another common thing, a lot of people use notes when they give presentations. some people use note...

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Presentation Basics VIP - AudioHello my VIP members. Welcome to this month’s lesson topic. Now, this month I’m going to talk about presentation basics. I may do more of these lessons in the future for advanced presentation ideas or advanced presentation techniques or methods, but in this one I’m going to talk about the very basics.

Now, when I talk about a presentation I’m talking about, for example, speaking in a meeting and presenting some information or doing a video like a YouTube video or something where you want to share information with people on your blog, on your YouTube channel, whatever. Or, of course, actually standing up and making a speech to a group of people. It might be three or four people and it might be three or four thousand people.

So there are some basic things, some basic principles that you should follow in all of these situations and I’m going to talk about them, some do’s and some don’ts. Of course, as you know, anything we learn here is always a little bit different than the normal, than the average. My opinion and my ideas about presentations are different than some of the things you may have seen and certainly different than the way a lot of people do presentations.

I want you to communicate effectively in your presentations and, of course, a presentation just means you’re speaking to a group of people. All the things I’m going to talk about right now in this lesson are, of course, important if you’re giving a presentation in English in a meeting, in a speech, even just semi casually. All these principles are very important, but they also will work when you give a presentation in your own language. These are general principles that work all the time, any language, so let’s get started.

First let’s think about what is the normal kind of presentation that we’re used to seeing. I go to a lot of meetings and conferences and seminars and speeches so I get to see a lot of presentations. I’ve seen a lot of really fantastic presentations by incredible speakers and I’ve seen some really terrible ones by some really horrible speakers and, of course, I’ve seen things all in between as well, just sort of your average presentation.

I would say the average presentation that you see in most companies, in most conferences, the normal thing is it’s traditional, it’s safe and it’s extremely boring. So what happens in these normal, traditional kinds of presentations at meetings, at conferences, at speeches, whatever, even teaching a class, right? Because you know when you’re a teacher and you’re teaching to a group you’re making a presentation. It’s also true of training, teaching, all of these situations, any time you’re communicating with a group, basically, and you could be doing it with technology or live in person.


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So what’s the normal thing we usually see? Number one, very, very common is people stand behind something, traditionally. I’ve been to many, many, many meetings and presentations where someone is standing behind a podium. So a podium is that kind of rectangular thing and they put their notes there and it’s got a little microphone on it and they stand and some people hold it and if they’re nervous they hold it really tightly and if they’re not nervous they just stand behind it and then they give their talk. Blah, blah, blah, they talk and they talk and they talk and they talk and they don’t really move very much. They’re stuck behind the podium. That’s an acceptable way, kind of a traditional way to give presentations. It’s also really boring and it looks terrible if you’re in the audience. It does not help the audience at all.

Another common thing, a lot of people use notes when they give presentations. Some people use note cards so they might [flipping through cards]. Other people, well, again, they like that podium because they can put their notes there on the podium and then they can look at them. So they glance down and they will check their notes as they’re giving their presentation. Or if it’s just a meeting and you’re around a table then people, again, they look and they thumb through their notes. They look through their notes. To ‘thumb through’, by the way, is a good little idiom. To thumb through notes means to go through them quickly.

All right and then I’d say the most common nowadays is, of course, PowerPoint. PowerPoint, PowerPoint, everybody loves PowerPoint slides and so they’ll project some PowerPoint presentation and then they kind of go through it. That is sort of the normal way of giving a presentation and it’s also extremely boring. This is what most people do and it sucks. ‘To suck’ means to be bad, to be not good, to be terrible. In my opinion, boring is terrible. It may not be horrible in the sense of people might not make a lot of mistakes, but it’s really, really, really, boring and you don’t want to be a boring presenter. If you’re presenting information then you’re trying to persuade people or teach people. You’re trying to get some effect on these people so you need to be powerful.

So let’s go through the don’ts and the do’s, the things you should not do and the things you should do to be a more effective, a more powerful presenter. Let’s start with the don’ts. I’ve already explained them. You basically don’t want to be normal. You don’t want to be like everyone else because everyone else for the most part is boring. So, number one, you do not want to just stand stiffly, just standing, and if you have a podium that’s the worst.

People like podiums because they can hide behind them. It makes you feel a little less nervous. You’ve got something blocking most of your body and you can kind of hold on to it, but some people even if they don’t have a podium they just stand there. They maybe move a little bit like this and maybe they’re holding their notes or not, but they have a microphone and they just stand through the whole presentation however long it




is and they just talk and talk and talk and they’re not moving at all. Now, for the audience that’s extremely boring. There’s no energy. There’s nothing. To watch somebody just, you know, standing like this and talking, horrible. So you don’t want to do that.

In fact, you don’t want to stand behind anything. If you have the option you want to avoid that. You don’t want a podium. Podiums are bad, don’t use them. If there is a podium there don’t use it. Get away from it. So if you have control over where you’re going to be speaking and how, always tell the people that you do not want to use the podium. At the least, get a microphone with a cord so you can move and you can use it, but you just gotta get away from that podium.

Something else you don’t want to do, you don’t want to read notes. Notes are not good. You do not want to be reading to an audience, not good. Every time you put your eyes down and you start reading through something the whole energy in the room drops. Very, very boring, it’s not effective at all.

Another thing that’s very common, unfortunately, and unfortunately it’s most common in people who do not speak English as their native language, I don’t why but I’ve noticed this that especially people from other countries, they did not grow up learning English, for some reason they try to use a lot of very, you know, difficult vocabulary. They’ll try to use the passive voice and they try to use all of this very formal English and I guess they’re doing that because maybe they feel insecure about their English and so because of that they’re trying to sound more intellectual or something, but you don’t want to do that.

