Do & Don'ts when everything goes wrong in your BIG day

Imagine that you are going to present your speech one day. You are so prepared; you rehearsed, you remembered what you are going to say, you have everything with you complete: laptop, battery extension, pen drive, basically everything you need to make your speech "a wow". Suddenly, when you arrived at the place where you are supposed to do the speech, you discovered that everything suddenly goes wrong. Your mike won't work, the lights were off, you can't on your laptop, the noise next door are loud. You starts to panic, perspire, running around like chicken with no head searching for whatever you think will help you. In such scene, you must remember a few do and don'ts! Written by Gene Perrett in Laugh Line Section, Toastmasters Magazine 2006, it talks about what you should and shouldn't do when everything goes wrong.

Don't!
1. Don't blow up! Control your adrenaline! Because things do not (suddenly) work that way, you must control how you going to react; in front of everyone else. When a problem arise, it's your problem. Take it as a responsibility and try to solve it, ask people (in charge) what you can do (if you don't know how to fix it). Be like a leader; the audience will then realize that by your action, they will know they should listen to someone like you.

2. Don't surrender to the situation! You must remember that problem is a temporary situation that will eventually go away; after you have solve it. When something happened in between of the speech, don't be bothered by the problem; continue what you prepared for the last few sleepless days and weeks for that speech. Don't let anything distract your attention.

Do!
1. Be sensible, maintain your dignity, don't throw tantrum if you are having problems. You have to remember that you are the focus in the speech, so the audiences will see you as who you are suppose to be.

2. "No matter how, the shows must go on", keep your sense of humour. When problem arises, try to make it as a funny situation which would bring laughter instead of hushes and yawns to the audience. Tell them it's ok to have the problem, tell them you are ok with the problem; and everything will be over in matter of seconds.

sources; Gene Perret 2006, Dos and Don'ts for When the Mike Won't, Toastmaster magazine jan 2006.

Liew Hui Qing, Jaime