It was St. Patrick’s Day. I had just finished watching my Irish dancers perform for their friends and family. I was still beaming with pride when one of my youngest dancers flung herself into my arms after coming offstage.
“I forgot my step,” she sobbed into my neck.
“But you kept going. You did exactly what I told you to do. No one even noticed. Remember, no one else knows the steps except for you. Right?”
“Yes,” she said as she hiccupped.
“You did great! Even better than if you had done everything as planned. Now you know that no matter what happens, you’ll be just fine. It shows me that you’re great under pressure.”
“So I did good?” she asked.
“Yes!!!”
Presentation Skills Tip
Twenty years later, I am still giving that same advice. But now I give it to my presentation skills clients when they feel like they’re under pressure.
“Always remember: no one knows exactly what you were going to say except for you.”
Yes, some people may know the slides in your deck, but you can always say that, in the interest of time, you decided to skip a certain section or statistic. You can also say that you planned to address the points (that you skipped) during the Q & A.
What you can’t and shouldn’t say, “Oh, I forgot to mention this issue…I just remembered this statistic.”
When you backtrack, people think you’re disorganized or that you don’t have command of your subject matter. As a result, you lose credibility with your audience. But if you keep going, your audience will never be any the wiser.
And later, if they find out that you blanked on something and kept going, they may even admire you for your ability to tap dance and deliver your presentation under pressure.
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photo credit: Irish Philadelphia Photo Essays via photopin cc
