Thursday, September 05, 2013

Stage Fright

Part of my job includes writing speeches for a member of my company's C-suite. So ... y'know ... just a little pressure. But, the challenge can be exhilarating. 

Today, to help me and my peers become even better speech writers, we were given the opportunity to practice reading off a teleprompter and walking across the stage so that we could better understand the experience our speakers have when delivering their speeches. 

Ah, reading a prompter and trying to look out at the audience ... it is tough stuff. Especially when they decided to throw in some tough words like accretal to keep us on our toes. Of course, there was the added pressure of my peers watching me, so I felt like I needed to deliver the words strongly and with emotion. (And of course, they were all great, so it was important to try to at least at minimum be on par.) 

Of course, I know I pronounced one word hugely incorrectly ... but alas, no one decided to call me out on it, so I can hope they all forgot or were to focused on other things.

But I'm grateful I got the experience to see what it was like and it helped me understand how to better write for executive. How to use spacing for emphasis and to give their eyes a break. It also reinforced that I much prefer to be the behind-the-scenes person writing the inspiring words ... not the one delivering them to crowds of 15,000. 

Cheers to personal growth and development!

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