When you’re choosing a driving present, although it’s a generous gift and everyone likes fast rally cars, you want to make sure you get the present they want the most!

So you’ve got to think (it’s the thought counts – awww!) about what driving level the person you’re buying the rally driving present for is at? If they’ve never been rallying before, you want to go for the beginners courses which are in “slower” rally cars, that are much easier and the person you’re buying it for will probably get more satisfaction out of, rather than being slightly frightened at the adrenalin rush of trying to go as fast as possible round trees and rocks!

If they’ve done some rallying / racing before then you might want to go for a more advanced rally driving present where they get to drive faster cars! Or they might be an experienced driver who does a lot of driving for example like someone who always drives a van in the day or maybe even a truck driver, and so they know some basics already. They might also be interested in rallying so you could ask them; “what’s your all time favourite rally car?” If they answer Ford Escort Mark 2, Subaru Impreza or Mitsubishi Evo (which is likely!) then choose a present that has that car to drive in it. They’ll be delighted, because some people never get the privilege of doing the incredibly exciting thing of driving your all time dream rally car!

Perhaps they / you own a 4 x 4, or live in a place where 4 x 4′s are useful or maybe even someone who has come off the road at some point (especially in the extreme snowy climate we must all remember right now!) and they want some training in off road driving. Most rally schools have 4 x 4′s like Land Rovers for example and highly trained and experienced instructors to go with them, so it’s a safe bet to buy a 4 x 4 driving present for someone who is in some way interested in 4 x 4′s. 4 x 4 driving presents are mostly cheaper than the rally ones anyway, and they can be considered more “beginner” activities because they are slower, but they can also be more challenging on the advanced courses.

Either way, your loved one / friend or you will have the ride of your life when you purchase a rally driving present! Life’s too fast, so don’t let it pass you by booking today to get a highly valuable skill that can save lives and accidents, and build huge assuring confidence!

Please check out the website right now for some top tips and where to find the right rally driving present by clicking here rally driving present, you’re going to love it.

There are interesting ideas for an effective PowerPoint presentation. These ideas will make your presentations have a bigger impact. Your message will be communicated more clearly and will impress your listeners making your ideas stay in their memories. The people attending your exhibition will focus on what you are doing and this will make your message clearer and more memorable.

Use graphics, visuals and pictures to make your slide show more lively. Research has proven that people remember information better when it is communicated visually. Use the insert menu and follow the directions for inserting a picture from a file. It is really quite easy to add pictures to your presentation.

Animations will capture the audience’s attention and their imagination. Using an animation will keep people’s attention from drifting off. Animations are the type of finishing touch that adds a professional style. You have a better chance of making an impression when you use animations.

When your presentation is a software application training session the use of computer screen shots is a simple but effective technique. Screen shots will simulate the feel of actually operating the software application. Your participants are familiar with the layout of standard computer screens. This familiarity will make them feel comfortable which will make them more receptive to your teaching.

Large amounts of simple text and particularly bullet points are guaranteed to make your participants drift away. Why give a presentation if you are going to just display text. You might as well just email the participants a text document that they can read on their own time. You need to make a lasting impression on your participants. To do that, you must capture their attention and their focus. Graphics, pictures and animations will do that but plain old text will not.

To get your points across you will have to have your participants attention from the very start of your presentation. In fact, your introduction is the most important part of your presentation. If you do not capture and hold the audience’s attention from the beginning it will be almost impossible to get it later on. For this reason, work hard on creating a good introduction that piques the participants curiosity and sparks their imagination. A little bit of humour can help but do not over do it with jokes. Asking the participants interesting questions will make them a part of the presentation. Asking them questions is a good technique for holding their attention and engaging the participants.

Be careful not to speak in a drone like voice. Modulate your voice so you do not bore people. You do not want to sound as if you are reading from a script. Doing that can lull your listeners to sleep. Speak as if you are just talking to a friend. Never read a script off of index cards. Practice your presentation until you can do smoothly without reading from any notes.

Let us review these ideas for giving an effective PowerPoint presentation. Capture the audience’s attention with pictures and animations. Stay away from a lot of text and things like bullet points. Audiences are bored by these and their attention will wander. Prepare an interesting provocative introduction that will grab the attention of your audience. Use questions to engage the audience and to get them curious. Modulate your voice so that your audience does not become bored or fall asleep on you. Following these simple tips will improve your communications. Your audience will stay engaged and will enjoy your presentation. A well prepared presentation using these tips will show true results.

Why don’t people get better at public speaking just by speaking in public? Same reason golfers don’t get better just by playing golf. But both could make giant strides if they just understood how Talent actually works. It is understandable, it is systemized, and it can be replicated. I’d like to show you how…

I have a long and detailed presentation on Talent, but here is the simple version. Talent is neither inborn nor genetic. To develop Talent – in anything – you need all of the constituent parts in this formula:

TALENT = Yearning + Input + Deliberate Practice, Sustained.

