kristinmackey.com transform, create, become

Is pleased to announce that original KMack “quote art” is now available as wall art (vinyl wall decals) in partnership with Good-Terms (inspirational quotes for home/office/anywhere).  Positive words and phrases impact our everyday experience. These are designed to ignite a sense of vision and play into your personal and professional world.

Be an Artist. Life if Your Canvas (vinyl wall art )

Move the Room! – Three Keys to Delivering a Knockout Presentation

So you have to give presentation…here are my proven secrets.

KEYS
1. Know Your Content
2. Organize Your Content
3. Deliver Your Content Well

How to Know Your Content

Giving a presentation on a subject matter instantly makes you the expert. If you are standing in front of any size group, you are now the expert of the content you present. The best way to BE the expert is to properly prepare for your presentation. You can do this in three ways:

1. Practice presenting your content with pen and paper nearby and note any areas in which you stumble, can’t explain or have a gap in your understanding. If you have a feeling that some areas run smoother then others, target the rough spots. If any areas make you nervous, master the content until you can answer most questions.

2. Use the Internet to get the latest information available on your topic. There will always be someone in the room who likes to be vocal and will point out the many things they know about the subject. So be prepared to acknowledge their insight and move on.

3. Keep your expertise in check when challenges arise. If someone decides to challenge you with amazing cutting-edge information that you missed, simply thank the individual for the new found morsel, ask the group to jot it down (if it genuinely appears valuable) and then ask the group if anyone else has any ideas that would also add value. Move on.

How to Organize Your Content

Think hourglass (MACRO/MICRO/MACRO).
Your message should always start off with a global snapshot of what you will be discussing and why. Diving right into detail or anything too specific is easy for the person well versed in the subject, but makes no sense to someone new to the content. You can organize your presentation in three ways:

1. MACRO – A simple overview of the entire presentation in the form of a quick outline, objectives or “pillars” that will be discussed

2. MICRO – Move into greater detail, using photos, statistics and graphs (mix it up)

3. MACRO – Close the presentation by recapping key points and reiterating your message and objectives; finish with something light (a fun quote, joke or interesting photo)

Key tip: Always, always START and END your presentation STRONG.

How to Deliver Your Content Well

This can feel like the toughest part. Public speaking is a big fear for many, but you don’t have to be scared. The number one reason folks fear public speaking is that they are too focused on self image, rather than being passionate about the content. I always advise folks to be composed, poised and professional, but be natural and authentic – it translates better. Your audience feels how you feel. If you feel relaxed, they will. If you get nervous, they get nervous with you (many feel compassion and awkwardness at the same time). Presentation attendees are people…just in a group. There is nothing to fear with people gathered to hear about things you’d like to share with them. Here is how you can deliver your presentation flawlessly:

1. Create the right internal emotional landscape by properly preparing and organizing your material.

2. Practice often! It is best to do so in front of someone who can give good feedback.

3. Research your audience, know the room ahead of time and make changes that feel right.

4. Have a mini cheat sheet on an index card (micro/macro/micro) should you freeze or lose your train of thought. It serves as a handy and visible anchor.

5. Use symbols if you need to organize a more extensive cheat sheet to “tip” you off to a concept or idea you forget. Yes, it feels safe to bring the whole facilitator manual or detailed article and hold it, but that is not presenting – that is reading. As soon as you are in front of folks, your eyes cannot catch tiny words. Again, macro/micro/macro concept. Pictures and symbols trigger memory.

6. If you have control of time, do not speak for more then 20 minutes (attention spans drop afterward). This excludes seminars and workshop designed to be longer, with the objective of education. Exercises and movement are part of seminar design for a reason.

Key tip – Content with emotion is the most powerful way to get/keep attention. Stories, jokes etc. delivered with animated facial expressions, good body language and visuals add IMPACT. Even if you are presenting facts, try to weave in “emotional content” to keep participants engaged!

The more you present, the better your own personal style will be. Like any craft (and presenting is a performance skill) you will achieve excellence the more you do it – but you must start (fear and all).

Go forth and share your cool ideas with the world!

Are you too busy, overwhelmed and feel like the “pile” keeps growing?

These ideas will get you back on track FAST…

KEYS

1. Know what’s important
2. Prioritize essentials
3. Prune time wasters
4. Create boundaries
5. Simplify processes

Know What’s Important

What do you value? Leaders, organizations and gurus on time management often rally the necessity of values-clarification as “the” first step in any great creation. Deciding what you truly value is key before building any empire (business, family or craft). Knowing what you value is a critical step in the process of time management.

