This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of IHeart Radio.

Good morning. This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is that for anything high stakes, it is wise to do a trial run.

When you get one chance to nail something important, it pays to practice at least once or twice beforehand.

So you're confident the big event will go well.

Anybody who has done theater, dance, or musical performances knows how important rehearsals,

including dress rehearsals, can be. You have to be sure that you can execute the performance well, not just in your

rehearsal space, in your ordinary clothes, but on the actual stage, in costume, and with lights and

sound. But rehearsals and trial runs aren't just for the arts.

For instance, if you are giving a big presentation,

you should probably run through it in your venue at least once.

That's because preparing a presentation isn't just a matter of putting together a great PowerPoint deck,

or even putting together a deck in planning your talking points. You want to think about what your audience is seeing and experiencing.

When you are sitting at your desk reviewing your slides, you may think you can deliver the

presentation well. But once you get into the presentation space and see that you'll want

to be looking at your audience and not back at your slides or even at a confidence monitor,

you may realize you need to practice just a little bit more. Or you may realize that the

font that you feared would be awkwardly big is actually a bit small for people sitting

in the back of the room. After a trial run, you can tweak the slides and rehearse more,

so that you are well prepared and confident for the real thing.

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