Do not try to use complicated English. Do not try to use really big vocabulary words. Do not use the passive voice. For God sakes, please, do not use the passive voice when you speak. I don’t even think you should use it when you write. Whenever possible avoid the passive voice. The passive voice is like the kiss of boredom. It’s the kiss of death for your presentation, don’t use it. Use direct English and I’ll talk more about what you should do in a minute.

Along with this idea, avoid jargon and scientific terms whenever possible. Of course if you’re giving a scientific or a technical presentation you may need to use some technical language, but whenever you can use common, Basic English whenever possible. If you absolutely must use some kind of scientific term or jargon okay. Use it if necessary and your audience should easily understand it, but generally avoid it. Don’t use it to try to sound intellectual.

See, this is what happens, especially non-native speakers. They try to use more difficult English. They try to use a lot of very difficult vocabulary. They typically use very long, difficult sentence structures. They may try to use the passive voice and then they’ll try to




add in, you know, a lot of scientific jargon or jargon for their particular field and they’re doing all of this to disguise their insecurity about English. They feel a little insecure and nervous about their English so they’re trying to sound super intellectual by using all of this stuff. They think oh, everybody will think I’m so intellectual because I’m using these big words and all this complicated language. Well, that’s bullshit and, of course, ‘bullshit’ means totally wrong. When you’re doing that all you’re doing is boring people. You don’t sound intellectual, you sound boring. Don’t do any of that. Use the simplest English possible and if you’re speaking in your own language use the simplest language possible.

Finally, another tip is do not give handouts to your audience before the speech or presentation or during it. Don’t do it. Here’s what happens. You have some papers you’re going to hand out you want people to have. If you give it at the beginning or in the middle of your presentation people will not be focusing on you. Everybody will suddenly look down and they’ll be reading your handout while you’re trying to talk. They’ll be ignoring you or kind of half listening to you while they read, so don’t give them anything before or during your presentation.

So that’s all the stuff you want to avoid. It’s a lot of common mistakes. What do you want to do? What should you do to be a more powerful presenter or teacher or performing for a video, for anything. Well, number one -- you know I like this -- is you need to move. You gotta move. Now, I’m in front of a camera so I do tend to stand here, but you notice my arms are moving all the time and I’m actually having to stop myself from moving my feet around a lot, because, normally, if I’m speaking on a stage to people or speaking to a class I am walking around everywhere. I am constantly pacing. I go back and forth, left and right. I also go into the audience if I can.

If I’m up on a high stage then I can’t do that, but if I’m in like a normal classroom or something I’m walking into my audience many times. I’m constantly trying to be near as many people as I can and I’m dynamic. My hands are moving all the time. My face moves a lot. My feet, I’m walking and moving and pacing. I want lots of movement because that gives energy and it’s much more interesting to your audience. It makes your presentation much more powerful than standing there and giving a speech. So don’t just stand there, you want to move. You want to be walking. You want to be moving all the time. Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

This is something you’ll develop as you give more presentations or do more teaching or whatever it is you’re doing, whatever the situation is. Of course, you don’t want to be nervous and in the beginning when I first started speaking I moved probably too much, but it was because I was nervous, right? I was kind of shaky a little bit, but that’s still better than standing there stiffly not moving at all. So it’s better to move too much than not enough is my point, so move.




Another thing you should do is talk, chat. When you’re giving a presentation of any kind, I don’t care if it’s a business meeting or a speech or something in your private life it doesn’t matter, you should be chatting with people not reading. Do not read anything. So I know you’re thinking well how can I do it? How can I remember it all? Well, if you’re giving a speech about something or you’re teaching something or presenting something you should know it and if you don’t know it well enough then perhaps you need to review and rehearse and practice it more. So here’s how I practice.

I might have a couple notes, like a basic outline. Like right now as I’m doing this video I’ve got a basic outline of about five major points I want to talk about, but I’m not reading it. Okay, don’t stand stiffly. Do not stand behind anything. No, no, no, no, no. The only use of notes of any kind is just to remind you of the next topic, that’s all. It should just remind. What’s the next topic? You check your notes. You should glance down and it should take you two seconds. Ah, yeah and then you just start talking about that topic and you talk and you talk and you talk like you’re having a conversation, casually chatting.

When I do like big all-day seminars or for multiple days, that’s all I do. So, of course, I’ve got to practice that before. I have to know what I’m going to talk about. I have to know each of those topics very well and how I do that is I just practice like talking to myself about those topics. I’ll just be in my living room by myself and I’ll just start chatting about it imagining I’m talking to people. I’m not trying to memorize everything. Every time I practice it’s a little bit different.

You can also talk to other people about your topic, like actually have conversations about your topic. If you are doing a presentation with other people then you can kind of practice with each other. But, remember, you’re not trying to memorize. You’re just trying to get the major points and each time you do it it’s gonna be a little different. In that way it sounds like you’re actually conversing with people not talking at them, not saying some memorized speech. Memorized speeches are boring. There’s no energy in them. There’s no aliveness, but when you chat with people about a topic that you know well there’s an aliveness. There’s an energy. They feel it. Your audience feels it and it’s much, much, much more powerful.

That was the end of that topic, right? Here’s what I’ll do, just to give you an example. I’m going to look down and see what my next topic is. Oh yeah. I glance back up and now I’m just going to talk about it. I’m not reading anything.

