***To Err Is Human; To Accept It, Divine

By Nancy Daniels, Official Guide to Public Speaking
The official guide to Public Speaking

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***One of the characteristics of good public speaking is the ability to acknowledge and to accept the occasional mistake. Through all my years of teaching, it has been fascinating to see how much more difficult it is for the Type A personality to understand this idea, to allow for this idea and finally to accept this idea.

Yes, public speaking is man’s greatest fear; however, if you add to your nervousness the pressure that your presentation ‘must be perfect,’ then you have just lost the battle. The first question I would ask of the Type A personality is what is perfection in a live performance? Who is to say it is perfect? Yes, you can type a paper perfectly. You can have a perfect score on a test. But what is perfection in public speaking?

What happens on that stage, in that boardroom, or at that lectern is something you cannot predict. And that unpredictability is what is so unnerving about public speaking. All of your fears – be it forgetting your material, losing your place, making a fool of yourself, being laughed at or putting your audience to sleep – are ungrounded if you prepare in advance and practice your delivery.

So what happens if you make a mistake? Does it make you less of a person? No. Does it make you less of a presenter? No. Does it make you less reliable or trustworthy? No. In truth, making a mistake is human. Please understand that I am talking about an occasional mistake. If you are constantly erring, then you don’t know your material.

All great performers, musicians, actors, broadcasters, public speakers, and athletes make the occasional mistake. How do they handle it? They correct it – if need be – and move on. If you allow it to unnerve or unsettle you, then the mistake controls you instead of the other way around.

Instead of looking at the picture from the point of view of what can go wrong, why not look at the picture from what can go right or well?

Prepare logical and well thought out material. When you create your presentation, start with an introduction that grabs your listeners’ attention. Make sure that your development consists of a limited number of main points which are informative and/or persuasive. Remember, the development ‘develops’ your introduction. So, learn to think of your entire presentation by means of your main points. Then close your material by briefly repeating your main points and calling your audience to action.

Practice your presentation out loud. This is some of the best advice I give. Going over your material in your mind is not practice. You must know your material. The best presenters speak from notes or visual aids, talking ‘around’ their main points; and, they talk to their audience and not at them. They do not read nor do they memorize their presentations. I do advocate memorizing your opening, however. Getting through the intro without a mistake is a confidence builder and it will make the rest of the presentation easier and more comfortable for you.

Learn how to control your nervousness, not eliminate it. Nervousness is wonderful. Allowing it to work for you can make your presentation more exciting, more dynamic. Trust me, that extra spurt of adrenaline is a good thing!

Remember, seeking perfection is not the answer. The next time you stand to speak to an audience, stop obsessing about what can go wrong and start concentrating on what can go right. Why not strive to do the best job that you can do?