The day I froze during a presentation and what I did about it

This happened about 8 months ago at a team meeting in the conference room on the third floor. I was supposed to give a 10 minute update on a project and about 2 minutes in, my mind just went blank. I literally stared at the slides for maybe 15 seconds, feeling my face get hot. I ended up just saying 'sorry, give me a second' and took a sip of water. After a deep breath I skipped to the last slide which had the key numbers and just talked through those instead. It wasn't perfect but nobody seemed to care after the meeting, and now I always keep a backup bullet list in my pocket. Has anyone else had a brain freeze moment and found a quick way to recover?

2 comments

2 Comments

karen_perry3815d ago

Did you find that keeping that backup bullet list helped your confidence enough to not get as nervous in future presentations?

paul25115d ago

Think about how much of this stuff isn't really about the presentation itself. It's the same reason people carry a spare tire or have a backup charger in their bag. Most of the time you won't need it, but just knowing it's there takes that edge off. The brain stops spinning on "what if something goes wrong" because you already have a plan for that. It lets you focus on the actual content instead of panicking. So yeah, that list probably did way more for your confidence than the actual words on it.