I consider myself a flexible person … despite my age.

When I took my last cruise aboard a luxury cruise lines, I had high expectations that everything would be different, um, better.

And they were … for the most part. But not always.

The venue was smaller than,say Celebrity’s big stage, and bigger than, say one of the venues on Royal. But that was not a problem. Intimate is good. Going eye-to-eye with attendees is fun, even invigorating at times.

I had 5 talks this go round. And was well prepared … or so I thought.

Related: Habits of Highly Effective Professional Speakers

When I checked out my deck the night before going on stage, I found that my videos had dropped off. I am 100% sure I checked BEFORE I left home. But, no matter, they weren’t there now. To make changes to my Prezis I needed to be online. Even with the significant discount it was still going to be costly go go online, make the changes and download the presentations again.

What to do?

As it turns out, I had saved the videos I used in my presentations on my lap top. I could NOT reinsert them into my presentation, but I could, if I practiced

1. Stop my presentation

2. Call up my saved video

3. Watch the video

4. Close the video

5. Call up my presentation again.

Totally doable. But could I do it with a crowd full of people watching? And do it in a timely manner?

I practiced.

16 seconds. That’s what it took me to do steps 1 – 3 (to start watching).

My point – not only did I need to be flexible, I needed to be capable. I needed to practice.

I don’t think the audience knew that my slide deck was broken and that I was doing things ad hoc. That’s the point.

Be flexible. Be prepared.

 

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