Think back to the last presentation you attended that wasn’t your own, and try to recall the very first words the speaker said once the thank-yous were out of the way. Was it something like “I know I’m all that stands between you and lunch”? Was it an apology for not having had enough time to prepare, or a quiet confession that they were feeling a bit nervous?
Now ask yourself, honestly, what happened to your expectations in that moment. I suspect they dropped a notch, so quietly that you barely noticed, because the speaker hadn’t said anything wrong. They were being polite, even a little charming, and I’d be surprised if you haven’t said something very similar at some point. Yet in a single sentence, before they offered a single idea, they told you how they saw themselves and how they saw you.
The unguarded moments
I often hear these phrases from people at every level, from chief executives to new graduates in their first month, whether in boardrooms, at conferences or on video calls, and what has always struck me is how rarely the person saying them realises they’ve said anything at all. They tend to come out when we’re not really paying attention, when the nerves are running the show, and the words are simply filling the space. I’ve come to believe that what slips out in those unguarded moments often tells the truth about what’s really going on inside us.
I’ve gathered ten of the most common ones together below, and you may well recognise yourself in one or two of them. Please don’t read them as a list of crimes. Each one is said by someone trying to do their best.
What these phrases have in common
Before we look at them one by one, it’s worth pausing on the thread that runs through all ten, because once you see it, you’ll start to notice phrases that aren’t on my list at all. Each one is said by someone who, in that moment, is looking after themselves rather than looking after the room. Some are apologies offered in advance, in case the talk disappoints. Some are hedges, so that if a point doesn’t land, the speaker was never quite committed to it in the first place. Others are the sound of someone racing the clock, and a couple are simply what comes out when there’s a silence to fill, and nothing planned to fill it.
I have a great deal of sympathy for all of them. For many of us, standing in front of people forming a view of you is the most exposed moment of the working week, and it is entirely human to reach for a little protection.
What makes these phrases so tempting is that they get the criticism out of the way first. It’s the same instinct that makes us say “ignore the mess” when we open the front door to a guest, or “it’s probably not very good” when we hand someone something we’ve cooked. If we point out the flaw ourselves, nobody can catch us out, and that feels safer. The trouble is that it also tells the other person exactly where to look. Mention the mess and your guest notices it; tell the room you’re nervous and they start watching for the signs. What was meant as protection ends up directing their attention to the very thing you were worried about, before you’ve given them anything better to focus on.
The apologies
“I know I’m all that stands between you and lunch.”
It’s meant as a warm joke; it usually comes with a smile, and I understand exactly why people use it, because it acknowledges the hour and seems to put everyone at ease. But look at what it actually does. Before you’ve said a single word of substance, it casts you as the thing standing between your audience and something they would rather be doing, an obstacle to be politely got through. If you have something worth their time, and I hope you do, there’s no need to introduce yourself as a delay. Start with the thing that’s worth their time instead, and let lunch take care of itself.
“Sorry, I haven’t had time to prepare.”
Sometimes it’s genuinely true, because presentations do have a habit of landing on people’s desks with very little warning, but what the room hears is rarely the explanation you intended. They hear that they weren’t quite a priority, and you’ve also handed them a reason to judge everything that follows through a different lens, which is not a gift you want to give anyone. If you’re underprepared, keep it to yourself, do the very best you can with what you have, and let them judge what they actually see.
“Sorry, I’m a bit nervous.”
I have enormous compassion for anyone who says this, because it usually comes from a very honest place. In my experience, though, the room sees far less of your nerves than you feel, which means they usually stay private until the moment you announce them. Once you do, you’ve given your audience a job: to worry about you. Every small tremor in your voice or your hands that they might never have noticed becomes something they’re now quietly looking out for. Say nothing, take a breath, and begin.
“This slide is a bit busy.”
If you feel the need to apologise for a slide, you already know, somewhere, what needs to happen to it. Cut it, or cut it down, before you’re standing in front of it asking the room to forgive you for something you still had time to change.
The hedges
“Hopefully, by the end, you’ll…”
It’s only one word, but it turns a promise into a wish. “By the end of this session you’ll know how to…” tells the room you’ve thought carefully about what they need and that you fully intend to give it to them, whereas “hopefully” tells them you’re not entirely sure you can. If you genuinely aren’t sure, that’s something to resolve in your preparation, long before the day, rather than something to confess in your opening minute.
