You're about to give a presentation. What mistakes could shake your confidence?

Siempre, pero siempre pregunta quién estará a cargo de los aspectos técnicos, qué equipos y programas usan, y de qué forma cargarás la presentación (Cloud, pendrive, etc.). Intenta llevar una presentación en formato PDF para que no tengas problemas de letras o versiones en powerpoint. Conoce el espacio, qué tipo de amplificación estará disponible para ti. Intenta tener un checklist, y revísalo al menos 30 minutos antes de la presentación.

Controlled breathing throughout the presentation helps to keep you relaxed throughout your session. The more nervous you get, the shorter your breaths get, which drives tension, faster rate of speech, and increased likelihood of mistakes. This does not mean taking awkward long deep breaths during the session, but ensuring you are pacing yourself. This also helps ensure your brain and the words leaving your face are aligned. I've made that mistake before where my words were flowing faster than my brain and I couldn't recall what I just said. Bad things happen at that point. :-)

One of the crucial mistake one can easily make is that they are not knowing much about their audience. Different types of audience requires the presentor to take different approaches. If the presentor has mixed up the audience preferences, it can lead to a really underwhelming presentation. For example - audience of new joiners or young professionals would appreciate a bit of humor in the presentation a lot more than the CXOs or upper management. So it is important to understand your audience.

Most times for me, it is about forgetting important information or key points during presentations. So, to prevent this, I rehearse thoroughly and have notes or cue cards as a backup.

One mistake that could shake my confidence is forgetting to bring something that is vital to the presentation. That's when you have to get creative. This happened to me one time. I was at the Beloit, WI public library about to give a presentation. As I was unpacking my equipment, I realized that I had forgotten my induction burner. Without it, I couldn't heat up the milk to make the cheese. But thinking quickly, I poured the milk into a microwave-safe bowl, and gave it several blasts in the microwave to heat it up to the proper temperature. It worked, and I was able to successfully make the cheese, and the presentation continued as it normally would.