What are the toughest public speaking situations?

On Tuesday 1/28 I’ll be doing a free, live webcast (register here) about public speaking, hosted by O’Reilly Media.

NOTE: The webcast happened and you missed it. The slides and Q&A can be found here.

In Confessions of A Public Speaker I explained how to deal with 17 difficult speaking situations. In the webcast I’ll coach you through some of them, or the ones you ask for in comments:

  • You’re being heckled
  • Everyone is staring at their laptops / phones
  • Your time slot gets cut from 45 to 10 minutes
  • Everyone in the room hates you
  • One guy won’t stop asking questions
  • There is a rambling question that makes no sense
  • You are asked an impossible question
  • The microphone breaks
  • Your laptop explodes
  • There is a typo on your slide (nooooooo!)
  • You’re late for you’re own talk
  • You feel sick
  • You’re running out of time
  • You left your slides at home
  • Your hosts are control freaks
  • You have a wardrobe malfunction
  • There are only 5 people in the audience

Would you like me to cover any of these in the webcast? Or are there other situations you want to learn to handle better?

Leave a comment and I’ll consider covering it in the webcast. Thanks.

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