I wrote a post a week or two ago about the confusion at awards shows when the winners are finished with their speech and they don’t know which way to exit the stage.
Now for the actual speech itself.
When someone wins a Grammy, or a Golden Globe or whatever, it floors me when they get up to the mic and talk at length about how they don’t have any words prepared because they didn’t think they would win.
How did this happen? Was there not a reminder on your iPhone that the awards show was tonight and there’s a 20% chance you might have to speak in front of millions of people? Or maybe you didn’t set a reminder, but walking the red carpet with tons of fans and photographers shouting your name should have clued you in that something was going on.
And most people, when declaring their unpreparedness into the microphone, think it’s some badge of modesty or endearment that they didn’t think they would win so they didn’t think of what to say.
False. (said like Dwight K. Schrute)
Butterflys might get the best of you, you might completely forget what you prepared (which should trigger simple “thank you” as the back up plan), but for goodness sake, and for the sake of decent TV, have something to say.
It doesn’t even have to be memorable, just professional.
You got the nomination. You got that far in the beauty contest. You might win. You should plan on winning. If you don’t, you wasted all of about five minutes preparing. If you do, that five minutes just became very important.
You choose. We’ll be listening.
