Freeze

One of the courses I had to take during my Executive MBA at XLRI, Jamshedpur was related to public speaking. By the time I was taking the course, I was a regular speaker at my organization’s Tech event. I was also fresh from a much appreciated presentation which I made at my class the earlier semester. Naturally, I was brimming with overconfidence.

The assignment we had to do as part of the course was to present in front of the class and the speech was recorded using a camera for future review and reference. The topic was given in advance. As I was swimming in my overconfidence, I planned to ace the speech without any preparation. It was just too easy for an expert like me. I paid little attention to the topic or the various best practices which were taught during the course.

On the day of the presentation, I froze. I am not sure whether it was the camera pointed at me or the lack of slides to guide the story telling. The end result was a speech full of gibberish nonsense and one of the worst presentations I have ever made till today.

The experience taught me two key lessons - the value of humility and the importance of practice. The value of being humble enough to accept that I do not know everything about any topic – even if I feel like an expert, there is always something more to learn. And the importance of preparing and practicing before an important task – irrespective of how well I know I can execute the task. Whenever I feel over confident, I try to remember the great freeze at XLRI long time back.