So the next ‘do’ is you want to use casual, direct, simple English as much as possible. You’ll notice when I’m teaching you I’m not using a lot of complex sentence structures and grammar. When I talk to native speakers, when I talk to Americans, when I talk to Canadians, it doesn’t matter who I’m talking to I’m always using the most direct, simple,




basic language possible because I want to be powerful and I want to be understood clearly.

I’m not trying to impress people and make them think I’m super intellectual because I can use some big vocabulary word. I am focused on communicating powerfully and directly and that’s what you should be focused on too. If you communicate powerfully and directly and your information is good people don’t care about your vocabulary. They don’t care that you can use a lot of long sentences. Nobody cares about that and, in fact, those things are extremely boring. You’ve gotta do the opposite. Short, simple, direct, powerful, that’s how you want to speak English and even your own language.

Next thing, this is very big, PowerPoint or slides. It doesn’t matter which software program you use, but people use slides. There’s a phrase in American business ‘Death by PowerPoint’ and this describes the situation of going to some business meeting and watching someone put up a PowerPoint slide and the slide is full of words, usually these little bullet points, right? There’s a little dot which we call a bullet point and then some long text and then the next one and the next one. A lot of presenters what they do is they click the slide and then they just read them. They read the whole slide. Point number one and then they read it to the audience. Point number two and then they read it to the audience. Well, your audience can frickin’ read it by themselves. ‘Frickin’, by the way, is a polite way to say fucking and both of them just add emotional power to what you’re saying. So try and be a little more polite. I usually am not, but anyway it’s horrible.

If you’ve endured this yourself watching somebody put up some big slide with lots of words on it and then just proceed to read it step by step and then go to the next one and read it to you, I mean you feel like you’re in kindergarten. You feel like you’re a child. Why are they reading this to me? I can read it myself. Why did I come here just to have somebody read slides to me? Don’t do it. For God sakes don’t do that. So let me tell you how to use slides in a much more powerful and effective way. Use pictures not words. Use pictures not words.

You can take your own photos. You can find free photos called stock photos on the Internet. Some you have to pay for, some are free. You decide what you want to do, but what you want to do is choose a picture that gives the feeling of the topic that you’re talking about. Like if I’m talking, let’s say I’m talking about textbooks, textbooks are bad or something, well then I would find a picture of a textbook. That would be my slide. I would click it and a picture of a textbook would come up or maybe I’d have a picture of a textbook on fire if I could find something like that which would be even more cool and interesting, more dramatic. What you’re doing with the pictures is you’re trying to make an emotional impact. You’re triggering a memory, so you want something very visual that connects to the topic you’re talking about.




Another thing you can do, another technique, is you can use words, but a maximum of three words. You should never have a slide that has more than three words on it, one word is best. So if I’m talking about textbooks then I might just have the word ‘textbook’ really big or ‘textbooks’ on my slide and that’s all. It’s just a visual reminder of the topic. People look up ah he’s talking about textbooks now. Or, maximum of three words I might say ‘textbooks suck’! It’s a little more emotional and stronger so therefore more memorable. The whole point of the slides is just a memory trigger so again, maximum of three words on your slides, and finally, handouts.

If you have any handouts, handouts are fine, but give them at the end of your presentation. The handouts can summarize what you’ve talked about or provide additional resources and information. Whatever, it doesn’t matter, but give them at the end. Give them at the end so people listen to you while you’re talking completely 100%. Then at the end you give your handouts and people oh, cool. They get more information and they’ll be very happy.

Okay finally, the structure, the basic structure of a presentation. I’m going to go very fast with this. There are many possible ways to do this, but here’s what I recommend most of all. You start with a story or an example, then you recommend an action, then you tell them the benefit of taking that action and then, if you like, you provide additional supporting facts or evidence or research.

Most people flip this. They start with the research and everything and people get really bored listing to all these facts and by the time you try to tell the action they’re sleepy. It’s not powerful. It doesn’t work. Instead you want to give a story or an example. Tell them a story that illustrates your point and why it’s important. So, for example, if I was talking about grammar I might tell you the story about this student named Gladys that I used to have and she used to study grammar all the time. Every day she’s memorizing grammar, grammar, grammar, grammar, grammar, but then when it was time for her to speak ah- ah- ah, she could never speak very well.

Then finally one day I convinced her to stop doing that and to just use the Effortless English method and in three months she could speak much better and her speaking got better and better and better every month. That’s the story. Now, if I was really telling that story and I do tell that story in my seminars it would be much more detailed, but you get the idea.

Next, action, what should they do. So then I summarize, I say so do not study grammar rules. Instead focus on lots of easy listening. That’s the action, step two. Step three I say the benefit. So I tell them, if you do this you will speak English more fluently, more easily and more automatically and then, finally, step four the supporting facts or evidence. Then I might share, you know, a study by Dr. Crashin shows that easy




listening improves your grammar better than studying English rules and I might talk about more details and facts and evidence at that point.

That’s the basic structure for every single topic that you’re going to talk about. First give a story or an example or a case study, then tell them the action they should take, the action you recommend, then tell them the benefit of that action and, finally, at the end share the facts or the evidence. Not too much, but just enough. That is the basic structure. Do that for every topic in your presentation.

So I’ve given you a lot. Here’s what I want you to do for homework and I’ll talk more about this in the commentary, but I want you to do a presentation on video and then put it on our VIP site. You could put it on YouTube and give us a link. However you want to do that is up to you. Use your little webcam and give us a presentation about any topic at all and try to use as many of these principles and ideas as you can. And maybe some day you can come watch me speak like in front of a really big group and watch how I do it or just model and watch other great speakers, Tom Peters, Tony Robbins, people like that.