“You probably already know this, but…”
It sounds modest, even considerate, and I’m sure it’s usually meant that way. Yet it gives your audience permission to stop listening, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for taking it. It also tells them, rather quietly, that you don’t quite believe the point is worth making. If it matters, say it as though it does, with all the conviction it deserves. If it doesn’t, leave it out altogether.
The rush
“I’ve got a lot to cover.”
Covering material is something you do for yourself, because it gets the content said and lets you walk away knowing you said it. Choosing what your audience actually needs from you, and giving that the time it deserves, is something you do for them. Whenever I hear this phrase, it tells me the talk has probably been built around everything the speaker knows rather than what the people in the room need, and the room has just been warned to expect a sprint. Keep cutting until that sentence is no longer true.
“I’ll just skip through these next few slides.”
Until you mention them, those slides simply don’t exist for your audience. The moment you do, you’ve invited everyone to wonder what they’ve missed and whether it mattered, and I suspect some of their attention stays behind with those slides long after you’ve moved on. The time to cut is before you arrive, not in front of the people you’re presenting to, and if you do find yourself running short on the day, move past them quietly and say nothing at all.
The autopilot
“Great question.”
It’s usually meant kindly, and it’s easy to see why people say it, because asking a question in front of a room takes courage and deserves acknowledgement. The difficulty is that praising one question also judges the others. The person who asked before and the person who asks next may wonder why theirs wasn’t great, and some will think twice about asking again. Said to every question, it becomes something else entirely, a verbal habit that buys you a second or two to think, and I think people sense when it’s being used as filler, even if they couldn’t tell you why. If you want to acknowledge the courage of asking, thank people for their questions, all of them, and then simply answer.
“Thank you for asking that” recognises the person without rating the question, which is the distinction the paragraph now makes.
“So… yeah. Any questions?”
Your last words are the ones people carry out of the room with them, and this is how an awful lot of presentations end, drifting gently to a stop rather than arriving anywhere. It’s such a shame, because in my experience the close is when attention comes back to the speaker. Take your questions before the end, then close deliberately on the one sentence you most want them to remember. Decide what that sentence is before you write anything else, and when the moment comes, say it, and stop.
But what if it’s true?
I can imagine some of you reading this and thinking that it’s all very well, but some of these things are true. You might genuinely be nervous, your thirty minutes might really have been cut to fifteen, and you might have been handed the presentation yesterday afternoon by someone who should have known better. So am I asking you to pretend?
No, I’m not. What I’m asking is that before you say something like this, you pause and ask yourself one simple question.
Who is this sentence for?
If it’s for your audience, say it. When your time has been cut in half, telling them “We’ve got fifteen minutes, so I’m going to focus on the one decision we need to make today” genuinely helps them, and in my experience, it earns far more respect than any apology ever could. If it’s for you, to lower the bar, to excuse what’s coming or simply to make yourself feel a little better, then keep it to yourself. Your nerves and your worries about the slides are real, and I would never ask you to pretend otherwise, but telling the room about them doesn’t help the room. It only asks them to carry something that was yours to carry.
Why better phrases won’t fix it
It would be easy to read all of this as a list of banned phrases and replace each one with something more polished. I’d gently encourage you not to, because the phrase was never really the problem. It’s a symptom of where your attention is at that moment, and if you swap “I’m a bit nervous” for something slicker while your attention is still fixed on yourself, something else will slip out a few minutes later.
The real change, and the one that lasts, is moving your attention away from how you’re coming across and towards what the people in front of you need. I won’t pretend that’s easy, because it asks you to stand there without the small protections these phrases offer. Not apologising in advance means accepting that people will judge your talk on its merits, and not hedging means committing to a point you might later discover was wrong. That takes courage, and it deserves to be recognised as courage.
When you stop protecting yourself
What makes it easier, in my experience, is preparation aimed at the right thing. Know what you want your audience to think, feel and do by the end. Write your opening and closing lines word for word, because those are the moments when these phrases are most likely to escape. Rehearse out loud and standing up, so that the words you’ve chosen are the ones your mouth reaches for under pressure. And if you’d like to know which of these phrases belong to you, record your next rehearsal, or the next video call where you’re presenting, and listen closely to the first and last minute, because in my experience that’s where most of them hide.
When you stop protecting yourself, the room no longer has to manage you, and all of that attention can go where it belongs: on what you came to say.
How we can help
If you’d like help letting go of the habits that are holding your presentations back, there are three ways we can work together:
- Public speaking courses in London
- One-to-one public speaking coaching
- Presentation skills training for teams
If this has made you think of someone who’d find it useful, please share it with them.
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