The Hidden Rule of Public Speaking No One Talks About
The secret to speaking with confidence (even when you fail).
In February 2019, I wrote this excerpt on my Medium blog:
“As a young lad growing up, I couldn’t approach a babe. Due to the unanimous standards created by society, I think I need to be more specific with the use of words like ‘babe’—I’m talking about the opposite sex. Some refer to it as fear; I call it an affright occasion of excessive presentiment.
I still vividly remember my final year in high school. While my mates were having fun during the dreary inter-house sports competition, I retired to the classroom, busy with the eighth edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, cramming jaw-breaking, deep-rooted, and long-winded words, rehearsing for my big day—the day I’d be a speaker at a multinational event.”
That day I dreamed about finally came upon me.
Today is January 2024. I was to give a presentation at the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), the largest gathering of researchers and industry professionals worldwide, with over 24,000 attendees. It was an academic presentation, and I was super excited. We were twelve presenters, each with only three minutes to deliver our research in the most compelling way possible.
A few weeks earlier, I had represented my club in a Toastmasters International competition, winning first place at the Area Level and second at the Division Level. At that moment, I felt like the 21st-century Barack Obama chanting Yes We Can. Except there was no American people; I was the American people.
What I’m about to share are the lessons learned over the past five years. Deliberate lessons. Strategic lessons. I had been preparing like an Olympic athlete training for gold.
A week before the event, I broke every rule in the academic presentation handbook. Instead of drowning my audience in dense text and lifeless figures, I created something persuasive, a 15-second GIF that brought my research to life through animations and color. Every frame told a story that even someone without a scientific background could understand and feel.
My preparation went beyond the ordinary. I learned from Beyoncé and Solange's playbook, taught by their father Matthew Knowles to practice failure in all its forms. They rehearsed broken microphones, twisted ankles, wrong music cues. I rehearsed obsessively. My heart always races before a talk so I trained for it. I practiced running on treadmills while presenting, holding my breath underwater to master speaking through panic, rehearsing my words until they felt like old friends.
When the day arrived, I was ready.
I wore my brown Oxford shoes, my deep blue suit paired with a crisp white shirt, and a tie accented with striped hues. An hour before the event, I arrived at the venue. I was tad nervous so I sought out random attendees, asking if they would spare a few minutes to hear my speech. One, two, three…each run-through cemented my confidence. Thirty minutes before, I met the host, an elderly woman with sparkling blue eyes. As she greeted me with a warm smile, her soft Irish accent immediately stood out. “Are you ready to submit your slide?”, she asked.
I handed her my flash drive. She looked at my slide and exclaimed, “Wow! This is fancy! I like it.” She shared stories of past winners and praised the creativity of my design. “Would you mind listening to my speech?” I asked, emboldened while gazing at her blue eyes. She agreed with enthusiasm. I delivered it, and her claps and radiant smile filled me with quiet confidence yet again.
By the time other speakers arrived, I had already made transient friends. I had paced the venue, memorized its rhythm. Even smiles that went unreturned didn’t faze me. You would think I was addressing the nation with my crave for perfection. Our speaking order was alphabetical. My last name, Adejumo, put me second, following an absent Abbott. It was usual to always be betrayed by my last name so this wasn’t a surprise to me. But never did I imagine that Abbott would betray me.
Ms. Anna Irish, the host, started the event with a warm welcome before calling me up. My legs shook as I walked to the podium but I responded with a smile. I requested for a lapel mic, knowing that asking for something on stage often makes you feel more calm and confident. Ms. Irish obliged, and I stepped off the podium to stand closer to the judges. Eyeball to eyeball, I was ready, radiating confidence.
The title slide transitioned to my one-slide presentation. I began with a gravelly voice:
"Imagine a world where you lose your memory…. One minute you are absolutely fine, and then, the next minute… the beautiful memories of your friends, family, loved ones…poof…GONE."
At “poof,” I could swear that the judges’ faces twisted like they had just tasted something sour. Rapid blinks, eyebrows doing gymnastics, legs fidgeting. They couldn’t sit still. And those veins on their foreheads were popping out like they were seconds away from yelling, “Get this guy off the stage!”
And then my mind just… blanked.
I froze. Completely. I opened my mouth and muttered very quickly: I’m sorry, is it okay to start again? But it was like the words just evaporated. The room was dead silent, except for the judges, who shook their heads like, “What are we even watching?” Out of nowhere, I hear it: click, click, click. It is Ms. Irish’s shoes, and she’s walking toward me. I had thought Ms. Irish and I had a relationship. She gets up to me, looks me right in the eyes, and says, “You cannot start again. Maximize your remaining time.”
Right then, I knew I had two choices. I could fall apart… or I could finish. I swallowed hard and turned away from the judges to forget them. My new mission was to connect with the audience. Even if my words stumbled out, even if the rest of my speech was shaky which I am certain it wasn’t, I was going to finish. And I did.
The rest of the speakers came and went. Their talks were stiff and robotic. Totally forgettable. But I was not paying much attention. I could not stop replaying my moment over and over in my head. I had practiced so much. I had trained for pressure, rehearsed for failure, memorized backup lines. So what happened? How did I crack?
Back in my hotel room, it finally hit me. It wasn’t just about the judges and me not having the same presentation style. It was about how I handled the moment when things went wrong. And that’s when I realized:
Never Apologize.
Apologizing in moments like this does not fix the problem; it magnifies it. When I muttered those words: “Is it okay to start again?” I felt the room’s energy shift. The judges didn’t care. The audience did not rally behind me. I was alone alone in my “little polite world”. Instead, apologizing made the moment heavier. What if, instead, I had smiled and taken a deliberate pause before continuing? Would the outcome have been different? Maybe. Would I have felt stronger? Absolutely.
And so whether you get to an event late, whether the mic dies, whether the slides glitch, infact if you even forget your words, I plead with you not to apologize. Whether a workplace mistake, or an awkward introduction, again, do not apologize. You can thank the audience for their patience. But do not say you’re sorry. Because here is the hard truth: no one really cares. No one will give you a second chance because you said sorry. Even if you are at fault, never ever apologize. Apologizing just makes everything worse.
This is what 2024 taught me.