This is a misleading graphic!! Even though it is a wonderful graphic by Kathy Sierra and from Creating Compasionate Users. 

The first time it was used it was in a great post about how to keep an audience engaged .  However, Kathy then reposted this graphic in her last post to her now quiet blog.  If you only see the graphic without seeing the original content and context that went with it can be misleading.   Kathy was not talking about starting a to create a presentation!  She was talking about content in a presentation.

The first step of creating is to begin to think about the presentation; any kind of presentation . . . from a person's elevator pitch to a writing a chapter to developing a slides in PowerPoint, Keynote, or even to just planning a fun party.

Start at the End! 

What is the destination you want to reach with your listeners/readers/watchers?  What do you want your audience to do at the end of your talk, the chapter, the book, or even a joke?  What is your end Goal?

Starting at the END allows us to figure out how we want to MOVE the audience.  Remember that all of us make decisions based on what MOVES us.  We are moved to action by feeling a connection or getting a new realization of why something is important to us.

We THINK about things but research has shown that it is EMOTION that makes the decision no matter how intellectual we are. 

So, What's the trick?

Feel what is moving you about the topic.  Why do you care? What excites you?  What excited you when you were first learning about it?  Why do you think the product is cool, or your company is the best, or you do great work?  (If your answers are that you don't care and you are doing a presentation only because your job is on the line . . . well that is a topic for another post!)

When you connect, deeply connect to your own enthusiasm the rest will get easier.  Note that enthusiasm is . . . you guessed it . . . an emotion; a contagious one at that!