From the department of mixed metaphors:

This week Megan knocked her “Icebreaker” out of the park.

Megan’s a new-ish member but not a new member. She’s been in the club for a few months. Many of us were eagerly awaiting her first formal speech. A couple of times she almost had it ready, she says, but then she got busy. Things came up. Life intervened.

Sound familiar?

How many of us delay presenting our speeches-in-progress because they are not quite fully cooked?

We are a culture of perfectionists. We like to keep things under wraps until they are … finished. We want other people to see the very best we can do.

That’s commendable. But it may also be a mistake.

Recently Darren LaCroix, former world public-speaking champion, was in town giving a workshop on how to be funnier. At root his talk wasn’t about how to be funnier. It was about how to fail. How to fail, and how to fail better, and how to appreciate what a gift it is to fail. And how do you learn to fail better? By getting up and giving that speech, even when it’s not fully cooked.

When LaCroix went to his first Toastmasters meeting, he was surprised by the crowd. These people were very different than the bunch he used to encounter in comedy clubs. They were warm, encouraging, … sober. What a fantastic opportunity to try out your chops in such a supportive environment. LaCroix was stunned that sometimes the spaces available for speeches went unused. That invaluable “stage time” was there for the grabbing, and people chose not to grab it.

Let’s learn from that, folks. Let’s grab it. Let’s use that glorious stage time.

Hey: who wants to wait longer than we have to for Megan’s next speech?