Video Transcript: What if I Forget My Words (Andrew Bryant)

Video Transcript: What if I Forget My Words (Andrew Bryant)

So in presenting a huge fear is what if I forget my words, but realize that everybody stumbles, stutters and even goes blank in a presentation. I do. Sometimes, my brain goes too fast for my mouth, I'm thinking about ideas, and you just start talking rubbish for a moment. So instead of being anxious about this, I actually use this as a point of connection to the audience. So if I start going, I just look up at the ceiling and say, Wow, there must be some radio frequency interference, here. I am just making a joke of it, making light of it or just stepping sideways and saying, well, that's obviously not the spot to stand, relaxes the audience, but most importantly, relaxes me. Obviously, you need to be prepared for your presentation, you need to know how the presentation goes. Maybe you've prepared a set of PowerPoint slides. And you've kept those PowerPoint slides as a movie inside your head. And that's one way to do it. But if you do stumble, you could say something like, oops, I appear to lose my place. Let me go back to the beginning. And then actually go back to the beginning and say, Hi, my name is Andrew Brighton, what I'm about to talk to you about is. And of course, that'll get a lot from the audience. And that moment of relaxation will unfreeze your brain, because the brain freezes when we get a little bit stressed. Or we're thinking too fast. So all you need to do is rehearse something that will let you pause, take a breath, and your brain will reboot. And you'll be able to pick up exactly where you left off. So find something rehearse it for me, it's the biggest I'm sorry, that's the interference. You might say, Oh, sorry, just had a brain freeze. Let's start again. But practice something because it'll happen one day, and then you can use that and everybody will think you're a professional.