 minutes. Former Secretary of State Edward Everett spoke before Lincoln, and he spoke for two hours. Use fewer words on your PowerPoint slides and tell more stories. That is how you keep the audience engaged. A data dump of faces and figures shoved on a PPT slide with the font size of 12 is just another way of telling the audience to read their email and play their favorite app game.  
  9. Know your minimum internet speed, upload bandwidth, and network latency:  The minimum internet speed should be 200 Mbps, upload bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps, and network latency should be less than 100 ms. Per Netflix’s website, latency refers to the time it takes for data to travel from a user’s device to the server and back – will be measured on both unloaded and loaded connections. Unloaded latency measures the round-trip time of a request when there is no other traffic present on a user’s network, while loaded latency measures the round-trip time when data-heavy applications are being used on the network. For example, your unloaded latency is 25, and your loaded latency is 50, that is good. However, if your unloaded latency is 25 and your loaded latency is 175, which is not good, and you are suffering from BufferBloat, which can cause your Zoom meetings to buffer or freeze, even though your speed is 300 Mbps. Check with your internet provider. 
  10. Improve your internet speed: You can improve your speed by 
    1. shutting down any program running in the background like Dropbox and a File backup app.  
    2. If your hard drive is almost full, then move files off your hard drive to an external drive. Free up more space. 
    3. Reboot your modem and router once a week.

I have been working with three regional salespeople for a manufacturer in the Midwest to give a more engaging virtual presentation. These are the tips and techniques I have been sharing with them to continue to do their job and engage their customers and prospects. 

If you would like me to work with you or your team on how do give a more engaging virtual presentation, please email me at peter@petermargaritis.com and put in the subject line,Virtual Presentations Don’t Have to Suck.

Step Away from the Script

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

The unlikely blending of Accounting and Improvisation is something I have in common with my two guests, Kristen Rampe and Jason Lieu, from Slide Deck Improv. Both Kristen and Jason started their careers in the Accounting field but later discovered Improv as a creative outlet. This prompted Kristen to create Slide Deck Improv, which features improv-based workshops as a way to put the fun back into the way professionals communicate in their workplace.  

Slide Deck Improv marries both worlds by working on presentation and communication skills with an improv angle. Besides being in a classroom learning environment, the audience also plays improv games, which is a great way to teach people to think on their feet. The experience not only taps into the creative process, but it also gives you more faith in your abilities and boosts confidence. Participants learn to enhance their speaking and storytelling skills so that they can connect with others in more impactful ways. It teaches people how to observe and try new skills while having much fun in the process. 

Kristen designed the program, so there is “a little bit of learning, a little bit of practice, and just a whole lot of fun.” Also, the course helps participants build confidence by assisting them to get “comfortable in the uncomfortable.”  

Professional development workshops are notoriously dull, but this one is not. According to Slide Deck Improv, they offer “a fresh and fun classroom experience to help professionals tap into their creativity and gain confidence presenting to groups.”  

Besides teaching improv skills, volunteers in the workshop present before the group. They present five slides (one picture per slide) that they have never seen before and a topic that will be selected by the audience. Just imagine a seasoned tax professional speaking on the subject of Botany. At the same time, a picture of cows pops up on the screen. While laughter ripples through the room, the group learns how to make public speaking a little less scary.  

All professional groups from sales to engineers will benefit from learning how to engage people with the newfound confidence that Slide Deck Improv provides. Whether it is interacting with your sales team, customers, or management, these skills can be utilized in your profession, but also transfer over into your daily life.  

Many professionals are highly analytical and spend a lot of time in their heads. Jason described his experience with Improv as, “In any given moment, I’m in my head trying to digest information. And I like to go back and analyze everything before I come up with an answer. Improv gave me this tool that allowed me to live in the moment, listen to people, and to engage in real-time, and I love the feeling and energy of it.”  

Jason expands on the benefits of the program. “I love Improv because it’s such a general skill. It’s not just a business communication skill. It’s a life skill. You can bring this into all your facets of everyday life. And it’s all about connecting with your audience no matter who the audience is. It could be your customers, clients, sales team, internal, external, whatever. It comes down to people talking to people. And if you can connect and engage people, you’re going to have this newfound confidence in your work.”

Everyone can benefit from this kind of workshop, whether you are a CEO or a young professional. Improving your communication skills while in a less traditional forum sparks more productive business relationships. 