All right, good luck. In whatever situation you’re going to be speaking to groups, whether it’s two people or 2,000 or 20,000, whatever, follow these principles. I promise your speaking will be much better. Your audience will love you. You’ll have a much stronger impact whenever you give any kind of presentation.

All right, see you again. Have a great day, bye-bye.




Presentation Basics VIP – Mini StoryHello this is AJ. Hello VIP and welcome to this month’s mini story lesson. Some new vocabulary in here, let’s get started.

* * * * *

Roger the mosquito felt guilty about sucking blood.

So what was Roger?

A mosquito. Roger was a mosquito.

And what did he feel guilty about?

He felt guilty about sucking blood. Of course, mosquitoes suck blood. That’s what they eat.

Did Roger feel guilty about spending too much money?

No, no, he didn’t feel guilty about spending too much money.

So what did he feel guilty about?

He felt guilty about sucking blood.

He felt guilty every time he sucked the blood out of another person, slurp, slurp, slurp. In fact, his conscience bothered him constantly.

Now, that’s conscience spelled c-o-n-s-c-i-e-n-c-e. So we have the word conscious. That means you’re awake, you’re aware. That’s spelled differently, c-o-n-s-c-i-o-u-s, conscious. This is conscience, which is spelled a little bit differently and you can hear there’s a very subtle difference in pronunciation, conscious and conscience. The two ‘n’ sounds in conscience, the one we’re using in the story, are a little bit stronger, but that’s a very small difference.

Don’t worry about it too much. Don’t get crazy about the pronunciation. They’re very, very close, so don’t worry about it too much. But the point is his conscience bothered him.

Now, conscience, the one we’re using the story, it’s the ability to tell right from wrong. It’s the part of you that helps you feel what is right, what is good and what is wrong, what is bad or harmful. So if we say my conscience is bothering me, it means the part of




my brain that judges right and wrong is bothering me. So we’re feeling guilty because we did something wrong maybe.

So who was feeling guilty in this story?

Roger the mosquito.

And what was bothering him?

His conscience. His conscience was bothering him.

So that phrase ‘his conscience bothered him’, it means he was feeling guilty. He was feeling that he did something wrong, right? Because conscience it’s, again, the part of our mind that tells us when something is right and when something is wrong. So if our conscience bothers us it means it’s bothering us because we feel something is wrong. It means there’s something in our brain tell us that oh, maybe we did something wrong.

So whose conscience was bothering him?

Roger. Roger the mosquito’s conscience bothered him.

Did his left elbow bother him?

No, no, his left elbow was not hurting. It didn’t have a problem.

Was his right eye bothering him?

No, his right eye was not bothering him.

So what was bothering him?

His conscience. His conscience bothered him.

And why did his conscience bother him?

Well, because he felt guilty about sucking people’s blood. He felt that maybe it was wrong, that maybe it was harmful.

So his conscience bothered him about doing what?

His conscience bothered him about sucking blood.




In fact, he couldn’t sleep. Every night he couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned all night.

That’s a common idiom, common phrase ‘to toss and turn all night’. So when we talk about tossing and turning with sleep it’s the idea that you’re not sleeping well. To toss and turn means to roll around during the night. It means you’re constantly moving and turning and rolling around because you can’t sleep well. So the phrase is ‘to toss and turn’ or to ‘toss and turn all night’. If you say oh, I tossed and turned all night it means you had a very restless sleep. You were moving around. You could not sleep deeply.

So in this story, who tossed and turned all night?

Roger the mosquito. Roger the mosquito tossed and turned all night. In fact, he tossed and turned all night every night.

And why was he tossing and turning all night?

Well, because his conscience bothered him.

And why did his conscience bother him?

Because he felt guilty about sucking people’s blood.

So Roger the mosquito had a strong conscience, a strong feeling of right and wrong. He had a strong feeling of guilt and because of this every night he tossed and turned and couldn’t sleep.

Well, finally one day Roger decided to stop sucking blood. He said “I will not suck blood any more. I will not eat people’s blood.” But of course he still needed something to eat. He needed to find something to live off of.

Now, ‘to live off of’, that phrase ‘to live off of’, it means to get your livelihood from something. Now, we can use this to describe a financial situation or we can use it to describe food. So in this story we’re using it to describe food. It means it’s the source of your food, the source of most of your nutrition.

So, for example, Roger tried first to live off of apple juice. He tried to live off of apple juice. Every day all day he drank apple juice and only apple juice. He tried to live completely off of apple juice.

So ‘to live off of apple juice’ means that apple juice is your only source of nutrition. If we ‘to live completely off of apple juice’, it means you’re trying to get all of your nutrition, all of your life energy from only apple juice.




So Roger tried this. He sucked the juice out of applies, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp. Now, for a couple days it was okay, but soon he felt that the apples were too sickly sweet for him.

This is another informal phrase ‘sickly sweet’. ‘Sickly sweet’ means something that is too sweet. So normally if something is sweet we think it tastes good, but if something is sickly sweet it means it’s too, too, too sweet so it does not taste good. It’s kind of yucky. Blah, we don’t like it.

So apple juice for Roger was sickly sweet. He didn’t like it. It was too sweet for him.

So first what did he try to live off of?

He tried to live off of apple juice first.

Did he try to eat anything else?

No, he did not. He tried to completely live off of apple juice and only apple juice.

Did he try to live off of beet juice, b-e-e-t?

No, he did not try to live off of beet juice.

Did he try to live off of orange juice?

No, he did not try to live off of orange juice.

