Michael Hayden Quotes

At 25, I was in the audience of my first professional speaker, Bob Bales. His presentation got my attention. I had never seen anyone having so much fun 'at work' and getting paid for it!

Poor speakers create an artificial divide between themselves and the audience. They feel they need to do this in order to establish their own credibility.

It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of readers.

Reading off a Teleprompter is an easy skill to do passably well and a difficult skill to do very well. I still have room for improvement there. I still talk too fast and I'm trying to slow myself down.

I'm a presenter.

You won't catch me giving clear lectures.

Learn the art of the pitch and of messaging.

I love presentations more than fashion shows. I love speaking to people and walking them through the collection.

I am still working on patter and presentation.

Go ahead, Teleprompter, Go ahead!

I don't completely understand why people in Aspen want to hear what I have to say.

I think that no one, or very few, are born as good presenters. It's a skill that you learn. The key is the 10/20/30 rule: 10 slides given in 20 minutes using no font smaller than 30 points. If people just adhered to this rule, they would double or triple the quality of their presentations.

When I give a speech, I tell it like a story.

I can talk to execs very clearly, very plainly. I don't get nervous in front of them anymore.

One of my favorite things is acting like a speaker or a professor or a CEO of a company and addressing the audience like a group of engineers or designers or marketers.

I was confident while facing the camera because I was comfortable in front of a live audience.

I consider myself a pretty good extemporaneous speaker. Even though I don't like speaking in front of people, I don't think I'm bad at it.

Acting is my passion, but I like hosting shows, too.

As a presenter, you have to speak with artificial energy and enthusiasm.

If for the sake of a crowded audience you do wish to hold a lecture, your ambition is no laudable one, and at least avoid all citations from the poets, for to quote them argues feeble industry.

I wonder what my speech would be.

PowerPoint presentations too often resemble a school play - very loud, very slow, and very simple.

ʺWe need someone to get the roomʹs attention,ʺ I said. ʺSomeone not afraid to make a spectacle—I mean, besides me, of course.ʺ

All "bad" presentations struggle to keep the audience interested. The audience squirms wishing they could escape. The audience has given the presenter an hour of their life, so they want that hour to be useful. It's disrespectful of a presenter to not show up rehearsed and prepared with information and insights that will improve the lives of the audience in some way. Presenting will do only one of two things for you: it will either diminish your credibility or yield results. Most bad presentations hurt the presenter's credibility.

Standing up here 10 in a row, you know, like a bunch of seals waiting for somebody to throw you the next fish, is not necessarily the best way to impart your information to the American people. I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish, I just don't want to do it all the time.