Submitted by Jack Milner on March 17, 2026
For many presenters, the fear isn’t the presentation, it’s what happens when someone interrupts or asks a tough question.
Ironically, that’s the moment we’re closest to our natural state: having a conversation.
So rather than fearing it, we can borrow from a group of people who deal with awkward audiences all the time, comedians.
Submitted by Jack Milner on March 17, 2026
I once worked with a senior leader at a bank who, without question, was the best presenter in the organisation. That mattered, because the board were notoriously tough. Many of the C-suite dreaded presenting to them, particularly the Q&A.
Before one big session, he said something that completely reframed it for me:
“I see their questions as an opportunity.”
He broke it down into three possibilities.
First, a tough question often means they haven’t fully understood, so it’s an opportunity to explain more clearly.
Submitted by Jack Milner on March 10, 2026
I was reading a Bernard Cornwell novel from the Sharpe series recently. Most of the action is set during the war between Britain and Denmark in 1807. On the way back from Copenhagen, the characters sail past Elsinore – the castle from Hamlet.
The ebulliant Captain Chase asks Sharpe if he knows what the play is about. Sharpe says he doesn’t. Chase bluffly replies, “It’s about a man who can’t make up his mind. In the end, indecision kills him.”
Submitted by Jack Milner on February 25, 2026
I was recently listening to a very old recording of Johnny Cash singing U2’s One. Cash is in his late 60s (possibly sounding closer to 106). His voice only appears to have about three notes left in it. It’s deep, fragile, and you can almost picture him in the studio, holding the lyric sheet, resting between takes, just about finishing the song.
And yet somehow it connects.
In fact (and I say this as a U2 fan) Johnny Cash’s barely alive version is arguably stronger than Bono’s.
Submitted by Jack Milner on February 13, 2026
The Simple Story Trick That Makes You Instantly More Credible
My daughter was telling me the other day about a conversation she’d had with a gentleman admirer. (You can tell through that phrase, how in-touch I am with the ‘yoooths’).
Anyway, she said that when she attends lectures at university (she’s studying medicine) she often brings a large bag of sweets and shares them with the people sitting around her. Nothing disruptive, so she claims. Just a little morale boost during a long lecture.
Submitted by Jack Milner on January 27, 2026
I’ve coached some extraordinarily gifted speakers over the years. Not just gifted at speaking, but talented humans full stop: sportspeople, artists, adventurers and business owners.
And when you ask how they got started in their chosen profession, a familiar pattern appears.
Most of them realised quite young that they had something. A knack. A head start.
Submitted by Jack Milner on January 14, 2026
As we move into 2026, I’ve reflected on a chat I had years ago with a senior banker. I asked him a simple question: where and when were you happiest at work?
It wasn’t the trading floor or achieving an immense KPI rolling out x project. It was when he was 18, fresh from A-levels, working for three months as a labourer on a building site.
“Until you asked me I’d never thought about it. But it was then. And it was because of the banter. It was a really tough job. But I loved it.”
Submitted by Jack Milner on November 25, 2025
If you really want to sound clever, try recommending someone no one else has ever heard of. You know the type of thing: an art critic proclaiming, “Oh, Maddy Diggy-Doo Buggy-Doom is unquestionably the most important artist of the 20th century,” and everyone nods sagely, hoping no one notices they’re Googling under the table.