What kind of juice did he try to live off of?

He tried to live off of apple juice.

And who tried to live off of apple juice completely?

Roger the mosquito. Roger the mosquito tried to live off of apple juice.

Did he like apple juice?

No, he did not.

Why not?




Because it was too sickly sweet for him.

Did he enjoy the taste of apple juice?

No, he didn’t.

Did it taste good to him or was it too sweet?

It was too sweet for Roger. He thought it tasted sickly sweet, much too sweet.

Apple juice was sickly sweet to Roger and so next he tried to live off of carrot juice. So he sucked the juice out of carrots. Every time he saw a carrot he sucked the juice out of it. In fact, he tried to live completely off of carrot juice.

So he tried to live off of what kind of juice first?

Apple juice. First he tried to live off of apple juice.

And then second, what kind of juice did he try to live off of?

He tried to live off of carrot juice next.

Did he like carrot juice?

Yeah, he liked carrot juice.

He enjoyed carrot juice, but there was a problem with carrot juice. After five days of living off of carrot juice Roger turned completely orange. His eyes turned orange. His body turned orange. His wings turned orange. He was completely and totally orange.

And why was he orange?

Because he was living off of carrot juice. He was living completely off of carrot juice. He was only drinking carrot juice.

So who was completely living off of carrot juice?

Roger the mosquito.

And what happened?

He turned orange. Roger turned completely orange because of the carrot juice.




Well, he had to stop drinking carrot juice. He didn’t want to be orange and so he just stopped eating completely. He became hungrier and hungrier and he began craving blood.

Of course, the verb ‘to crave’ means to want something very, very, very, very, very strongly and to want something almost irrationally. Very emotionally you want it. You crave it. You need it. You must have it.

So what did Roger crave?

He craved blood.

When did he begin craving blood?

Well, when he stopped drinking the carrot juice. He stopped drinking the carrot juice, he stopped eating completely and after several days he began craving blood.

Did he want blood a little bit or did he want blood a lot?

Ah, he wanted it a lot. He wanted it very strongly. He craved it.

What did he crave?

Blood. He craved blood. He wanted blood. He needed blood.

In fact, seeing veins enflamed his desire for blood, any time he saw a person’s veins. He was flying around and he saw a person, a human and he saw their veins, the blood vessels, the veins, when he saw their veins he became enflamed with desire for blood.

Now, that’s a common phrase in English, ‘to be enflamed with desire.’ ‘Enflamed’, the verb enflame, to be enflamed, means to be on fire. That’s actually the direct meaning, to be on fire, to catch on fire, to be enflamed, but when we use it with emotion it means that a sudden strong emotion comes up in us. So, seeing veins enflamed his desire. It means it caused a sudden desire as if he was on fire suddenly. So this is the feeling of that phrase.

There are two phrases here. ‘To be enflamed with desire’ means it’s like your on fire because you desire something so much. We can use this romantically. You could say this to your girlfriend or boyfriend, husband or wife. “I am enflamed with desire for you!” It means you’re on fire because you want them so much. Woo, very sexy!




In this case, in this story, seeing veins enflamed Roger’s desire for blood. His emotion, his desire for blood was so strong it felt like he was on fire, like he was burning, that he needed blood so much. He was so hungry. He wanted it to much.

So Roger was enflamed with desire for what?

For blood. He wanted blood. He craved blood. He was enflamed with desire for blood.

And what enflamed his desire? What caused it?

Seeing veins. Seeing the blood vessels in people. Seeing people’s veins enflamed his desire for blood.

And who was enflamed with desire for blood?

Roger was enflamed with desire for blood.

And why was he enflamed with desire for blood?

Because he was super hungry, he was a mosquito and so he wanted blood. He was enflamed with desire for blood. He wanted it so much. He felt like he was on fire with desire.

He dreamed about blood whenever he went to bed. All he could think about was blood, blood, sucking blood. He craved it. He needed it. He was enflamed with desire for blood. Well, one day he was famished, totally famished.

To be ‘famished’ means to be very, very, very, very, very hungry. So if you’re super hungry one day you could say oh man, I’m famished, famished. It means I’m super hungry.

So who was famished one day in our story?

Of course, Roger the mosquito was famished one day. He was flying along and he was famished, so hungry.

He was still not drinking blood and he saw a tomato, a nice, ripe, red tomato and it looked like fresh blood to him. It looked so good so he flew over to the tomato and he sucked it dry, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp.

Now, ‘to suck something dry’ means you suck all the juice out of it until it’s totally dry.

So what did he suck dry?




He sucked a tomato dry.

Who sucked a tomato dry?

Roger the mosquito.

Did he suck some of the juice out of the tomato?

No, he sucked it dry. He sucked it completely dry. He sucked all the juice out of it and he loved it.

He loved tomato juice. He felt fantastic after he drank it. He felt wonderful and from that day on he lived off of tomatoes. He never drank blood again and he felt fantastic.

* * * * *

And that is the end of our mini story about Roger the mosquito. Just listen to this story each day at least once. Answer the questions with a loud voice. They’re easy questions just shout your answers and that’s all you need to do.

All right, I’ll see you again next time, bye-bye.




Presentation Basics VIP - POVHello this is AJ. Welcome to the point-of-view stories for this month’s lesson, so same story as the mini story, just a few different versions. First we’ll tell it as if we’re with Roger as everything is happening, like we’re going along with him as it happens.

* * * * *

So, Roger the mosquito feels guilty about sucking blood. His conscience bothers him. In fact, his conscience bothers him so much that he can’t sleep. Every night he tosses and turns all night. He tosses and he turns and he can’t sleep.

