PowerPoint Tips That Actually Work

Ever sat through a presentation where the clipart felt more like a stock photo shoot than a meaningful visual? Or where the slides looked sleek on a laptop but turned muddy on the projector?

In this short video, I share practical tips to help your slides function as well as they look:

• Say goodbye to generic images and cluttered text

• Keep your slides thematically consistent

• Test your colors on a projector — trust me, it matters

• And my favorite trick: hit the “B” key to blackout the screen and bring all eyes back to you

Whether you're presenting to a boardroom or a classroom, these tips will help you show up with clarity and confidence.

I remember this one day when...

If you’ve been to a therapist, some will ask for an early memory, some for a typical day as a child (or as an adult), and some understanding of how we see life. It comes out in some form of the following beliefs:

• Life is _____

• People are ______

• I am _________

• Therefore, I must ________

These techniques are a way into the part of ourselves that is on autopilot… How we see life, others, self, the task ahead. Some of us have had terrific childhoods where we learned to enjoy life, to trust others, and to be self-confident as we enter the world of work, love, and friendship. Some of us had a tougher childhood where we learned early and often that life is not fair, that people, even family, are not so nice, and that we had to prepare for the worst of life coming at us with a distrust of others, and the must is about heading aggressively into life or shrinking from it. The therapist’s job is to listen and try with us to unearth these hidden convictions that might rest just below our awareness but nonetheless account for our beliefs and actions. The psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs (and later the program “Empowering People in the Workplace”) suggested that we have an imaginative magic wand in his therapy sessions. “Go back to that early recollection,” he might say, “and you now have a magic wand. What do you want to change about that early memory or typical day?”

What happens frequently is a different set of beliefs:

• Life is _____

• People are ______

• I am _________

• Therefore, I CAN ________

Some of us have a magic wand in our daily life that can transform us from our musts to our cans. A powerful wand indeed. Some of us are unaware of its power. 

(For more information: https://www.positivediscipline.org/Empowering-People-in-the-Workplace)

Insights from a PharmD & an Executive Coach. What are YOUR ideas about the art of being an impactful MSL? Please repost if your network would find this useful. We’ve only scratched the surface, join our LinkedIn MSL community for more: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14462043/ and join our mailing list to receive the complete tip series delivered right to your inbox: http://eepurl.com/iYHNjY

Presence Speaks Louder Than Mute

We have an attorney on the faculty in the department I teach at Loyola University in Chicago who when participating in our meetings online looks as if she is in person with her smile, her reactions and responses, and her full engagement with the presenter. We should hire this person as our sometimes-one-and-only full participant. Also on a self-centered note, consider not just the presenter, think about your boss who is also scanning the crowd. Will you stand out like our attorney professor at Loyola?

Speak Up, Stand Out: Presentation Tips That Get You Heard

Your voice carries your message—make sure it’s heard. In this video, I share quick-fire tips to present with confidence and clarity:

• Skip the “Can you hear me?”

• Speak louder—yes, even if it feels awkward

• Keep slides short and punchy

• Make it about the audience—always

Your opportunity starts when they hear you. Don’t miss it.

No Time for Lunch…or Too Much Time!

How do you catch your lunch? Fast food, “Good Food Quickly,” pizza slices again? How about making your lunch stops planned as much as your KOL stops? And what if you experimented and made time for a mom-and-pop shop lunch or coffee places? Or bring your own and surprise yourself with where you will enjoy it. A park, the zoo, a quick moment bowling a lane or two. It can help you get out of an unsatisfying routine, and it might even give you something to talk about! Make your day not one full of appointments but rather full of exploration, both professional and personal. Where is your favorite place?

Blank Stares or…

How good of an audience member are we? Presenters often face a sea of faces with few smiles, little emotion, and blank stares…or worse, heads down checking phones and squeezing in one or more emails. They tell us speakers to engage with our audiences and that usually involves a strong opening story, some humor, and our movement around the stage making eye contact with the audience. Online can be a sea of…videos off! They can see us, and we cannot see them. So, as an audience and meeting member consider how you look to the presenter, to your boss, and to your client.

Small Sessions, Big Impact

Sharing reflections from a recent post-conference workshop. Attendance was small—just three participants—but the impact was significant. The intimate setting fostered rapid learning, engagement, and meaningful dialogue. When people choose to show up, they’re already invested. As facilitators, our focus shouldn’t be numbers—it should be delivering value. The right people always find their way in.

