Bonus Episode: Jess on Constructive Criticism and Pulling Out of an On-Stage Death Spiral

About once a season, I have a speaking experience that doesn’t go exactly the way I want it to, but I’ve learned how to keep these experiences (and the negative feedback that can result) from keeping me awake at night while fueling positive change. Well, that once-a-season occurrence happened earlier this fall, and it felt awful. I usually text Tim or KJ and Sarina with, “well, that felt off” and they reassure me that the audience probably did not notice, and sometimes - sometimes - that’s true. Whether the audience noticed or not, I did, and I need to walk off stage feeling like I nailed it, that I reached people, planted seeds for positive change, and made the best use of the audience’s (and my) time, not to mention the client’s investment of time and money.

This episode contains advice on how to prepare for events and catch potential mistakes before they happen, redirect yourself on stage when you feel things getting out of control or heading in the wrong direction, and some productive ways to cope with and respond to negative feedback.

No matter how good you are, no matter how experienced you are, you will have bad days on stage. I hope my experience with failure flattens your learning curve.

Unlike the photo at the top of this post, this picture is of me in mid-death spiral. This was almost ten years ago but I remember the event and the nausea vividly. I walked off stage feeling as if I’d squandered an incredible audience and wasted their time, but I keep this picture to remind me of how far I’ve come and why I have to keep improving.

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