Answer these questions for clarity:

1. What are your core values? They should reflect the kind of person you envision yourself to be in all situations (home, work, friendships etc.)?
2. Is there anything in your life right now that does not resonate with you or feels “off”? Why is it there? Whose approval are you looking for? Can you remove it?
3. If you could subtract any bad habit, what would it be? If you could add a good habit (however small) that would make your life easier, what would it be?
4. What is stopping you from acting with clarity (and confidence) toward what you want out of life?

These questions are not a finish line, rather they begin the process of getting you closer to what you truly value so that you can invest your time more productively.

Prioritize Your Essentials

Once you know the kind of person you want to be, create a schedule that reflects your values. These ideas will help:

• Decide the most essential things to do each week and schedule them FIRST
• Refuse anything not aligned with your values (release guilt)
• Refuse anything that drains you mentally, emotionally or physically consistently (look for patterns)
• Focus your attention and energy on what is most important to you/family/business

Key tip: Schedule your top tasks, goals and appointments early before the day’s mayhem. FranklinCovey has amazing content on time management – check it out.

Anyone who was ever in a position to accomplish big things (while surrounded by many little things) has learned this lesson well – get the key items in FIRST. Ask yourself at the end of every week, month and year “what did I accomplish?” If the answer continues to be “lots of meetings, calls and details” you are off track. Yes, those things are part of execution, however if they do not add up to something tangible, measurable and valuable to you, it will feel like a waste of time and leave you feeling depleted.

Key tips for managing your schedule:
• Pad important meetings, projects etc. with extra time (absorbs surprises). This avoids making your day/week look like standing dominoes – which easily tumble with one false move!
• Block time in your calendar to do fun, healthy and enriching things (as a PRIORITY!)
• Stop doing things that do not add value to your life in some way

Prune the Time Wasters

Learning to be ruthless with time is not about living a tight, no-nonsense, boot camp lifestyle. My passion is creativity, and creativity thrives in an arena of freedom. That said, pulling the weeds must be part of the process to enable healthy “lawn” growth. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Is this action, item (think maintenance time) or relationship aligned with my values?
2. If not, which items can be eliminated, minimized or influenced so they better support my values?
3. Do I enjoy doing this or do I feel as if I “should” because everybody else does?
4. Why is this in my life? Is this really my choice?
5. Does this add value to my life or my business in anyway?
6. How can this be simplified?

When we clean up the time suckers, we make room for more important, enjoyable and productive activities toward our most cherished goals.

Create Boundaries

The ability to say “no” is essential in being successful at anything. I know this because I used to say “yes” to everything, which I soon discovered was the fastest way to being unproductive. It makes a lot of sense, since you can only do so many things well. If you are the guilty type, offer alternatives when saying no then move on, please!

Here is a good way to mentally measure your progress:

If your productivity were to be measured on a typical graph (for demonstrative purposes), you would want to avoid any “spikes in the data”. This indicates that things have shot up significantly, but then dropped. Creating boundaries by being honest and offering alternatives (if appropriate) will allow you to stay consistent in your performance. Instead of being a star one day then crashing from exhaustion, over work and the disorganization that often follows, choose to stay steady. Anyone can realize a spike in their performance graph, however the goal is sustainable performance. That is effectiveness. It gives you credibility and earns you influence.

Simplify Processes

Think effortless speed when organizing and designing work systems. They should be simple, flow easily and require little thinking in execution; the thinking is done in the construction.

You can create easy movement by arranging “centers” for areas with high traffic. Grouping allows you to “report” to a given area for all your needs. It prevents scattering items you need, forgetting to replace things and finding yourself unprepared. I create and maintain a travel center, an emergency center (we live in hurricane territory), a workshop center (handouts, backups etc.) and a well being center (basket full of healthful essentials). By lumping things together and adding a tiny inventory list on an index card, it’s done and I can move onto better things. Periodically, I refresh the centers with what may be needed, replaced or simplified. You are basically putting key life/work areas into modules. These modules work well in making your overall life easier and enhance the feeling of effortlessness.

Once you get off that hamster wheel, clarify your values, prune and create boundaries, you can group what is left and organize it into centers/modules. These efforts will have you on your way to enjoying a life in control. I have seen many folks overlook such essential building blocks, only to create more stress and strain for themselves and everyone around them. The less stress you have, the more you can enjoy what you are actually doing. The more focus, the higher the quality of work you produce.  The more balance, the better your relationships.

We are not supposed to “get it all done” in life. Do you buy everything at the drug store or do you CHOOSE? What we can do is joyfully get “the right things” done. Now that is living!

Are you living in the land of The Almost?

You know, that place you dwell that feels almost right – but not quite.

Now of course our heart cannot sing at all times, but usually when a note has not struck for awhile it may indicate you are not living in alignment with your true joy. Perhaps it is a slippery slope when folks set out to design their lives. Many build their worlds to win the approval and respect of friends and colleagues. They make choices to feel important and worthy over joyful and passionate. When too many compromises are made in the name of winning outward approval, you may just step right into… The Almost – and boy can it get sticky there!

