Change Gears before too late

Sometimes a speech can feel like a rollercoaster ride – all downhill.

For whatever the reason – you just know what you’re doing isn’t working. Whether it’s that you’re being all jittery and sounding or looking nervous or the examples you have chosen aren’t connecting, or the information is above the heads of the audience members. Sometimes you can hear yourself speaking to fast, or too slow, or too loud, or too low. Usually whatever the problem is – you have an idea what needs to be done to fix it.

So go ahead

DO IT!

You don’t often get the chance to start all over again, but you can change midstream whatever isn’t working. That’s why it’s important to keep a connection with your audience. Once you get that eye contact going, once you start paying attention to their responses -their feedback, then it’s time to use that information to refine your presentation. Change what needs to be changed, fix what’s wrong, engage another gear, ask a question, give a joke, explain in a different way, strengthen your voice, ask your audience to stand a do a couple of jumping jacks to wake up – whatever it takes.

Don’t give in to paranoia and unreasonable fears but DO trust your instincts and allow them to guide you toward whatever adjustment needs to be made. Usually audiences are quite forgiving because it really is in their best interest. They WANT you to be successful and interesting. They WANT to enjoy the experience. So come on and make it work. Salvage that speech before it’s too late and take yourself and your passengers on a journey of success.

If not – then just switch off your engine and shut up. There’s no sense in wasting your time and further torturing yourself and your audience. Better not to do it if you don’t intend to give your all to get it done well.