Well, this continues for quite a while, until finally Roger decides to stop sucking blood. He decides to completely stop sucking blood. Of course, he needs to live off of something, so first he tries to live off of apple juice. He tries to live off of apple juice completely and only apple juice, apple juice and more apple juice. Unfortunately, he doesn’t like the taste of apple juice. It’s too sickly sweet for him.

So next he tries to live off of carrot juice. Again, he only drinks carrot juice every single day all day. He actually likes the taste of carrot juice, but unfortunately he turns completely orange and he doesn’t like that so he finally decides to just stop eating completely. He gets hungrier and hungrier and he begins to crave blood.

In fact, seeing veins enflames his desire for blood. He dreams about blood constantly, until one day when he is famished he sees a tomato. He’s flying along and he sees a tomato. He’s so hungry he files down to this nice, ripe, bright red tomato and he sucks it dry and he loves it. He loves tomato juice and from that day forward he lives completely off of tomato juice and he never sucks blood again.

* * * * *

All right, the next version of our story begins with…

* * * * *Since the age of 15, since the age of 15 Roger has felt guilty about sucking blood. You see, something happened at the age of 15, a little extra information about Roger. At the age of 15 Roger sucked the blood of a small child and he sucked so much blood out of that small child that the child got sick and almost died and since then Roger has felt very guilty. He has felt very guilty about that incident and, in general, he has felt very guilty about sucking blood. That’s the part that caused him to become guilty; to become worried, to cause his conscience to bother him. It all happened back when he was 15 years old and since then his conscience has bothered him constantly, every day. Every day he has thought




about that incident and that child almost dying. Every day his conscience has bothered him. He hasn’t been able to sleep. He has tossed and he has turned all night every night since that incident happened.

What caused him to feel guilty? Well, making the child sick caused Roger to become guilty. So Roger has felt guilty ever since then. Since he was 15, since he made a child sick, Roger has felt guilty about sucking blood. His conscience has bothered him constantly every day. He has tossed and turned all night every night. He hasn’t been able to sleep, until finally one day it was too much, he felt too bad and he decided to stop sucking blood.

Of course, he needed to live off of something, so first he tried to live off of apple juice, but that was too sickly sweet for him. Next he tried to live off of carrot juice, but that caused him to turn orange. Finally he decided to stop eating all together, but then he began craving blood. In fact, seeing veins enflamed his desire for blood. He dreamed about blood all the time, until one day when he was flying along feeling famished he saw a tomato. He flew down and he sucked it dry and he loved it. He loved tomato juice and from then on he lived off of tomatoes and only tomatoes. His conscience felt better and he was happy.

* * * * *

Finally, our third and last version of the story, going into the future we can imagine that…

* * * * *

One day there will be a mosquito named Roger and he’s gonna feel guilty about sucking blood. (All our old members know that ‘gonna’ means going to. It’s a casual way of using the future.) So Roger is gonna feel guilty about sucking blood. His conscience will bother him. His conscience will constantly bother him. He’s not gonna be able to sleep. He’s gonna toss and he’s gonna turn all night.

He’s gonna toss and turn all night every night because his conscience bothers him because he feels guilty about sucking blood, until one day in the future he’ll decide to stop sucking blood and he’ll first decide to try to live off of apple juice, but that’s gonna be too sickly sweet for him. He’s not gonna like that. So next he’s gonna try to live off of carrot juice, but that’s gonna turn him orange and he won’t like that. So next he’s gonna decide to not eat at all, but then he’s going to crave blood. He’ll crave blood more and more and more. In fact, seeing veins will enflame his desire for blood. He’ll dream about blood constantly. He won’t be able to stop thinking about blood, blood and blood.




Well, finally one day he’ll be flying along feeling famished, super hungry. He’ll be feeling famished and he’ll see a tomato and he’s gonna fly down to that tomato and he’s gonna suck it dry. He’s gonna suck all the juice out of that tomato and he’ll love it. He’ll love it! It’s gonna taste great. He’s gonna feel fantastic and from that day forward he’ll live only off of tomatoes and he’ll be happy for the rest of his days.

* * * * *

All right, so that’s the end of our point-of-view stories. They’re very simple and all you need to do is listen to them at least once each day. Just doing that will help these different grammar points of view get deeper into your brain until they become automatic. You don’t need to think about them. Don’t analyze them. Don’t worry if I’m mixing different grammar tenses in the stories it’s totally normal. Just focus on the stories, listen for the differences between the stories and that’s all. Don’t think too much.

All right, enjoy and I’ll see you again next time, bye-bye.




Presentation Basics VIP - CommentaryHello this is AJ. Welcome to the commentary for ‘Presentation Basics’. So these are indeed the basics, the basics of giving a presentation, the core, the fundamentals. If you just follow those do’s and don’ts that I taught in the video you will do quite well with your presentations.

Now, of course, I know that for most people nervousness is a major issue when giving a speech, especially if you have to stand up in front of a group. It can feel quite scary for a while in the beginning for the first several speeches and I don’t have a perfect cure for that because, honestly, I think there’s always going to be a little bit of nervousness, but I’ve found that the first cure for that nervousness is just, knowing your topic very well.

So in the beginning before a speech I would practice it constantly for at least a week beforehand, sometimes two weeks beforehand and, again, when I say practice I do not mean memorize. Memorized speeches are horrible. Never, never, never memorize a speech; however, you can practice it and by practice it I mean you just talk, talk, talk about the topic. Talk in the mirror. Pace around. Walk around you living room and talk about it. Talk to yourself in the bathroom. Talk to yourself in the shower. Just constantly be giving your presentation talking about the topic or topics and by doing that all the time you really become more and more secure. You feel more secure. You feel more confident because you’re just so used to talking about it.

