The secret weapon of every star PowerPoint presenter. You should never ever give a PowerPoint presentation without this. It's not just having interesting things to say. It's not having great slides with great images for each point. It's not just having a great secondary PowerPoint that you can email the people hand out with lots and lots of text. The secret weapon of every great PowerPoint presenter is cheat have a cheat sheet.

I never give a PowerPoint presentation without having everything I need on one sheet of paper at large font. So I don't have to sort of stop in the middle of the presentation but my glasses on and do that. It's very large font. I'll even have three identical copies, different places around the room so I can walk around glance. Sometimes I'll do it by having a sip of water. I put the last down right in Next to my outline, no one has any idea.

I looked at my notes. This way I'm not using the bullet points on a PowerPoint screen because I'm not using bullet points. I always know what to say. And it gives me complete control. Now here's the funny thing. I've had people come up to me after delivering a PowerPoint they say oh my god teacher, I was a greatest PowerPoint ever.

And the amazing thing is, you timed it so perfectly. You knew exactly. When your next slide was coming up. Well, no, that had nothing to do with it simply when I finished talking. I hit my remote to get to the next thing. It had nothing to do with memorizing anything but I did it without calling attention to it.

I just one quick click. I finished what I wanted to say. The next slide came up. So this takes all the pressure off because frankly, I have a horrible memory. I never had know what to say next. But I don't have to, because I use a simple cheat sheet.

For the differences. I don't let my audience say the cheating. Most PowerPoint presenters put all their notes up on the screen, there's no mystery left any idiot can read. But by having it on a simple piece of paper that no one else is looking at, you come across, much more authoritative, comfortable, confident, relaxed. And because I've put it all on a single sheet of paper, I don't have to pick it up, touch it, change pages and all that. Now, people say, well, TJ, you know, I've got too much stuff.

I can't put it on a single sheet of paper. That typically tells me you did a horrible job of putting your messages in priority and narrowing it down to your top five. If you can't fit all your key points that you're having trouble remembering on a single sheet of paper. How in the world do you expect your audience to remember everything you're saying everything you're talking about. And they're not the expert on it. You are.

So that's a good test right there. If you can't put all your notes that are most important on a single sheet of paper, you've already failed at putting a focus on what's most important.