One idea a week to help you teach and present with more clarity, confidence, and calm. No fluff. No scripts. Just practical tools that land.
You are not the audience
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I was sitting halfway back in a local cinema. My kids beside me, hands deep in bags of sweets. On screen, Mario and Luigi were racing through the desert. The sound effects were all there. But the voice wasn’t. Chris Pratt instead of Charles Martinet. It should have worked. It didn’t. Next to me, my kids were completely absorbed. I wasn’t. A few days later, I found myself leaning forward in the same seat. A quiet karaoke scene before launch. Not slow. A moment where the real person slips through. Two films. Two completely different experiences. The first was The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. The second was Project Hail Mary. 💡 ONE IDEA WELLIt would be easy to say: One film is good. But that’s not true. They’re both doing exactly what they were designed to do. Just for different people. 🧰 LESS MESS, MORE MESSAGEWhen something doesn’t land, we assume the problem is the thing itself. The slides weren’t good enough. But often the real issue is simpler. You built it for yourself. Not for the audience in front of you. A ConfessionI’ve done this. My first talk on ingested foreign bodies - the one that eventually led to the Lego experiment - fell flat. It was an audience of serious clinicians. And I gave them something that didn’t match what they were expecting. Too playful. At the time, I thought the problem was the talk. It wasn’t. It was the fit. 🛠️ TRY THISBefore your next talk, post, or teaching session, ask one question: 👉 Who is this actually for? Not in general terms. Specifically.
And then this: 👉 What would they love that I might not? The best communicators don’t just make things good. They make them fit. For the people in front of them. Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: You are not the audience. And if it didn’t land - they might not be wrong. If this resonated, share it with someone who’s preparing a talk right now. |
TEACHING ISN’T A SCRIPT. NEITHER IS THIS.
One idea a week to help you teach and present with more clarity, confidence, and calm. No fluff. No scripts. Just practical tools that land.
Why are we so uncomfortable with silence? In presentations. In meetings.In conversations. The moment a room goes quiet, we rush to fill it. Another slide. Another example. One more clarification. As if silence were failure. It isn’t. 💡 ONE IDEA WELL There’s a Japanese concept called ma (間). It means “the space between.” Not empty space.Intentional space. A painting isn’t just pigment - it’s pigment framed by blank canvas.Music isn’t just sound - it’s sound punctuated by rest.A powerful...
I watched the recordings of my talks this week. It’s not a comfortable experience. You see things you’d rather not see.You notice moments that felt different in your head.You realise how unreliable your memory is. But it’s also one of the most useful things I’ve done. 💡 ONE IDEA WELL If you want to get better at presenting,you probably don’t need more tips. Most of us already have enough of those. What we lack is something else. A clear view of what we’re actually doing. Because presenting...
In the 1950s, schoolchildren were taught how to survive a nuclear attack. When the siren sounded, they were told to drop to the floor, cover their heads, and crawl beneath their desks. Duck and cover. It looked organised. Responsible. Sensible. It also wouldn’t have saved them. But it felt like protection.And sometimes feeling protected is enough to calm the fear. We do something similar when we speak. When the room is full.When the lights are bright.When a hundred pairs of eyes lift towards...