Congratulations to the Kansas City Royals, winners of the 2015 World Series. We have a few Point Taken team members from Kansas City, so we are pretty excited.

Whether you are a super fan or not, research suggests the importance of professional sports teams goes beyond economic impact for our community. Supporting a sports team allows us to create a connection with a large number of strangers, and gives us a sense of belonging to a group. These are powerful psychological impacts, especially when our team is winning. We derive significant ‘feel good’ benefits from being associated with a winning team. And for the KC Royals fans, all those late night, ‘come back from behind’ wins make us feel like anything is possible.

While we all want to belong to a winning team, we know that that is not enough to create the outcome. What helps create winners is committed, disciplined work. When it comes to making powerful presentations, we need to find the time to practice our skills in advance. During that practice, we need to focus on the key skills of presenting. Just as the KC Royals focused on practicing batting and fielding, we need to work on fine-tuning the physical aspects of delivering a presentation like making sustained eye contact and increasing vocal volume, so we are seen as competent, credible presenters.

If you are looking for ways to increase your presentation skills practice, or improve the impact of your practice, please let us know. We can help you hit your next home run!