This Week: Public Speaking Horror Stories
This week, I’ll focus on public speaking horror stories—mine and yours.
The goal isn’t simply to share fun stories about the public speaking nightmares we’ve all experienced (although I’ll admit that they can make for fun reading). Rather, my hope is to use those experiences to share lessons about what others should do if faced with a similar situation.
I’ll post a few of my own horror stories this week, but I’d also like to post yours!
Please leave your personal public speaking horror stories in the comments section below. In addition to sharing the story, please leave some advice for people who may face the same situation. Now that you’ve had time to think about what went wrong, what would you do differently?
I’ll post a few of your excerpts throughout the week. I look forward to learning from you!
Share this article
- Share on Facebook
- Share on Twitter
- Share on LinkedIn
- Share on Email
I was media training a high-profile physician, and part of the presentation included advice for doing interviews via Skype. To demonstrate the importance of camera angle and an uncluttered background, I planned to show her an interview another doctor had done recently that was posted on a news website. It had a commercial for hand lotion at the start, but that was only a few seconds long. However …. when I played it during the training session, that inoffensive hand lotion was nowhere to be seen. Instead it was an ad for some kind of “feminine odor” spray, and it was the longest 20 seconds of my life. We quickly moved on and the physician was very kind and did not remark on it. But I never played a live video from a website again!
Hi Susan,
That’s a funny anecdote and a good lesson learned! Look for it on the main page of the blog later this week.
Thanks very much for leaving the comment.
Brad
oh how mortifying…and a great warning!