So how do you recover from a mistake or blunder when you're giving a presentation? Look, everybody makes mistakes from time to time I make mistakes. Here's the difference, though, between how amateurs handle it and real pros. What most people do they make a mistake and they realize it all of a sudden it's they visibly show all their frustration on their face. They may apologize. And unfortunately, what happens even if people can relate to you, it becomes the most memorable moment of your presentation.

People are feeling sorry for you. They're feeling sympathy for you. That's not the emotion you want from your audience. You want them focused on the ideas you have, and why they need to do what you're asking them to do. So my advice is if you make a mistake, first of all, you got to make a judgment how big of a mistake is it? Because there's plenty of mistakes where you didn't say it exactly the way you want it to, but it's not factually incorrect, it's not legally a problem.

It's just not the best way of saying it. In that case, ignore it. or explain it again without referencing your previous mistake. Now, occasionally, you can make a mistake, that is a genuine problem. If you say your profits are up a billion dollars last quarter, and you meant to say it's a million dollars, well, you better correct that right away, or the Securities and Exchange Commission could be all over you, and you could find yourself in prison. So in that particular case, I would just state let me correct that it's $1 million last quarter, not the first number I said.

State it state in a straightforward way. Don't apologize. Don't look and act like you are holding yourself in contempt. Just simply go on, correct the record in a straightforward way and continue. Don't let it act like it's bothering you do that and people will not remember your mistakes. they'll remember your main messages.