PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

When I first started presenting, I made myself stand up and give the presentation word for word, and to practice it this way. Since I don’t have a podium in my apartment, I stood in my kitchen, with the book propped up on my stove, while I addressed the air vent. It seemed silly, but I knew that if I didn’t go through it word for word, I would miss something that was uncomfortable for me, or that I didn’t understand as well as I thought I did.

That is a strange thing about doing presentations. Details that you thought you knew and understood, when you were reading through them, may seem anything but understandable when you actually have to present them to someone else. You suddenly see those little tiny gaps in your knowledge that are going to feel like very big gaps when you are trying to explain them to someone else.