I am scheduled to give a keynote at a technical symposium tomorrow. So, having prepared my slides, today I decided to try out my talk on my class of NYU students, since the topic is well aligned with the topic of our class.
I gave the talk to my class, and it was received well enough. But then one of the students asked a very thoughtful question.
To answer his question, I needed dive more deeply into the topic. And in the course of doing that, I ended up saying important things that had been in my head, but had not been in my slides.
Fortunately, there is a Zoom recording of today’s class. So this evening I am going through that recording, and incorporating these additional thoughts into the slide deck.
And I realize how wonderful it is to practice what you want to say in front of actual people. Had that student not asked that thoughtful question, and had I not been challenged to respond in kind, my talk tomorrow wouldn’t be nearly as good.