Watch the video to see how small sessions can lead to big takeaways.

Fate or Faith.

When you get discouraged or lose an account or a job, consider not what happened to you but rather consider your skills, not your fate. What are you best at? And how did you show up regardless of what they thought? How can you use your adaptability at this moment of time? How did you get through tough times before? It is so easy to find yourself in a pit of someone else’s making and begin to sit and stare at the sunlight disappearing. Instead of using a shovel to go deeper, use the shovel to carve out steps. Your shovel is your tool of talents. When we let others define us, even in our grandest successes, we are unknowingly setting ourselves up to be unaware of what got us there. It requires that we have faith in ourselves as others have in us.

Let My Fingers Do the Thinking

As we experiment with Artificial Intelligence, I’ve noticed that many of my colleagues rave about how much “content” they can produce using AI saving them time and, perhaps, creativity. Before the internet, our parents used phone directories. Quite literally books with everyone’s name, address, and phone number. The “Yellow Pages” were the commercial sections where you’d find your doctor, plumber, or gift shop. The advertisement was “Let your fingers do the walking.” I wonder if with AI we let our fingers do the talking, writing, “contenting”… all to our discredit. If our posts are really just you and me telling AI to write something that we allude to but not fully write ourselves, exactly how authentic is it? How authentic will it sound? Would we write a letter to a best friend with terminal cancer using AI? Or a valentine? Or a eulogy? I see uses for AI but I never use them to post, write, or correspond. I want my fingers to help me do my thinking and my connecting.

Present First, Explain Later

I’ve sat through many presentations lately and too often presenters save the best for last. But leading with action gives people something to connect with right away.

This video explores why flipping the format helps your message stick. Don’t wait—start strong and let your audience experience the value.

Write Every Day Even When You Don’t Know What to Say

A young Jerry Seinfeld interviewed a much older comedian George Burns about how he came up with new material. “My team of writers and I meet for two hours a day and write.” It seemed to dawn on Seinfeld that comedy is written and worked on, it is not waiting for a spontaneous chuckle to emerge. Some comedians work for years on a “bit” to make sure that it works the way they want it to. Jay Leno said the secret to all comedy is in the editing: less is more. My sister wrote 70 books, not of comedy though some were fun, and she told me she wrote for four hours a day even on days when she had nothing to write! As an MSL, I’m going to suggest you do the same thing. Write every day, maybe not for four hours, and not with a team of writers, but every day. And what to write? Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Define your job for a bright ten-year-old… Challenge yourself with a five-year-old.

• Tell us about your favorite grad school or professional schoolteacher. Challenge yourself to speak about the worst one with charity in your words.

• How would you run the company you now work for? Challenge yourself with your last boss or company without any resentment.

• Write some opening paragraphs that will engage your KOL. Challenge yourself to answer back as the physician who loves or hates these encounters with you.

• Write your career path even if being a forest ranger is not in the cards right now. Challenge yourself by writing about what you really, really want to do with your life.

It is in the writing that you can be thinking and in the thinking, you will become a more adept listener and storyteller…and listener! One of my doctor friends, an intensely smart person, drops me stories written on his phone. Some long, some short. All somewhat emotional and engaging. Plenty of stories. You have plenty too.

Mic Drop Wisdom: Say It, Then Stop

Mary Doria Russell, author of “The Sparrow,” a popular novel among my university classes, said that people who go on and on and on and on should join the support group “On and On Anon”! Whenever you’re giving a short or long presentation and you know that what you just said was it… Stop! You are done, that’s all. Sit. Trust your inner self and let it be. Don’t belabor or repeat the it, just let it linger in the air. You’d made your point, enjoy! Take your applause with humility and grace and sit down. Let whoever is in charge ask for “Any questions?” All you need to do is say that magic of wisdom that came from within you and sit.

Presence Over Perfection: Rethinking How We Show Up at Events

Ever walk past an exhibit table where the only thing moving is a scrolling phone screen? I’ve seen it so often, and it got me thinking. In my latest video, I share my take on how to shift from passive to present when you're at an event: how standing, making the first move, and having a clear, personal pitch can make all the difference. It’s not about being flashy—it’s about being approachable and memorable. 

Weathermen and Suits (and glasses!)

