Public Speaking — A Lesson Learnt
Tl;dr
There are always ups and downs in giving presentations. And today’s article is a reflection on what happened recently and how I realized that I’m not anywhere near my goal of being a good speaker and what I need to do to be better. It is a way for me to recognize my flaws and having feedbacks, good or bad, are important. It is only with honest feedback that you truly understand the external perception of yourself.
Why am I writing this?
It has been many years since I started public speaking and I certainly have progressed in my ability to deliver insightful presentations and connecting with my audience. Even though I still get the chills whenever I go up the stage but this is now better managed. I have always taken a few deep breaths before the show and with sufficient preparation (not over!), I am fairly confident that I can deliver. The chills will never go away but it does get better whenever you face this upfront and not worry too much about it.
Red Hat has given me numerous opportunities to speak and I take each opportunity to better improve myself in my delivery. I have spoken many times on numerous occasions at webinars, forums, or customer presentations to senior executives. During this COVID-19 pandemic, I have delivered numerous online webinars that I have lost count of. There are good and bad times, though I believe I have mostly delivered within my expectations and the audience appreciates my thoughts and the topics that we were discussing.
It took me a while to decide to pen this down. I decided to do so anyway because this is how I can improve and be very clear on what I need to do to improve further. There are just so much more work and mountains to climb before I get there.
One of my seniors said to me, “It happens to everyone. Nobody is perfect and is not easy. It will NOT be overnight”. He is someone that I have known for many years and is someone that I respect and aspire to be.
What happened?
This was an online presentation and I had a bad week (not an excuse) with too many things happening at the same time.
1. From the moment I started my presentation, I knew something was going wrong but I couldn’t steer it back. I wasn’t delivering in my usual mode and my energy level wasn’t as high as it should have been. I felt it was fizzling out and I was losing control. Online presentations made it worse because I was effectively talking to my camera. After the presentation, I was deflated and disappointed because this wasn’t up to my standard.
2. It is the first time I managed to recognize that I had too many fillers in the first 10 minutes. This was a 2 hours session with a demo. The minute I realized that this was going on, I tried to stop it, albeit too late. The delivery wasn’t smooth though I had delivered this particular section a few times before.
3. The slides were good and I knew what I wanted to say when I was doing up my slides but It didn’t sound the way I envisioned it to be. I wasn’t delivering the story and connecting the dots. Inspiring the audience about technology and how technology can bring new capabilities to organizations is my passion and hence I love to speak.
4. Storytelling with real world experiences is better. This wasn’t brought up as often I would like despite having a wealth of experience. I should not be shy to bring out my experience and how I have been helping customers to be successful.
5. During the Q&A session, I felt I wasn’t addressing some of the questions correctly or maybe I have misunderstood them. It is something that I realized that can happen to me and I thought I am already mindful of this.
How can I do better?
This ain’t going to be easy but I think I have identified ways to help myself. One of the ways is writing this down so that my brain remembers about this and this is not another bad episode that goes away.
1. A bad week is not something I can control, however, mental preparation is something that I can do. I should have known that week would have drained me as the presentation was on Friday afternoon. Being so tired and low energy even before the presentation starts doesn’t help.
2. Practise, practice, and practice my storytelling. I think is about high time to start practicing on how to introduce myself better to the audience. And focusing on storytelling techniques, peppered with real world examples is something that I will try to bring out more often. I tend to notice that fillers come up when I’m nervous or not confident enough to deliver.
3. Listen to the whole question and understand the context of the question. If in doubt, clarify what they mean. Check for confirmation by paraphrasing the question back to the questioner. I definitely need to be more mindful of this.
Seems very obvious and easy, isn’t it?
Conclusion
It is never easy and is not meant to be easy. I wrote this so that others can learn from my mistakes. Improving and learning from my mistakes is what I need to do to be successful in what I want to be. Shall update in another 6 months on my progress to be a better speaker.