Teach from experience

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In my experience, the trainers who are most impactful incorporate their personal and professional experience into the fabric of their training. I already encouraged you to start with your Story of Self, but here are a few other key ways to integrate your experience into the training (as well as reasons the practice works):

• Personalize your slides. Use pictures from your own life and work. This will make the slides come to life, and give your visuals personality.
  
  
• Employ anecdotes. Narrative is powerful, so tell a story. Say you're teaching online advertising. Instead of just explaining how to place online ads or the strategy of online advertising, show a quick case study of a campaign you oversaw, or a creative ad campaign that targeted you!
  
  
• Show that you have skin in the game. Sure, it's impressive to quote statistics and facts, and you should do that, too. But when you show your own experience, it gives authority to your teaching. Ever heard, "Those who can't do, teach"? By showing that you both do AND teach, you make yourself more credible.

Remember, the more your audience can identify with you and understand your experience, the more they'll connect to what you're teaching them.

Have you seen a great example of someone teaching from experience? Share your story in the comments!

Kristen Dore is Director of Curriculum Development at NOI

Photo from Pitel, via Creative Commons