Here’s another great thing, another reason why this is so important. See, if you try to memorize a speech you’re going to feel more nervous not less nervous. I promise you it will make you feel super nervous. The reason is if you’re trying to memorize every word of a speech well, number one, of course, it is boring and it’s a stupid thing to do so don’t do it. But in addition to that, in addition to it being boring and stupid it also will make you feel so much more nervous because if you’re trying to memorize it then that means you might possibly forget, right, especially when you’re standing on that stage and you’re really nervous facing all those people and suddenly you can’t remember what’s the next word, what’s the next sentence. I tried to memorize it all. I tried to memorize every bit of this speech and oh, my God, I can’t remember any of it ah!

Isn’t that the ultimate fear of any public speaker that you forget your speech while you’re standing there in front of 30 people, 100 people, your boss, whatever, right? That’s the nightmare, the terror. Well, if you try to memorize a speech that fear is going to be in your head I promise you and it is likely that you will forget something. The problem is if it’s a memorized speech if you forget something then you don’t know what to do next, you kind of panic. On the other hand when you just prepare by just talking about the topic, just chatting to yourself about the topic and just trying to remember the major points and each time you practice it might be different.




You practice it one time and you might say it one way and then the next time you practice it just spontaneously you end up saying it another way and then the next time you practice it it sounds a little bit different again. You keep talking about the main points, the same topic, but every time it’s different. It sounds different. You might use different emotion. You might move differently. You’re using different words somewhat each time.

See, what you’re doing in that process, number one, you’re reminding yourself again and again and again of the main points, what’s the most important part, but the other thing you’re doing is you’re teaching yourself to be more flexible. You’re teaching yourself to improvise a little bit, right? Like if the topic you’re talking about is, I don’t know, emotions “What are the three ways to increase you’re emotions” as long you remember the three major points you might explain each of those points quite differently each time. In fact, as you practice you may even try different methods, different stories, different ways of explaining it.

So you might explain it one way and then the next day you’re like ah, that was okay. I’m going to try explaining it in a different way and then every time you explain it somewhat differently. It’s just a little different each time. It feels a little different and so you’re giving yourself a lot of options and you’re teaching yourself to just think quickly about the topic, to just speak in a free conversational way, which is so easy when you think about it. If you’re just talking to your best friend you don’t need to plan it. You don’t need to memorize anything you just talk to them, so that’s what you want to do when you stand in front of a huge group too.

So when you practice in this way by just chatting to yourself without notes or with only just listing the major topics that’s all, then when you stand in front of a group if you forget one point it doesn’t matter because you’re so used to just talking about it in a very free natural way that you’ll just improvise, you’ll talk about it in another way. You forget one story it doesn’t matter because you’ve already practiced it and you can just think of another story and you’ll just tell the other story.

This has happened to me many times. I mean I’ll do sometimes four or five hour seminars or even we’ll do seminars that are two days long or three days long. Now, there’s no way I could memorize all of that information and I don’t, but I know the main points. I know the main topics. I’ve talked about them and practiced them so much that I can easily, easily, easily, easily talk for hours and hours and hours about those topics.

In fact, I prefer to be organized and to prepare, but if necessary I could just walk into a room with 500 people and I could talk to them for four or five hours about learning English or teaching English or a topic like that, just because I know the topic so well. So that’s why the cure to nervousness is just knowing your topic so, so well and being able to talk about it in a very free way not in a memorized way, not in a very formal way, but




just to be able to chat about your topic. You should be able to just talk and talk and talk about your topic to your best friend without really hardly thinking. It should just be so easy to do.

Once you can do that your nervousness will drop a lot. I’m not saying it will disappear because it won’t in the beginning, but it will go down a lot and then when you get in front of the group you’ll start talking to them, you see that they’re responding to you, that they’re positive, it’s going well, then you’ll get that energy from the group which is great and everything will go well.

In fact, there’s a kind of positive feedback loop that happens in presentations. What’s a positive feedback loop? A loop is a circle. What it means is that if you are interesting and energetic and natural your audience then will respond in a positive way. They’ll become more energetic, more interested and you then as the speaker you’ll feel that they are more interested.

You’ll feel their energy and that will increase your own energy as you’re standing in front of the group and you’ll feel stronger and more confident and more energized and because you feel stronger, more confident and more energized the audience will feel that and it’s back and forth, back and forth. It gets better, better, better. It’s that upward spiral we talk about a lot and that’s what you want to create and you create that by knowing your topic very, very well, by practicing it in a natural way, not memorizing and by following the do’s and the don’ts that I taught you in the video. It’s that simple really.

Then the great news is if you do a lot of presentations, the more you do the less nervous you are. So the first time you still might be nervous. You’ll feel better, but at the end of it it will go well, I promise you it will and then you’ll feel a little more confident and you’ll be like hey, that went well. That was kind of fun. Then the next time you’ll feel less nervous and then the next time less nervous, until eventually you’ll start feeling excited instead of nervous. This is the process that I have followed. When I first started doing speeches I was nervous. Now I’m excited. Now I love it. I’m really, really excited before I give a speech. I’m not nervous and you’ll also reach that as well.

So I think as you can see, once again in this VIP Program with Effortless English, I am encouraging you to be different, to break out of the normal pattern, the normal way that things are done, because the normal safe way of doing a speech is to write it and then stand behind a podium and read it to your audience. You know, maybe read it skillfully with some emotion and some planned movements, but still that’s the normal way.