That’s it; the whole enchilada. And it applies to anything.

This formula is the result of decades of international study into the topic of Talent, and is admirably explored in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, and Geoff Colvin’s Talent is Overrated.

The Talent Equation:

Let’s start with Yearning. You have to want to learn. If you have no desire to improve, the other factors will remain irrelevant, in a ‘horse to the water’ sort of way. But if you do have even the slightest inkling for betterment, you’re already at a distinct advantage over those who do not. Now you will need the next factor: Input.

Input is any form of teaching or coaching. Simply put, you need someone to show you how. If you have yearning but no input, your development can only progress so far, and it will be slow.

It’s important to note that self-teaching is not nearly as effective as having another person coach you, particularly in the early stages of developing proficiency in a new field. Master practitioners may know enough about their fields to coach themselves, but starting out, we don’t know what we don’t know.

The Most Important Ingredient:

The next factor is the most important of all: Deliberate Practice. This is vastly different to what most people consider to be practice. Deliberate Practice occurs when you break a thing down to its constituent parts, and then work on getting better at each part in isolation. You achieve this only through mind-numbing amounts of repetition, with a focus on improving each element.

It explains why some people can put in the fabled 10 000 hours of practice playing golf, and not improve one jot, while others will soar to the professional ranks with the same amount of time. The difference lies in how they practice.

An average golfer, for instance, will spend x amount of time playing a round of golf. There may be yearning, but there is no outside input, and no deliberate practice. Just generic golfing. Hence, his time teaches him almost nothing.

A great golfer, however, will spend the same number of hours practicing precisely how to get a ball out of a sand bunker. He focuses on just this one element, and does it over and over, thus improving one constituent part of his total game. He then moves on to another part. And that is Deliberate Practice. He may even do it in conjunction with the input of a coach, which would greatly enhance his efficacy.

And that’s why most people will never get better at Public Speaking, despite a lifetime of giving presentations at work. They are not improving the constituent parts of their speaking abilities. Moreover, they receive little to no coaching or constructive feedback.

They are merely ‘playing a game of golf.’ Furthermore, they are generally traumatized by each instance, which reduces their capacity for the very first element in the Talent equation: yearning. Because they fear it, they don’t want to learn how to do it better.

How to Apply the Talent Equation to Public Speaking:

So, armed with this knowledge, how exactly do you break Public Speaking down into its bits and pieces; it’s constituent nuts ‘n bolts?

I have an exercise that I use when training executives, and you can try it for yourself. Initially, it looks and feels rather ridiculous. But the more time we spend doing it, the more the benefit becomes apparent to my trainees.

I get them to stand in front of a room, as though poised to deliver a speech. But that’s where things get abstract: Instead of speaking, they have to count. They have to count using different emotions, and at different speeds and volumes, as though they were giving the greatest oratory performance in the history of public speaking, with every shade and nuance of feeling, even though all they are saying is, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5… !”

Why?

Because it allows them to practice the parts without having to think about the words. I take intellectual content out of the equation, I take fear of speaking out of the equation, and I get them to focus only on the rhythms and physical movements of speaking. This way they can work on what to do with their hands; how to stand and move; how to use their voices; how to create emphasis and emotion, pausing, playing with facial expressions, etc.

It’s like a musician practicing scales on a piano. In fact, I call it ‘the scales of public speaking.’

Having coached them through this process, I then assign homework. My delegates must spend a certain amount of time in front of a mirror at home (preferably in private; families have a way of doubling over with laughter), and simply ‘going through the motions,’ over and over, until they like the rhythms and patterns they see in the mirror.

Then, once they are back in front of a live audience and they replace the numbers with content, the deeply ingrained muscle-memory kicks in, and the grace is naturally there.

Deliberate Practice. Break down and rebuild. It’s the single greatest distinction between amateurs and super-performers.

Danger Zone!

Here is an interesting and counter-intuitive point about Talent. When it starts coming naturally and automatically, you have hit your first Talent Cap; your first developmental ceiling.

This happens in a very obvious way with driving. When your average driver gets to the point where it ‘comes without thinking,’ he has hit his performance potential and will generally not improve further over the course of a lifetime. Sometimes, he will even get slightly worse, year by year.

So, is it possible to break through such a performance barrier, and achieve the next level of performance? Yes. But only consciously. You have to identify the ceiling – realize that you have reached a level of automatic proficiency – and then overcome it by design. Otherwise, it will simply never happen.

Using the car example, once you’ve reached automatic proficiency and realized it, you might then do an advanced driving course, which pushes you beyond your comfort zone, or perhaps learn some new, daring stunts involving a car (just not in my neighbourhood, please).

This forces you to think about your craft again, and to learn by conscious design instead of repeating apathetically.

If you identify and use this simple principle, your performance potential – in any sphere – will be leagues ahead of most.

Happy counting!