🥊Knock 'em Dead With Stories That Stick 🍯

Have you ever sat down to create a presentation and felt your brilliant ideas suddenly scatter like startled fish? You know exactly what you want to say—until you open that blank slide deck?

You're not alone. Public speaking ranks among our top fears (affecting 73% of people), but for many of us, the real anxiety starts long before we step in front of an audience—it begins with that empty slide staring back at us.

What if you could skip the most painful parts of creating presentations? What if you didn't have to:

• Struggle to organize scattered thoughts into a logical flow

• Spend hours - or days - deciding what to leave in and what can be cut

• Spend way too much time on fiddly formatting instead of refining your story

• Rely on designers to make it look slick and then have to beg for edits

• Worry whether your audience will stay engaged or zone out (like the 91% of executives who admit they sometimes do)

The secret to memorable presentations isn't perfect slides or flawless delivery—it's storytelling. Research shows stories are 22 times more memorable than facts alone. But transforming your insights into compelling stories? That's where most of us get stuck.

The good news for long-suffering PowerPoint victims is that AI tools are stepping up

Why Traditional Methods Don't Work

The conventional wisdom about creating presentations works against how many of our brains naturally function:

• They demand linear thinking when many of us think in webs of connections

• They focus on facts over stories despite our brains being wired for narrative

• They require endless formatting instead of focusing on emotional connection

• They offer no feedback during the critical creation phase

The most memorable presentations aren't just organized—they tell stories that create emotional connections and make complex ideas accessible through relatable examples.

Here's how AI can help turn your presentation journey into a much more satisfying experience:

1. From Scattered Thoughts to Compelling Story

Tool: ChatGPT or Claude

When your mind is racing with ideas but struggling to connect them:

1. Brain dump everything you know about your topic into ChatGPT—no order needed

2. Ask: "Transform these points into a compelling story with a hook that grabs attention, a meaningful challenge that creates tension, and a resolution that inspires action."

Why it works: This approach lets you think naturally while AI handles the narrative structure. Your scattered insights become a coherent journey your audience can follow and feel.

2. From Compelling Story to Stunning Slides

Tool: Gamma.app or Beautiful.AI

When you dread the endless tweaking of fonts, layouts, and images:

1. Take your story structure from step 1

2. Paste it into Gamma.app and watch as it generates an entire professional presentation

3. Use their AI tools to instantly refresh any slide that doesn't capture your vision

Why it works: These tools instantly adapt your narrative into words and visuals, eliminating hours of design work. You focus on your message while AI handles the ‘packaging’.

3. From Abstract Concepts to Powerful Visuals

Tool: ChatGPT + Midjourney/DALL-E

When you need your audience to truly "see" your complex ideas:

1. Ask ChatGPT: "What visual metaphor would help explain [your concept]?"

2. Use the suggested metaphor to generate an image with Midjourney, Flux or DALL-E

3. Create simple flowcharts, mind maps, data visualizations, infographics to enrich your content

Why it works: Our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text. These visual metaphors and aids create instant understanding and emotional connection that facts alone never could.

BONUS: The Story-Driven Confidence Booster

When presentation anxiety starts creeping in:

Ask AI: "What personal anecdote or real-world example would make this presentation more authentic and relatable?"

Why it works: Personal stories not only engage your audience but also give you a comfortable starting point. You'll feel more confident telling a story than reciting facts, and your audience will lean in to listen.

Presentation Toolkit

A quick peek at a few valuable presentation partners.

As you can see in the video, these AI tools work with your natural thinking style instead of against it. Rather than forcing you to become a different kind of thinker, they help translate your ideas into formats that resonate with your audience.

Example Tools:

• For story structure: ChatGPT (free version works fine) or Claude

• For slide creation: Gamma.app (free tier available) or Beautiful.AI

• For visual metaphors: Midjourney, Flux, or Dalle-3 (Midnight Cafe)

• For custom video clips: Runway, Sora or Kling

Coming Next Time

AI Agents: What they are and why they'll change everything about how we work

Until next time, Janet

PS: I’ve just launched a YouTube channel to explore the extraordinary potential of Neurodiverse minds + AI partnerships. It’s a bit rough around the edges - new territory for me - but as we start on this journey, I’d appreciate your support by subscribing (if interested in the subject) and sharing. I have the grand sum of 17 subscribers so far 🙂 I’m also working on a book - more about that soon!