The room was full of ear, nose and throat surgeons.

Not medical students. Not trainees finding their feet. Paediatric ENT specialists: people who had spent careers peering into small ears and whipping out obstinate tonsils. And I was about to tell them things about paediatric ENT.

I felt it when I saw my name on the programme. Again, when I walked into the room. Again, when I stepped onto the stage. That specific, stomach-tightening variety of doubt that asks: what the hell am I doing here?

I nearly rejiggled the whole talk on the spot.

Instead, I sat with the feeling long enough to ask it a question back. The doubt didn't go away. But the question did. Not what the hell am I doing here, but what can I bring that they might have forgotten?

💡 ONE IDEA WELL

I've spent the past few weeks coaching three of our DFTB26 keynote speakers. All three are expert, thoughtful, deeply prepared. And all three, somewhere near the end of our final conversation, said some version of the same thing.

I'm not sure this is going to work.

Becky worried her idea wouldn't land. Dennis worried he wouldn't do justice to the people at the centre of his talk. Mo worried his message would leave the audience feeling paralysed and overwhelmed.

Different worries. Same shape.

The doubt was proportional to how much it mattered.

That's not a coincidence. Speakers who don't care much about their talk rarely lie awake before it. The anxiety isn't a sign that something is wrong. It's a sign that something is at stake.

The question is what you do with it.

🧰 LESS MESS, MORE MESSAGE

When the doubt arrives, most speakers respond the same way.

They add.

Another slide, in case the point wasn't clear.
Another caveat, in case someone disagrees.
Another example, another statistic, another safety net, until the original idea is buried under the weight of their own preparation.

It's an understandable instinct.
​Leidy Klotz wrote a whole book, Subtract, about our blindness to taking things away. When we want to improve something, adding is almost always our first move.

But the doubt, when it's working properly, is a subtractive force.

It asks:

Does this need to be here? Is this serving the audience, or just soothing my anxiety?

Becky's worry pushed her to strip her idea back to the version that lands in any room, not just the rooms she knows.
Dennis's worry kept him honest. It would not let him reduce the people he loved to material.
Mo's worry sharpened his message. He didn't soften the truth. He gave people a way to use it.

The doubt didn't weaken their talks. It edited them.

That's the difference between speakers who feel doubt and speakers who are ruled by it. One group uses it to drill down. The other piles on until there's nothing left to find.

🖋️ TRY THIS

Before your next talk, the one that matters, the doubt will arrive. It always does.

When it shows up, don't reach for more content.
Sit with it long enough to ask what it's pointing at.

Then go through your talk with three questions:

Is there anything here that isn't earning its place?
Is there a part of this I don't fully believe yet?
Am I saying this for the audience, or for me?

Whatever those questions surface, cut it.
Not the idea. The padding around the idea.

The doubt is rarely telling you to stop. It's usually telling you where to dig.

🧭 ASK YOURSELF THIS

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Speak soon,

Andy

P.S. DFTB26 is one week away. If you're speaking at the conference or anywhere else, and the doubt shows up, let it. It means the talk matters. That's the right way to arrive.