Matt Abrahams

I do believe that audiences are more forgiving.

What I advise the people I teach and coach to do in those moments is instead of saying, oh, I forgot what I want to say,

Why not say, I get sometimes so passionate about what I say, I get a little ahead of myself, which is likely true.

And use that as a reason to reset.

Let me share with you what I advise people to do to avoid blanking out and then what to do if you do blank out.

First and foremost, avoid memorizing.

Memorizing invites blanking out.

So let's not memorize.

Let's have a clear structure, a roadmap, but we don't know every word that we're going to say.

The fear of blanking out leads and increases the likelihood of blanking out.

So let's not worry about blanking out as much as we do.

How do we do that?

We rationalize.

I ask everybody to think about what is the likelihood in this upcoming communication, whatever it is, one-on-one big presentation, that you'll blank out.

Most people say maybe 20%.

Well, that means 80% of the time you're not going to blank out.

I'm not a betting person.

I take those odds.

So realizing that it's not as likely to happen, that's step one.

Step two, ask yourself, if it were to happen, what's the worst thing that would happen for me?