{"id":513,"date":"2009-08-13T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-13T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=513"},"modified":"2020-08-09T13:13:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-09T17:13:03","slug":"public-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=513","title":{"rendered":"Public Speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I really enjoy public speaking. For many years, I was on the “rubber chicken circuit,” traveling to conferences and meetings to present information and teach courses — many of which I wrote. I used to travel to more than 100 conferences and events annually (mostly in the U.S.) The travel was grueling and exhausting. However, I enjoyed seeing the people I was there to meet, and getting a chance to see the sights of whatever town I was in. (N.B., I do not travel nearly as much any more, much to my relief<\/i>.)<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I presented at a conference held in the DC area. It was fun seeing a number of people who I had known and worked with for many years. (I didn’t see my old boss, though several people asked me if I did.)<\/p>\n

Over 100 people attended my session. I was quite energized and definitely “up” for the occasion.<\/p>\n

In order to speak confidently without a script, I did what I had learned from experience. The night before, I reviewed my presentation, tweaked it a little bit, and then rehearsed it in front of my partner. He is a great “speaker critic” and gave me some pointers about some things I could explain better. He has heard it all before and knows the content almost as well as I do. I love having him as my audience. He “pulls no punches” and tells me both the good and the bad (or shall I say, what could be better.)<\/p>\n

I like to circulate in front of the audience and not refer to notes. I keep the pace moving, quickly delivering my messages and giving anecdotes to which the audience can relate. I was definitely on “a high” from doing what, to me, is fun.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>How was I dressed? Considering that the audience was dressed casually, I wore a shirt and tie, khakis, and debated about the boots. I first put on my Tony Lama “red brown” cowboy boots<\/a>. Then I remembered that I was going ride my Harley to the Metro, and wanted to have boots on that would give me good traction just in case it rained. Afternoon storms were predicted. Smooth-soled cowboy boots wouldn’t work.<\/p>\n

So I put on my tall Chippewa Hi-Shine Engineer Boots<\/a> (to which I had big lug soles applied), which to me looked good with the outfit. Nice and shiny. No one said anything about the boots, and I don’t think anyone even noticed. Photo here shows me at my local Metro station on my bike where I park it.<\/p>\n

Back to work today to the usual routine. I enjoyed the experience of public speaking, and hope to do it again soon.<\/p>\n

Life is short: rise to the occasion and have fun! <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really enjoy public speaking. For many years, I was on the “rubber chicken circuit,” traveling to conferences and meetings to present information and teach courses — many of which I wrote. I used to travel to more than 100 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cowboy-boots","category-motorcycle-boots"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}