Are you playing like a champion?
What's your excuse for not giving it all you've got as a speaker?"I do fine without practicing." (Oh yeah? Says who?)
"I didn't have time to prepare." (I bet you found plenty of time for Facebook or Pinterest.)
"I'm not 100% today." (Your audience still needs 100% of you.)
"I'm just not good at public speaking." (So learn how to improve.)
"Everyone else does it this way." (And you're just like everyone else?)
"It's not an important presentation." (Then don't waste the audience's time.)
As you know, I love athlete analogies, and here's another one. I saw it on the t-shirt of a young woman at the track where I work out. She was running laps with her soccer team and clearly pushing herself.
"No excuses. Play like a champion."
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2 comments. Please add yours! :
Lisa,
You are right, all of these excuses lead to bad presentations that sound highly unprofessional.
Further, the inverse of these and other common excuses are good public speaking tips:
-Practice truly does make perfect
-It is important to always be 100%
-Focusing on the audience and their needs is crucial to connecting with the audience
-Being succinct enough to finish in time, every time, is important
-Power-point often is mis-used more than used correctly
-As Mark Twain said: “It usually takes three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech”
-Not having a well-structured presentation is often worse than not presenting at all
-Joking with your audience can work (but is risky), but making fun of your audience is simply foolish
Good examples, Terry.
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