A short segment of a TJ Walker live stream where a viewer (Alonzo) asks what to do when a presenter forgets their place. TJ Walker recommends using pauses (as punctuation) and keeping a single-sheet outline in large font rather than a full script; he also notes that silence feels longer to the speaker than to the audience.
Chapters
So what do you do if you.
Forget what to say? In the middle of a lecture.
Alonzo writes in with the following question, and.
He'S coming to us from the YouTube channel.
He says, TJ, what should we do when we are presenting and we've just completely forgotten what we're talking about? This has happened to me a couple.
Of times when I was giving a presentation in college classes.
The oh, I have forgotten what I.
Was going to say moment.
It is, I believe, what causes the.
Most fear for people pertaining to public speaking.
By the way, how I handled the.
Situation was just to move to the next topic.
The worst thing is to just have.
Dead silence for more than a second or two.
Well, I'm going to agree with part.
Of what you said and disagree with the other part.
I think your approach to just move.
On is, in fact, the best thing to do.
However, the idea that the worst thing.
In the world is a second or two of silence. No, no, I'm going to disagree with you. In fact, the best speakers in the world have pauses. They have pauses throughout their presentations. Pausing is a form of punctuation when you're speaking. It lets someone know you finished one thought, gives them a moment to reflect, makes them realize we're now transitioning to a new sentence, a new paragraph, a new chapter, essentially. So there's nothing wrong with pausing. It seems a lot longer to you when you're the speaker than it does to the audience.
Now, as to your question, how do you keep from forgetting?
The simplest thing is to have an out outline that's on one single sheet.
Of paper with very large font where you don't have to put on glasses.
As I just did a moment ago, because I was reading off the screen. And you don't have to do on and off and bend down and all that.
That's why having a complete text of.
A script is completely worthless. Because if you've been talking for five minutes, there's no way you can find your spot if the whole script is written out or if it's on multiple pages. So that's why it's critically important to boil everything down to a single sheet.
Of paper with a large font, where.
You really have just the main bullet points to keep you on track. Do that and the stress melts away. You're much likely to forget or less likely to forget. And if you do make a blunder, don't draw attention to it. It's not typically forgetting that gets us in trouble with the audience. It's the oops, I forgot the way Rick Perry did four years ago. That's what gets us into trouble. If you forget what you're going to say, just move on, Chances are, nobody will notice.
