Meditation is great for having peace and calm throughout the day. But what about when you want to be in the moment (like during meditation) for everyday activities? Many people call it being present.

I used to be a worry wort all the time! I would be thinking about the future, making myself guilty about the past, and rarely thinking about the moments I was getting involved in. There were a few times where I was present, and in the flow of my work. Those times were when I was listening and playing to music. But I wanted to be able to have this feeling of peace all throughout my day. Here are the techniques I used based on my discoveries.

1. Every time you get lost in your thoughts, think to yourself, “The past already happened, and the future is a result of my current actions. Focus on what I am doing RIGHT NOW.” This will help you get into the present mindset

2. You could also set a trigger. Sometimes people put a rock in their pocket to touch when they start getting angry. You can have any trigger – a deep intake of breath, a word/mantra you say, or every time you see a stop sign. Anything that will regularly bring you back into the present moment.

Over time this will become easier. Meditation takes practice, but what takes even more practice is being present. It requires you to not getting worried about stuff, get involved with your thoughts too much, or have meta-thinking (thinking about thinking).

CEOs, systems analysts, and civil engineers swear by storytelling these days for a riveting C-suite experience. My point is that presenters should stop telling “stories” that aren’t stories. More often than not, presenters patter along for a few bullet points and then stop occasionally for an anecdote break, under the illusion that they’re telling a story.

Here’s how stories and anecdotes differ:

Structure:

Anecdotes present a “slice of life.” That is, they describe an interaction, a situation, or a scene.

Stories have a hero struggling to overcome challenges to accomplish a goal. Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Delivery:

Presenters usually just “narrate” anecdotes. They describe what they heard, saw, said, felt. Most often, the anecdote flows naturally in the past tense because the person is talking about what happened yesterday, last month, or when they were child, a newly wed, or maybe a first-year grad student.

But stories… ah, when someone tells a great story, the listeners feel as though they’re watching a movie. The speaker sets the scene, and then it’s lights, camera, action. The storyteller delivers the dialogue and gestures the action. Listeners envision what’s happening while the story unfolds.

Purpose:

Most often, anecdotes illustrate something-a feeling (frustration, anger, grief) or a situation (poor customer service, stupidity, innocence, helplessness).

Stories may illustrate as well. But they typically add other dimensions-motivation to act, inspiration, emotional tension or relief.

Impact:

To illustrate the difference in impact, I’ll leave you with examples.

Anecdote:

Customer service has deteriorated until I no longer think you can call it “service” in some organizations. The other day I was flying out to Chicago. I’ll admit I haven’t traveled much in the last 12 months, but I felt as if I were in a factory being “processed.” No agents to check me in. Just a computer.

The TSA agents were extremely rude: “Where’s your ticket?”

I had a little trouble finding the email on my phone with my e-ticket to be scanned.

The agent kept saying, “Don’t you have a paper copy? Just give me your paper copy! You’re holding up the line!”

Why do they send e-tickets if they can’t wait a moment for you to access them? The gate agents were equally surly. One even hassled me for “oversized” luggage, which wasn’t! It fit in their sizing container just fine. It’ll be a long time before I fly that airline again.

Story:

Customer service has deteriorated until I no longer think you can call it “service” in some organizations. The other day I was flying out to Chicago for a 3:00 pm job interview. I was booked on an 8:00 am flight to arrive at 10:00. Plenty of time-or so I thought. They cancelled the first flight-without notice, no reason given.

Finally, I’m rebooked to arrive at noon. We land. I reach up in the overhead bin for my briefcase, and it’s gone. Then I see a guy heading off the plane ahead of me carrying my laptop! I yell at the flight attendant, “Stop him! He’s got my laptop!”

She acts as if she can’t understand what I’m saying. The guy with my laptop takes off running, so I start after him.

I’m dashing through the airport, but it’s crowded and I lose him before I ever get out of that corridor. Just as I stop to catch my breath, two police officers step up beside me: “Sir, you’ll need to come with us.”

“Me? Why? What’s going on? I have to make my job interview in an hour!”

They slapped handcuffs on me and the officer says, “You’re under arrest for… “

(Wouldn’t you be hooked in at this point? Do you see the difference between a story and an anecdote?)

Don’t get me wrong: Stories make a great presentation even better. Just chose them wisely and tell them well.

PowerPoint presentations, effective as they were in the past, are slowly being pushed out of the picture as people turn to more advanced methods of creating powerful presentations. Enter the 3D presentations. 3D presentation is much more illustrative and interesting; two very important keys in the delivery of a powerful presentation. So how can you build your own powerful 3D presentation that will interest and engage your audience? Below are five key factors that must be considered if you are to create a riveting 3D presentation;

1) Choosing the right tools; to create a 3D presentation, you are going to need some special tools such as 3D generation software. There are many such software available out there ranging from highly specialized software that require in depth understanding of popular programming languages to simple yet powerful software that do not require a single line of code and which can be used by virtually anyone. In choosing the software to use, consider the following;

- Can you use it? If you are not proficient in programming, you had better go for software that does not need any coding.

- Hardware requirements; do you have the hardware (such as enough RAM) to use the software effectively?

2) Developing a suitable storyline; you must have some storyline covering the entire presentation. The storyline, in this respect is a narrative of the flow of ideas that will be represented within the 3D presentation that you want to create. It is important to have a clear storyline before you even begin creating the presentation. When creating the storyline, ensure the following;

- It should be interesting; 3D presentations on even the most boring of topics can be brought to life through the use of an interesting storyline. It does not necessarily have to be entertaining (although that would be a plus if you can make it happen), but it has to be good enough to keep your audience interested throughout.

- Make it concise; a very broad storyline easily could lose your audience before they get to the end of the presentation.

3) Highlighting takeaways; in this context, the takeaways refer to the most important bits of information that you want your audience to get out of the presentation. You can’t expect them to remember everything you present so ensure that more emphasis is laid squarely on the most important sections of your presentation. The best way to do this is by identifying such sections right after you finish developing your storyline.

4) Differentiating yourself; even though you might be several presenters and all of you use the same software to make your presentations, there are many ways through which you can make yours different from the rest. You can do this by exploring all the tools within the 3D presentation software that you are using and not just the most basic tools.

5) Simplicity; great graphics are a powerful addition to your presentation, but they should be added cautiously otherwise they could make your presentation appear crowded or make it confusing and hard for your audience to follow.