3 Surprising Side Hobbies That Will Make You a Better Presenter

There are a lot of things you can do to improve your ability to give presentations, and most of them involve fairly direct practice as you have learned from me over the years. You might work on anything from breathing habits, to working on reducing your use of filler words, to mastering relevant technology and virtual presentations, and so on. Any number of actionable steps can make you a fundamentally more capable presenter. If you’re in a position that requires you to make regular presentations, though, you can also look to some more unorthodox ways to improve your speaking.

Here’s an idea that I’m pretty sure a lot of people have probably never considered: hobbies. The things we do just for fun or out of a sense of habit on a day-to-day basis tend to have a fairly profound effect on who we are and that of which we are capable. If you’re in the habit of playing the piano for an hour each evening, for instance, then you won’t just be a better piano player, but you may also be a more disciplined person or someone more capable of de-stressing when necessary. These are learned skills and behaviors stemming from what seems to be a simple hobby.

Of course not every hobby has a profound effect. But with this idea in mind, let’s look to a few assorted, unrelated possibilities—content consumption, playing poker, and dancing (Yes!  Dancing!)—and how they can make you a more effective presenter.

Content Consumption

The issue of rambling is a common one for some people who regularly give presentations. And while there are several strategies to address the issue—a few of which I addressed in a previous post—they all basically come down to simple concepts: giving concise, direct talks and generating engagement rather than talking at audiences. The latter takes practice and requires some conversational and performance skill. The former, however, more or less depends on self-editing—which is something on which you can consciously work or is something you teach yourself through the content you consume.

Specifically, the idea here is to get into the habit of consuming brief, productive, and informative content on a regular basis so you can essentially see how this is done—so you can see how not to ramble. If you like to listen to news or entertainment, consider short podcasts rather than those hour-plus-long discussions. If you’re a regular reader, consider using a service like Blinkist that shrinks material into summaries. These are hobbies that make little difference in the early going, but in time, they can impact your sense of what it takes to express an idea in a succinct fashion. Being exposed to this practice, you may become more inclined to favor concise explanations and brief overviews, and as a result, delivering more effective presentations will start to come naturally.

Playing Poker

Playing poker casually won’t necessarily help you to build any meaningful habits either with regard to presenting or otherwise. It’s easy enough to load-up a free poker app or download a computer game and simply meander through the hands, letting luck decide your results while passively enjoying the activity. When you start to take it a little bit more seriously, though, you quickly come to see that learning how to win poker games actually means developing a lot of skills that can be helpful in other walks of life.

Different players will learn in different ways, of course, but figuring out how to win doesn’t just mean knowing how to bet and bluff strategically or knowing when to capitalize on a given set of cards. It also means learning to play within your means; in other words, you learn to embrace humility.  You learn to accept and move on from mistakes, and you learn not to get carried away with successes. In these respects, poker teaches you to remain calm and steady in tense or challenging situations. (And there aren’t too many other situations that can be more tense than having to give a presentation!) If you struggle with staying within yourself or handling audience reactions (or lack thereof) when presenting, these poker lessons can help you in a profound way. You’ll simply be more in touch with the idea of getting through what you need to do with calmness and confidence.

Dancing

Dancing means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. (For me—and according to all my friends—it means I shouldn’t try it because I seriously have no rhythm!  However, I recently had an epiphany after completing a podcast recording with a fellow award-winning speaker.  I came to realize that I shouldn’t say that I can’t dance or sing.  Instead I should say I can dance and sing (Thanks, Genein Letford!)—just not in a fashion that will put me in a position to do either one professionally!) 

Dancing can be a sport, a social activity, a team activity, or just a way of goofing off or getting a little bit of a release. But studies have also indicated that no matter what the reason for it, there are real benefits to dancing as well.

These include heightened cognitive performance, lower stress, and even better social bonding—all of which can be immensely helpful in presentations. That’s not to say you should dance immediately before taking to a stage (although it might not hurt). But if you make a regular hobby of dancing, you may start to develop a way of slipping into that heightened, uninhibited state. Letting yourself go and not taking yourself too seriously when you present can remove all kinds of mental barriers and stress. You’ll know what it means to act with the social ease and sense of confidence that dance provides, and you can apply it to the style with which you give presentations.

Without question, there are more hobbies still that could be immensely helpful for a regular presenter to consider. And, of course, not everyone will be inclined toward any of these three. But the ideas above, nevertheless, demonstrate how everyday hobbies can teach skills that become ingrained and which can only help you become a stronger, more effective presenter. Consider your current hobbies and how you can take what you inadvertently learn from them to apply to other areas in your life with the goal of self-improvement. I’m sure you’ll find a surprise or two!

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Content credit: Lisa Murray, guest blogger

Image credit:  Joachim Kirchner