Monday. Melanie over at Sparks From A Combustible Mind has released a fresh batch of Share Your World questions. This week, she asks:
How comfortable are you speaking in front of large groups of people?
Actually, I did this a few times. By large, I mean a few hundred. People said how well I did afterwards, and if truth be told, I enjoyed myself.
My first job in computing, the company wrote its programs, and had a few hundred international distributors. The company used to organise conferences for them every year or so…
I think the thing is to remember that in that room, you are the expert. So, preparation is everything – you have to become that expert, and that happens way before you utter a word. I was lucky in my scenarios – I’d led the development of these particular products, so knew what I was talking about inside out. It actually felt empowering, felt like maybe a cat toying with a mouse, even.
In that job, I also manned stands at computer fairs. I presume these things still happen. Not large audiences, but a constant stream of visitors, so you’d end up speaking to maybe a thousand people in the course of a day.
In later years, I spoke in smaller, more intimate settings, but the audience was often director-level. Again, they would maybe not know the answers, but would (the switched-on ones, at least) ask sensible questions, so you needed to know your stuff as much as possible. Having said that, “I don’t know” was always better-received than bullshit. Often, nobody knew, could know.
What would be the best thing you could reasonably expect to find in a cave?
Solitude.
What did you think was going to be amazing but turned out to be horrible?
Child-rearing.
What’s the silliest thing you’ve observed someone get upset about?
That time I slept with my wife’s sister.
I’m only joking, if she ever reads this.
I only ever dreamed about it. D’oh 🤣🤣🤣 *
Gratitude:
Please feel free to share something that gave you an uplifted spirit during this past week. (Optional)
My wife went out into the garden yesterday with a saw. She cut a branch off our magnolia tree which must’ve been four inches in diameter! Thank fuck she’s gone to work today!
* For the record, I will be forever grateful that the sister I married was the sane one, she’s just not a gardener!