THE BEST PRESENTATION I EVER SAW WAS 615 SLIDES LONG! It took 2 hours 43 minutes to deliver in one sitting, but it felt like 20. And most of the audience were on the edge of their seats the whole time. The time went so quickly it felt like a TED talk. I was in Minneapolis for a Climate Reality Leadership Corps event and this was the former Vice President Al Gore giving his signature keynote on climate change.

Climate change is a very complex topic, full of data heavy slides, devastating stories, and emotional content. They're difficult presentations to give at the best of time, so you rarely see an interesting one, let alone a compelling one. But the presentation I saw Al Gore give wasn't just a great presentation which spoke to ever aspect of the climate crisis with science and stories, it was a masterclass in holding an audience's attention, especially given the material.

This was Al Gore’s slideshow for Climate Reality Leadership Corps delivered in Minneapolis back in 2019. What was even more curious about the training was that we were advised not to take notes straight away, but concentrate on how we FELT. As we watched the slides, heard the stories and studied the science it was like watching a great conductor directing a symphony.
 
The slides went fast then slow. Al Gore’s voice was direct and dramatic when he was talking about politics, but quiet and reflective when he was talking about the planet or people. The slides were intense. Some made us laugh. A few made me cry. And there were long pauses with a black screen after each section to bring the attention back onto him and his message. It was a masterclass in the art and science of presenting.

These are the notes I took after the training for ‘Truth in 10’. This is the part where Al Gore trains climate leaders to deliver their own version of that epic slideshow in 10 minutes. He has a very unique style that creates drama and tension. I’ve added my own transition notes which are also colour coded for pauses // and the types of emotions that I want the audience to feel.

• 10 mins
• 3 Act structure
• 55 x "Wallpaper" slides per deck
• Script: 180 words per min
• Slide transitions av. 11 secs
 
That’s a LOT of work for a 10-minute presentation!
 
Roughly 100 hours in fact. Which is what the best TED speakers invest in their decks. 10 hours per minute!

One of the responsiblities of being a leader as part of Al Gore's Climate Reality project is that you need to be able present a version of that epic slide show in 10 minutes. It's called The Truth in Ten. 55 slides in 10 minutes. It's an impressive deck in its own right, but that's not surprising when you learn that Oscar winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin helped him to build it!

Inspired by this short version of Al Gore's presentation I named my podcast the Truth in Ten. It's a bit of a cross between a story about an inspirational communicator and a storytelling masterclass. In episode 1 I take a look behind the scenes at how Al Gore created his first deck, when everything was at stake and he had a difficult audience to impress.

Al Gore’s ‘Truth in 10’ breaks many of the rules of traditional presenting, but his objective is not just to teach people climate science, it’s to inspire them to ACT. And he’s spent so long working on his craft, that he’s learned exactly HOW to break the rules in order to make his presentations memorable.
 
The point of any story is to make people FEEL something. And the point of a purpose-driven story like this one about the climate crisis, is to inspire people to DO something.
 
Thousands of leaders have been trained so far. If you’d like to be one of them, you can sign up for the next training at TheClimateRealityProject.org

Al Gore ended up winning an Oscar for his original presentation when he turned it into his first film, An Inconvenient Truth, so there's some great lessons in there for purpose driven communicators like you!

💚 Listen to Truth in Ten Episode 1 🌍