You can join in on the fun, while Kristen and Jason show off their improv skills during season 2, episode 13 of Change Your Mindset podcast by clicking here. You’ll get a taste of how the programs work while gaining valuable insight into the process. Thank you, Kristen and Jason, for taking the time to share your innovative program.

Visit SlideDeckImprov.com to find out more about how you can ‘Step Away from the Script.’

How to Switch Your Presentation from Spreadsheets to Storytelling

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

When it came to presentations, Jennie Scheel’s initial strategy wasn’t exactly foolproof. As CFO of Five Nines Technology Group, presenting was a core part of her job description. But …

“My strategy was to get up there, put all my beautiful spreadsheets up there with lots of numbers, talk as fast as I could, smile, then sit down and hope there was no question,” Jennie said.

It won’t shock you to learn that Jennie’s audience didn’t always share her appreciation for a beautiful spreadsheet. And since they weren’t interested in the method of presentation, they often didn’t understand the information being laid out for them, either.

That’s when Jennie switched up her presentations. Instead of only speaking in her language, she presented in a language that everyone could understand. To break up the boring financial numbers, Jennie instead broke down all the numbers as part of a dollar.

For example, instead of explaining that company benefits were 6% of the company’s expenses (which doesn’t really mean anything without context), Jennie illustrated the information to reflect the fact that six cents out of every dollar are spent on benefits, like health insurance or a 401(k) match.

And instead of throwing a meaningless alphabet soup of letters up on the screen (COGS), Jennie instead illustrated what Cost of Goods Sold actually meant.

“I have to remember and try to say, okay, so here’s our bucket of revenue, here is a bucket which is hopefully not nearly as full of expenses, so that when you mix them together, that’s the number that makes up our net income,” she said. “So they can kind of see how those flow together and in proportion to each other.”

When it comes to accounting (or any niche, really), it’s important to remember that every niche has its own language. Engineers use words others don’t understand. Accountants speak in numbers and percentages and words like “accrual.” So when these niches cross paths (like when Jennie, a CFO, is presenting to her IT outsource company full of engineers), it’s crucial to use language that everyone understands.

“The second that I say the word accrual, I think that they automatically go straight back to their phones or lose any idea of what I was trying to say,” Jennie said.

Language doesn’t always have to be solely words. It can be body language, too: That’s why Jennie started wearing blue jeans to her presentations, instead of nice suits. Most engineers at her company dressed in jeans and polos most days — so dressing to match your audience can make it easier for them to listen to you.

And, of course, language can be simple pictures, as well. That was the quickest thing that Jennie — lover of spreadsheets — learned.

“The pictures are doing an excellent job of telling the story, instead of my spreadsheet,” she admitted. “Obviously I love all of my spreadsheets and all of the data, but those are not what will relate, and people will not be able to understand. So what I have learned through training and by actually utilizing it is that the pictures really resonate with people.”

The point of any presentations — whether they’re filled with spreadsheets, numbers, photos, or videos — is for the audience to understand the content.

So when it comes to presenting, tailoring to your specific audience can make a huge difference in them understanding your content (versus zoning out, and not retaining anything you say).

“I’m always trying to analyze what pieces of information they’re looking for and then how we would break it down so that they can understand it,” Jennie says. “What details do I need to present to them so that they can understand the company or their role, and be successful with the decisions that they make?”

To listen to the full Change Your Mindset interview with Jennie, click here

 

Why Accountants Need to be Data Storytellers

From the desk of Peter Margaritis

We’ve all been in CPE with “that instructor.” You know, the one who drones on and on about FASB this or tax code that for hours and hours. When someone back at the office asks you what you learned, you draw a complete blank. 

Or maybe, you were “that instructor,” and when you looked out at the audience, you saw a sea of heads in the conference prayer, bent down over their phones. 

But then there was that time when your instructor peppered her presentation with stories. And not only do you remember those stories, but you remember the points she was making with the stories. 

When you combine numbers with stories, you’re taking the numb out of numbers. And when you take the numb out of numbers, what you’ve got left is e-r-s: Effective Relatable Stories. 

Why do we need to tell stories? Don’t the numbers speak for themselves?

We accountants are fluent in the language of accounting, a foreign language for most of our clients. We see the meaning in a balance sheet and appreciate the beauty of a set of perfectly reconciled books, but to our clients, it’s just a baffling mass of numbers. 

