All "bad" presentations struggle to keep the audience interested. The audience squirms wishing they could escape. The audience has given the presenter an hour of their life, so they want that hour to be useful. It's disrespectful of a presenter to not show up rehearsed and prepared with information and insights that will improve the lives of the audience in some way. Presenting will do only one of two things for you: it will either diminish your credibility or yield results. Most bad presentations hurt the presenter's credibility.

When ideas are communicated effectively, people follow and change.

Spending energy to understand the audience and carefully crafting a message that resonates with them means making a commitment of time and discipline to the process.

President Reagan was a master communicator. In this particular speech he did a brilliant job moving between the stately role of U.S. President and a national eulogist. The pain of the event was etched on his face. In 4 short minutes, he addressed five different audiences. He spoke to the collective mourners, families of the fallen, NASA employees, school children, and even took a poke at Russia. He communicated comfort and patriotism within a very short timeframe. That's not easy to do.

Sometimes all it takes is a kind word of encouragement to get your heroes back on the right path.

Effective communication is fascinating to me yet bad communication is just as fascinating. There are lessons to be learned from both. I can't say I am a natural communicator, it's taken a lot of work to be able to develop content relevant to the audience and deliver it with credibility. My initial natural ability tended to be more around the visual display of information. For years I was more comfortable visualizing other people's great thinking. I preferred to be hidden behind the curtain than a thinker myself.

Personal stories are the emotional glue that connects your audience to your message.