Karen Arokiasamy

“Many of the estimated 33 million PowerPoint presentations given daily in the US do not achieve their potential. In fact, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that bad PowerPoint presentations cost companies $252 million per day in wasted time. Most presentations contain powerful information, but are presented with a slew of PowerPoint slides leaving the audience with a bunch of data that they have to interpret themselves.” Tamayo Consulting, 2006.

I don't know about you, but I've seen a LOT of PowerPoint presentations since 2006. Though some have been outstanding (see: Ian Morrison, Jon Duschinsky, Dan Heath and Huggy Rao), most are pretty bad.

When it comes to business, I firmly believe that, from the way we conduct meetings to the way we subject our colleagues to daily snooze-fests with boring PowerPoint decks, there's a better way to talk to each other - through stories. It requires a little bit of Jerry Maguire-like, goldfish-in-a-baggie-sloshing bravado, but the results can be so awesome. Telling better stories in business equals better productivity, better understanding and better revenue. In fact, check out this great story from a consultant who discovered the secrets to a "knock 'em dead presentation style that doubled revenue."

Telling better business stories is appealing to me because I believe there is power in changing the paradigm of how we share and receive business information. On the other side of the coin, I'm equally, if not more, drawn to telling better personal stories because I believe there is even more power in being more open about love and gratitude. Why do we often wait until we're faced with writing a eulogy before we allow ourselves to voice how much the important people in our lives mean to us and how dearly we love them? My life legacy project is to help you tell your stories of love and gratitude.