Technology today is changing the work we do. Artificial intelligence, bots, machine learning and automation mean that the repetitive number-crunching pieces of our jobs are going away, and what’s left for us will be what the robots can’t do. 

That means we need better communication skills now. We need to be data storytellers. 

What is a data storyteller?

In today’s high-speed world, business owners, taxpayers, and decision makers are in desperate need of the insights hidden in their numbers. Because we understand this foreign language of numbers and accounting, we can see the messages hidden in those numbers. Storytelling is the way we bridge the gap. 

Data storytelling is when we communicate what the numbers mean. It means using Effective Relatable Stories to convey the information in those numbers to the people who need that information. When we’ve succeeded in communication, they understand and remember what those numbers mean, and they can make the right decisions for their business or their financial future.

Now, some people confuse data storytelling with data visualization. They think that if they just add that pretty waterfall chart to their presentation with arrows pointing to all the key inflection points, then their job is done. All the numbers are right there. 

But they’re not the same at all. Data visualization is a tool we can use to communicate complicated accounting information. As a tool, you need to keep it simple enough for people to understand. And unless we explain those charts and graphs with Effective Relatable Stories that our audience understands, we haven’t communicated anything at all. 

Why do stories help us learn and understand?

Stories aren’t just for entertainment. Powerful stories evoke emotion and can inspire us to take action and make changes in ways that a PowerPoint data dump can’t. Those just put us to sleep like a lullaby.

If you want your audience to take action, they must be emotionally engaged. Master marketers know this: they know exactly the hook to use that taps into your raw emotion and convinces you to click on that Buy Now button. 

Neuroscience backs up the role of stories in helping us learn. When we hear a gripping story, that story lets loose a flood of dopamine in our brain. That’s right. Dopamine — the same neurotransmitter that gets us addicted to drugs, alcohol and gambling. The feel-good chemical. And when those brain circuits get lit up with an emotional charge, we learn better and remember more.

According to neuroscience researcher John Medina, author of Brain Rules, “Dopamine aids memory and information processing. You can think of it like a Post-It note that reads ‘Remember this.’”

Do you remember where you were last Tuesday at 9 am? Probably not. But I bet you remember in crystalline detail where you were and what you were doing on September 11, 2001, when you heard about the planes hitting the World Trade Center. That’s an event you experienced exactly once, but you remember forever. 

That’s the impact an emotional charge can have on memory.

Contrast that with studying for the CPA exam, where you had to repeat the same material over and over to get it in your brain for the short time you needed to remember it. A few years later, and I bet you’ve forgotten much of what you learned. But emotionally charged memories stay with us forever.

Using stories to explain complex topics: a real-life example

Not convinced that you can use stories to make accounting interesting or relevant? Here’s an example of how I used an Effective Relatable Story to explain consolidations of variable interest entities when I was teaching an accounting and auditing update at the Arizona Society of CPAs. Consolidating variable interest entities is a complex topic that almost never fails to send audiences of accountants into dreamland, so here’s how I kept everyone engaged.

I asked the audience to raise their hands if they were married. About 80% raised their hands. Then I asked how many had a mother-in-law. I got a few snickers, and everyone kept their hands up. 

Then I told them to imagine their mother-in-law as a variable interest entity and showed a slide with an older woman labeled VIE. Then I said, “Your spouse wants your mother-in-law to move into your household, but you do not want your mother in law to move in. This is also known as consolidating into your household.” 

Now I had everyone’s attention, and many were smiling. “Your mother-in-law gets money from Social Security and a retirement account, and she loves to play the slot machine.” Next, I showed a picture of the six kids from The Brady Bunch. “Your mother-in-law has six children, who all contribute to her financial well-being. Your family contributes the most because your spouse is a high-school principal and loves to be in control.” 

“Let’s recap. Your spouse — the principal — wants to consolidate their VIE mother into your household balance sheet. You prefer that she not consolidate into your balance sheet. You prefer that she spend two months with each of her children, or her agents, so that no one has to consolidate her into their balance sheet.” 

Now when I return to Arizona to teach another course, at least one person will come up to me and say, “You’re the mother-in-law guy, right?” They still remember that one story that I told once several years ago. 

Next time you have to explain a complex accounting concept to a client, try putting it into terms that your client can relate to, and tell an engaging story around those relatable terms. At the very least, you won’t have numbed them with the numbers!

This article was adapted from my latest book, Taking The Numb Out Of Numbers: Explaining and Presenting Financial Information with Confidence and Clarity.