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!
Mister Bump 
Now I’m worried that you were worried your wife was going to come after YOU with that hacksaw?
I guess sometimes absence DOES make the heart grow fonder. I know I was fond of hubby more when he was absent! 😆 Thank you so much for Sharing Your World and some humor with it! I admire anyone who can do public speaking without thinking they’re going to have a heart attack, and are unsure if they should take that extra Valium or Xanax and risk passing out while they’re speaking or not. I have a sibling who is a whiz at group speaking – he doesn’t care about how many may be in the audience. I think that talent is a gift! I’ve been forced to do it a few times in my life and it’s never gotten easier. I have social phobia and anxiety though. No excuse, but a possible explanation for my fears.
Anyone who dares to raise a child is a brave soul. It’s certainly not for everyone (me among them). I’d probably have murdered any offspring, so it’s perhaps lucky I never had any kids.
I loved your answer to the cave question. I’d certainly hope to find that in there too! 🙂 Have a great week!
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Ouch! The speaking was a weird feeling – you know when you get these old, washed-up entertainers, and they seem desperate to perform for an audience, any audience? I can understand that because it felt very exhilarating. It is funny with our child because at the start I was the one who actually wanted children, it was my wife who came around to the idea, but it turned out the opposite – she has the relationship and I am very much in the background.
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Your wife cuts a big branch off a magnolia and she’s the sane one? Or was there a reason she did it?
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Okay, get this. She is a short ass, so the logic was that that was as high as she could safely go up the ladder. God help us!
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From personal experience, a woman with a saw can be a dangerous thing. LOL
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oh, yes, better be nice to her when she has that in her hand. And those loppers….
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I do 95% of all yard work. At this stage of the gamr I don’t yield the chain saw any longer.
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Speaking comfortably to a few hundred people is a serious skill.
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It was presenting a software product, it helped that I was the main author.
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Child rearing is certainly not for the faint of heart. I enjoy public speaking too. I’m Definitely like the old actor hamming it up for any applause 👏
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The trouble with chilr-rearing was that there’s no dry run!
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