Learning from watching mistakes by other speakers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 2011 book from Dale Carnegie Training titled Stand and Deliver: How to Become a Masterful Communicator and Public Speaker contains the following quote from their founder, Dale:

 

“There are always three speeches for every one you actually give: The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you'd given.”

 

At Toastmasters club meetings we have opportunities to learn by watching the ones that other speakers gave (and, as shown above, how they tripped). There is an article by Cathey Armillas on pages 16 to 19 in the October 2020 issue of Toastmaster magazine titled How to Rock Your Presentation which has the following list of Top Ten Mistakes:

 

 1]  Infowhelm

 2]  Being audience ignorant

 3]  The slow start

 4]  Over-explaining

 5]  Sameness

 6]  Ending on Q&A

 7]  Going over time

 8]  Dreadful visuals

 9]  I before you

10] The weak finish

 

I have been reading a 2023 book by Katharine Coldiron titled Junk Film: Why Bad Movies Matter. On page 75 she says that:

 

“Bad movies are teaching tools for making and studying good movies.”

 

That’s a more specific version of the old saw that no one is completely useless - since they always can serve as a bad example.

 

The tripping sign was adapted from one at Wikimedia Commons.