8d • General discussion
Emotion in Your Presentation is Critical NOT Cringe
We're taught that the best decisions are logical, unemotional ones.
But neuroscience tells a different story.
Neurologist Antonio Damasio studied a patient, "Elliot," who lost his ability to feel emotions due to a brain injury.
Elliot was a successful businessman, husband, and father. After a brain tumour was surgically removed from his ventromedial prefrontal cortex, his life fell apart. His intelligence, memory, and language skills were completely intact. He could solve complex logic puzzles and discuss the philosophical implications of various scenarios.
But he lost the ability to use emotions to guide his decision-making. He became pathologically indecisive.
Elliot would spend hours deliberating over simple decisions like which pen to use, what restaurant to eat at, or which socks to wear. He could list the pros and cons of every option rationally, but he had no internal "nudge" telling him which one was better.
He was stuck in an endless loop of analysis.
Damasio developed the Somatic Marker Hypothesis from his work with Elliot, which suggests that emotions serve as a biological value system.
- When facing a decision, our brain rapidly associates past outcomes with emotional signals. A gut feeling, a flash of fear, or a surge of excitement.
- A negative feeling steers us *away* from a potentially bad choice.
- A positive feeling draws us *toward* a potentially good choice.
- These emotional signals act as a mental shortcut, allowing us to make efficient decisions without having to painstakingly re-analyse every single variable every time.
They are the mechanism that "tells you when to stop thinking and act."
The lesson here is that emotions aren't the opposite of rationality; they are its essential partner. They are the value function that tells us when to stop thinking and ACT.
Too often, I see business owners, founders, or academics who believe that adding an emotional element to their talk is window dressing. A nice-to-have.
In reality, it is essential if you want any action to be taken as a result of your talk.
Even my TEDx speakers who have nothing to sell but their message of change, I make sure that they include the emotional element and a strong call to action.
Because if you talk to your audience about a problem without offering an action as a solution, you are disempowering them. Give a call to action and EMPOWER your audience.
Put another way: as a speaker, if you're only serving data and logic, you're leaving your audience in "Elliot's Paradox"—they understand, but they can't decide.
Your job isn't just to inform. It's to make them feel the urgency, the possibility, the hope. That feeling is what bridges the gap between understanding and action.
#PublicSpeaking #Storytelling #Leadership #TEDxCoach #StartupFounder
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Emotion in Your Presentation is Critical NOT Cringe
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