The Almost is so seductive. It lures us with adoring fans when we make a choice that is just ever so slightly more in alignment with someone’s (and society’s) values over our own. We dismiss that slither of uneasiness we feel convincing ourselves we are merely “compromising”, not quite realizing the impact of our choice. The Almost feels so much like the real thing it is easy to mistake it for a direct hit. We hold our arrow steady, take position and release the bow landing just one ring off center – “pretty good”, we think. We find ourselves soon rambling the positives of our almost hit, as we cover our passions deeming such pursuits penniless. How unfortunate.

Being a proponent of positive thinking I know well the value of focusing on the bright side of things. However, if we are talking creative power here, how we feel is a far greater force in regard to our ability to manifest our dreams, then mere thought. So I am inclined to rally self-awareness before all else.  It appears to me that living in The Almost may just be the common trap that drives many to seek outside support. The illusion of happiness it projects is so convincing that pinpointing the real problem takes multiple experts or alternatively the resigned distractions we so entertain. But it does not have to be that way.

Hitting the bulls eye when you release your arrow is not about accomplishments, awards, dollars-earned or beauty obtained, it is simply knowing you are leading a life that is a true reflection of who you are and what you value. There is no ideal life blueprint, although society would have you believe so – just your own. And hitting that mark on the first go round a joyful challenge. So by all means, miss the mark – several times, as many times as you need to – just don’t convince yourself you hit it should you happen to get weary trying. Your core, your truth, your voice is worth every bow you send. Nothing feels quite as profoundly satisfying as hitting it, and nothing feels quite as empty as convincing yourself you did. Aim again.

Where do we truly find inspiration? The kind of inspiration that makes us step back and evaluate the track we are on. What kind of moments, observations and epiphanies really inspire us to look deeper at our choices, lives and habits? Is it in the book we just read or the movie that moved us? Perhaps. Or are the most profound moments of inspiration less obvious, less direct?

Perhaps we underestimate the more subtle but deeper triggers that take us to new heights and inspire real change. Moments we observe the greatness of another in the ordinary. For example, when we observe the courage one has to speak up on a topic of passion or live a lifestyle foreign from our own and it inspires us, could this mark the first whisper that hints at our own desires and potentials?

It is in the small but extraordinary choices observed in others that hit a personal cord in us toward our own transformation. When we are motivated, something is pushing us but when we are inspired, something has been ignited within us.

The best way to mine the gold in sometimes fleeting moments of inspiration is to question why the inspiration is there in the first place. Are we inspired because someone moved in a direction we ourselves are afraid to go? Can we gain a greater understanding of our own fears, blocks and issues by observing deeper? I think so. Witnessing the greatness in another can launch a sort of inner lift to reach greater heights ourselves, however they may be defined.

It is our human nature to want to grow, expand and be more. If someone on our path displays an area of growth we long (consciously or unconsciously) to embody, we will feel inspired.

When we are inspired, we move to make changes. We often begin this process with action steps and plans. Although valuable and necessary, a more essential step may be in recognizing the necessary emotional landscape one needs to sustain the desired change. It could call for greater courage, conviction or faith.

When we begin to focus less on the actual changes we see, but on the emotional landscape of the changers that so inspire us, we can access the same power that will catapult our lives and visions in the same fashion. When we put less focus on the finished product and more on the internal emotional climate necessary to create “the product” we gain greater insight on how to make similar changes ourselves and more importantly…how to sustain them.

- Kristin Mackey

The three key “pearls” of wisdom when dealing with change:

HEAL -  It is essential during any time of change to start off on the right foot by first clearing the past or anything that holds you back from feeling peaceful and centered :  Journal, take a break, seek help, get a coach but VALUE the healing process.  Avoid suppressing emotions, issues and most importantly your voice – on any matter.  Give yourself permission to heal.  Do not wallow, but rather pause and offer yourself the self-care you need before taking the next step.

CLARIFY – Use a tool that supports you best (visual/audio/writing) and begin the process of getting clear on what you would like to do next. Think in terms of what brings you joy, excitement and happiness.  See change as an opportunity to craft the next best version of yourself.  Make it an act of creating a life you love rather then fixing something.

CREATE - This is the action-planning part.  I usually recommend having a visual tool displaying all of the areas of your life that need balancing or upgrading. Those of you that love lists, each areas has a place for the list-making!  The idea behind it is to “see” your whole life and all of the key areas so that you can begin taking micro steps toward MACRO transformation!

Life balance tool

Upcoming Radio Show Interview:  Sunday, November 7th at Noon:

1300WMEL

Florida Today News

Keynote:  I AM Worthy of Greatness

Friday, October 29th at the International Palms Resort in Cocoa Beach, FL.