I mean the President of the United States that’s all he does. People talk about the President being a good speaker, but I disagree. I think he’s a terrible speaker. What does he do? He’s not a speaker he’s a reader. He has a teleprompter, which is a little video screen and it’s under the camera and he just reads it. He reads it with fake




emotion. That’s not a speaker. That’s not real communication it’s fake. It doesn’t really inspire people. It doesn’t really communicate well. But great speakers if you see them live and you’re in a room with them they’re electric. There’s just an incredible energy and power that comes from them and the audience feels it and the audience has a kind of electricity, this kind of energy that goes to the audience and it builds and gets stronger and stronger. That is great speaking.

Tony Robbins is the best example of that that I’ve ever seen. He’s an amazing, amazing speaker, but I’ve seen a lot of others. David Wolf is a fantastic public speaker. There are lots of different ones. They’re not all you know super energized, running around yelling and crazy, but they all have just some incredible emotional power. They all follow the do’s and don’ts that I taught you in the video. They’re all very natural. They’re not reading from a teleprompter. They’re not reading from a piece of paper and they are not reciting a memorized speech.

So it takes a little bit of courage to be different, right? It’s safe. It feels safe to write out your speech and then just read it to the group or to have a handful of note cards and just kind of, you know, read through your outline. It feels safe to put up a slide and then just read the slide. It’s easy, right? Yeah, it’s easy for you as the speaker, but it’s terrible for your audience. So to do it the way I taught you in the video I know that for some people it can feel a little scary because you have to be yourself.

Here’s what it really is about. It’s about standing up there and really just being you, not trying to be some super authority and pretend like you’re this incredibly super intellectual person or you’re like super important, whatever, not hiding behind notes and a podium and slides, but just stand there and talk to people. Be real with people. Be a real human being. Communicate to them in a natural, real human way with real human emotions, with real physical movements, with real eye contact. I mean treat them like real people. Talk to them the way you would talk to your best friend. That’s what I’m saying, basically.

Now, of course, when I’m talking to 500 people I’m doing my best to give them all the energy I can so I’m much more energetic than I would be with just my best friend, but when I talk to my best friend about something I’m excited about I’ll talk to her and I’ll be moving my arms. I talk in basically the same way that I talk to a group of 500 people. The only difference, as I mentioned, is that feedback loop, that upward spiral.

The only difference is that when I talk to 500 people I feel all of their energy, 500 people. So then I start getting more energy and they get more energy and so I am like super energized. It feels fantastic and it’s a lot of fun. It’s fun for the audience because they have a great experience and its fun for me because I have a great experience. I love connecting with that. I love it. That’s why I enjoy it. That’s why I do it.




I basically make no money from my presentations. Sometimes I lose money, but I do it anyway because I just love connecting with people like that. I love doing it. It feels great. It feels great for me and it feels great when I see that people in the audience are really happy and having a great experience and really learning something too. It’s a magical thing when you do it well. So that’s why it’s important and that’s why I really want you to make an effort and follows those do’s and don’ts, even if you’re doing a technical presentation.

Because I know some people say yes, AJ, but I have to give a presentation to scientists so I can’t do that. It’s like no, bullshit, yes you can. You can talk to them like a human being. I mean you should be interested in your topic, right? Even if you’re giving a very technical topic presentation you should still be interested in it. You should know it very well. You should be able to talk about it in an interesting way, in a natural way, the same as if you were sitting there talking to a colleague that you were sharing this exciting information to. Well, you do the same thing with a large group.

So you get the idea, right? All right, I hope so. So what I would like you to do this month is to do some presentations. Your homework is to get out there and make presentations. There’s only one way to get better at this and that’s to do it. You gotta do it. You gotta try these things I’m teaching you. You gotta practice them, practice them. Practice them at home in your living room, in your bathroom, in your shower, whatever and then the final step is you do have to stand in front of a group and do this. So what I want you to do is get out there and start making some presentations.

You could join a Toastmasters group, that’s a public speaking group and they have clubs all over the world, in different cities around the world. Get on the Internet and look up Toastmasters, you might have a group in your city. If not I’m sure that somewhere in your town there is some kind of public speaking group. I encourage you to go there and to join and to just make a few speeches. Or you could sign up with a speaking bureau and offer to give public speeches about whatever topic you’re interested in. You just sign up. You tell people what your topic is and you tell them you’ll do it for free or if they need to pay you. You get on a list and then groups will invite you to come make a speech.

Or, if you like, you could make a video like a YouTube video and do a presentation about something following what I taught you in this video this month trying to follow those principles. That’s good too and I would like you to do it, but it’s not the same as standing in front of a group, as you know. Because when you’re just talking to a camera you might feel a little nervous because you know a lot of people might see it, but there’s a different energy when you’re in a room with people.




I mean, this is still why I do it. Like I love making these videos for you VIPs, it’s fantastic. I love doing it. I love connecting with you in that way, but the reason I still go to different countries and teach classes and do seminars and make speeches is because I miss the personal contact of being in a room with real people. It’s different. It’s a different level of energy, much, much more intense and I love it.So make a video and share it with us, a presentation about any topic you want yes, but especially get out there and teach a class or make a presentation to a group of people and start practicing these do’s and these don’ts. I promise you you’ll get better and better and I’m guessing you’ll really start to enjoy making presentations in the future.

Have a great day. See you again, bye-bye.




another common thing, a lot of people use notes when they give presentations. some people use note...

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