Preparation Tips:

1. Get a good work out the day of or night before you present. Exercise helps get rid of excess adrenaline, increases confidence, posture etc.

2. Practice does not make perfect – but it does help with confidence. The definition of confidence is not that you won’t ever get nervous. We all get nervous. Confidence is knowing that if you get nervous you WILL recover. Practicing your material helps pave the way to recovering in a moment of nervousness or distraction.

3. Tell your co-workers and loved ones in advance that you are utterly and completely unavailable for an hour before the program begins until an hour after it is scheduled to end. Have back up childcare etc. if you have small children or pets that might need attention.

4. Print out your PowerPoint SLIDES so that you can add notes for yourself and so that during the presentation you can always see what is coming next without having to advance the slide on the viewing board.

5. Always, always, always check your AV at each location, each time you need it- far ahead of your start time. Even if you are sure-still check it. Check sound, electricity, computer connection etc.

6. Arrive early so you can own the room. Check temperature (too cold is better than too warm-but don’t try to please everyone-tell them to bring a sweater).

7. Tell your team what to bring, what you expect and how to behave BEFORE they show up.

8. Try and plan for every possible thing that can wrong and then let go.

“It’s all about the message-not the messenger.” Juanell Teague (speaker coach)

During the Presentation:

9. Take your time with the material. Remind yourself that there is a lot of wisdom and experience in the room. Rely on your teaching partner and honor the group, your teaching partner and yourself. If you do this you cannot go wrong.

10. Avoid checking email, texts etc. during the presentation because that could cost you your presence. Don’t allow others to talk to you about business unrelated to this program while you are giving the program-it will keep. You have worked this hard to assemble all of these people-stay in the room with them. On the breaks connect with individuals-not the outside world. Prep for the next section.

11. If you forget something or make a mistake say-”I forgot” or “I made a mistake” and let it go.

12. Remember that what you say from the front of the room is what people will think about and remember-so avoid apologies about temperature, environment, handouts or any other things that YOU cannot change. Talk about what you want them to remember- how great they are, how honored you are, etc.

13. Relax, everything will turn out fine. If everything fell apart and the slides did not work and the preparation all failed and you did nothing but talk to people and ask for their feedback and wisdom about up selling and cross selling and talked about your guests then it would have been a great day. Everything else is a bonus.

“Be sincere; be brief; be seated.” ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

The family is the pivot of all human existence. Whatever you see today is a product of one man uniting with a woman to bring about increase.

From the family a government is formed, leaders are made and groomed; followership is monitored and children are mentored. Every leader who must see ahead of others – a man who knows where he is going and how to get there, a man of vision, a man endowed with the revelation of things not yet seen, a man who sees when all else cannot perceive a thing, a clear, persuasive communicator, with a good command of respect and followership through trust – is only made, nurtured and groomed in a family (home).

Good leaders spring up from the home, no doubt, but only where there are good parents. Most parents are just parents who breed children with reckless abandon, succeeding only in destroying their children’s tomorrow by the wanton prodigal ways they have chosen to live in the present.

With the abundance of nature’s gift – human and material – we still find our family members living in anguish and desperation, taking on habits that are inherited by us; wandering in the wilderness of uncertainty and crime. What excuse do we have when we see these children carry arms and ammunitions, daring the government to a fight? What excuse do we give when we watch in helplessness the seeds we sowed in our children being harvested in the form of riots, armed robbery, thuggery, money laundering, arms running, drug peddling, kidnapping, child labour, etc? How do we feel when members of our families graduate to swell up the armies of “Area Boys”, “Almajiris”, “employed and unemployed militias”?

Are we not aware that everything a child knows, he learned from his environment? Besides the initial cry at birth, the child picks up everything else from his or her parents and the rest of the adult-world. The language he speaks, the norms and codes of his community, the conduct and ethos of his nation. A child steals because his teachers – the parents and older ones in the homestead – steal, and it seems normal to him or her. A child flees from such condemnable characters if he/she grew up in a decent environment where such evil characters are unknown or regarded as a mortal crime.

As children, we have learned the most palpable lesson from our families – do not dare to be or die poor! This has been working for us, especially in an environment where there is so much to steal from. When we look backward to those days when politics was for service, championed by men and women of vision, anger and frustration overwhelm us. We see them not as committed patriots and heroes, but as people without future. They had “nothing” to show for their labours of many years as leaders – they could not steal from the public treasury – no mansions and castles built with stolen funds, no foreign bank accounts. They were toppled to be “corrected” for their inability to transform corruption into a national culture.

Today, we know better. We have been bastardized by our present actions. Our national vaults are emptied of billion of dollars. The banks have become house of money laundering by people who waffle the national cheque which they took oath to protect.

Our home fonts are in shambles. Both mother and father are now in active politics. Children are left to grow on their own after hatching them out into a hopeless society. In the olden days, elders pray that their children will take after them, or rather resemble them, but not any more. Today’s parents do not truly look like parents – they are just nannies. They have left the children without breast milk – they only supply artificial baby food. This makes it difficult for anyone to utter such prayers. Ours is a society where the so-called mothers and fathers specialize themselves into all manners of despicable and debased acts of turpitude and profligacy – the kind that makes children not only want to disown them but seek to murder them if they had the means.

Where have we gotten it right in our generation? The issue of divorce, same-sex marriage and other alternative marriages make nonsense of everything. It would not out of place if one may ask here, “what manner of society are we building?” Is it a society where children may find it more of a damnable curse than a blessing to be wished to resemble their parents or a society where they would like to rise to the platform where their fathers and mothers stood? The decision is truly OURS!