Public Speaking is a strange art. Somebody is “born with it”, most of the people can become very good at it with some exercise, some people are bad at it also after years of delivering sessions.
Every good speaker has his/her own characteristic, but bad speakers have three things in common:
- they don’t prepare the sessions (or don’t prepare them enough)
- they don’t look for feedbacks, or they don’t take actions after receiving feedbacks
- they don’t look at other speakers to understand how to become a better speaker
Going to a session is a significant investment of time, your precious time, so it’s better to make it worth it!
I usually follow a session for two reasons:
- I care about the topic
- I want to learn from the speaker
The best ROI of my time is when both reasons are valid. If you only care about the subject, because the speaker is not a good one, try to understand what he/she’s doing wrong, what you could have done if you were there, what are the reactions from other attendees. Are you making the same mistakes? Talk with other people at the end of the session, ask for their perspectives.
Of course, it’s better when you learn from the best speakers, but every speaker can teach you something.