Lee Goldberg is the ABC meteorologist in New York and a frequent contributor to ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. If you happen to catch his reporting, he has many distinct things about him that make him, well, distinct! He is immaculately dressed to the 9’s. Different each time but completely put together. His glasses often change too and of course are perfectly paired to the wardrobe. And he reports outside. Who could have thought? A weatherman outside! So what? Well, in a world of reporters, weather and otherwise, he is a distinctive statement. He doesn’t make a statement, he is one. He is his own trademark. And a memorable one at that. And then there’s his smile. He signs on with one and signs off with one. He seems like that guy next door who is nice and seems to have his act together all the time… And is so nice! Makes me wonder when I look in the mirror for a big presentation or meeting, am I distinctive? Is there something memorable about how I look? Am I memorable?

The Costanza Principle: What If Doing the Opposite Is the Key to Change?

So, this time, let’s turn the tables… You tell me! In a Seinfeld episode, George Costanza relayed that every decision he has ever made in his entire life was wrong. Jerry suggests that if every decision is wrong, what if he did the opposite? He even orders a different lunch (“Goodbye tuna on toast, coleslaw, and a cup of coffee; hello chicken salad on rye, untoasted, and a cup of tea!”) which catches the attention of a certain someone. Of course, George goes on to successfully introduce himself as unemployed and living with his parents to a woman he would have previously considered out of his league. Her response with a warm smile, “Hi I’m Victoria!”  So I’d like your thoughts… What makes people (or you!) successfully change? How do people make their diets stick? How do we finally decide to comply with our physician’s recommendations? What makes us change our parenting or spousing way of interacting? How do we stop being arrogant, jerky (same thing I guess!), indecisive, unquestioning, unprepared? What do you think is the key to change? Answers below please!

Your Slides Are Talking Over You—Here’s How to Fix That

Ever find yourself cramming too much info on your slides? We've all been there. But here's the thing—if your audience is busy reading, they’re not really hearing you.

Watch my latest video to learn why embracing the “less is more” approach in PowerPoint can transform your message. Fewer words, more impact. Let the visuals support you, not compete with you.

Your Slides Are Talking Over You—Here’s How to Fix That

Ever find yourself cramming too much info on your slides? We've all been there. But here's the thing—if your audience is busy reading, they’re not really hearing you.

Watch my latest video to learn why embracing the “less is more” approach in PowerPoint can transform your message. Fewer words, more impact. Let the visuals support you, not compete with you.

Hope Is Not a Strategy—But It's Still Essential

I gave my wife an orchid five years ago. Did I say 5? Yes! It bloomed once and then just sat there for the next five years. We watered it a bit and we actually forgot about it most of the time. Well, this year it decided to reward us for our passiveness! I wondered what took it so long, what it was thinking, why it was waiting, did we make it suffer… You know, the usual unanswerable questions of life! Now the obvious meaning here is that it is OK to wait, all good things will come to pass in the right time, don’t hurry nature, etc. And I suppose all of that is true. But the first thing I thought of after my guilt of neglect was gratitude that this little thing didn’t give up on itself. And then the stories started to flood me of people who didn’t give up on themselves. The hero’s journey of sorts. Whenever I meet a PharmD or an MD or a PhD or RN or DNP (or a machine shop operator, teacher, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy) I ask this question: “Was it difficult?” And usually as if by some cosmic thing that unites them, they almost always take a step back to think about it, as if they had never given it much thought. And out comes wisdom and a conversation and a moment of nostalgic connection to a most important part of their life. When they bloomed. How about you?

The Trouble with “Think”

Thinking is often a good thing. At a recent physician meeting the CEO posed a question to the group that he apparently poses to his inner circle repeatedly, “Do you know? Or do you think that you know?” Two vastly different things. Both can have data behind them, but more importantly, only one has confidence and personal responsibility behind them. My editor says, “I’ve been taught from a young age that “think” isn’t as helpful as we *think* it is.” “I think the parachute will open…I think the harness will hold steady…I think I’m ready…I think I saw a bear….I think I love you.” Confidence and responsibility will win the day. Not enough data yet? Go get it…before you see the bear again!

“Think” is a sometimes not so useful word! Do you know or do you think you know?

Skip the Small Talk—Start with Impact!

Ever been in a presentation where the first few minutes are filled with weather updates and casual chit-chat? It often signals nervousness rather than confidence. But what if you flipped the script?

In my latest video, I share a simple yet powerful strategy: start with dessert first. Watch the video to see how you can transform the way you deliver presentations. Let’s make every word count!