Can you pretend to be enthusiastic?

A recent technical presentation training session with a group of university students recently made me realize the gap between the theory I teach and getting students to demonstrate it. We always tell people is to ‘be enthusiastic’ and ‘relate to your audience’, but getting someone to do that is extremely difficult. You cannot make someone be enthusiastic about their subject because enthusiasm is an emotion and cannot be faked.

The energy and connection that seems to show when a speaker makes eye contact, gestures naturally, and smiles is what makes a presentation great. However, you cannot fake the feeling!

This time I did the training I spent less time talking about the importance of eye contact, gesture, and smiling. Instead, I gave the students some questions:

What got you interested in this subject?
What do you know now that you did not know before?
Where might your work lead in the future?
What aspect of your work are you proud of?

Students who take the time to reflect on and connect with what interests them can share their enthusiasm more effectively. This is because they are speaking personally. I also commented that successful presenters often show a quiet confidence. You do not need to be an extrovert or entertainer to do a good presentation. However, you do need to be able to explain why you are interested in your subject. It could be a dramatic trigger from a specific day. A friend who changed his major from Oceanography to Soil Science said that he was lying in a field one day and started to be filled with interest in what made the soil its unique color. Other people have a slower steadier interest in a subject; I heard from one student that a question about their subject bugged them during their undergraduate course, so she decided to pursue it at post-graduate level. One person from Hokkaido University said that when he was a child he used to walk past fields filled with machines picking grapes. He thought they were too slow, so he decided to design and build a robot to do the job faster.

The story of your interest is not incidental, it’s a major part of your intellectual journey. You need to be aware of what makes you tick and sustains your interest. Once you connect to the source of your interest, you’ll bring a kind of confidence to your presentation that cannot be faked. You’ll have something that allows you to be yourself and connect to the audience really effectively.