Mic Check Vol. 18: The power of pressing rewind

One of the many reasons I think becoming an exceptional communicator is difficult is that, for many of us, it's hard to get reps in. Particularly in the context of talks and presentations, we often don't have many at bats before game time, and the ones we can create on our own (talking to ourselves or making our friends and family listen to us) hardly justify the awkwardness required. 

I've been sitting with this for awhile, and it's made me wonder how small habits can help us form pretty huge competencies like presentation delivery. If you haven't read James Clear's Atomic Habits, I highly recommend it, or at least giving his interviews with Brene Brown a listen. 

The idea is pretty simple: rather than chasing a huge goal (be a world-class presenter), make a commitment to consistently do one tiny thing that is directionally correct every day. It sounds obvious, but that mindset change has outsized impact. 

It's one reason why we created the re-record feature in Rhetoric: being able to re-record a snippet of a presentation (rather than the whole thing) when something feels just a bit off encourages reps. Rather than thinking, "ugh, I meandered too much at minute 2, but another rep isn't worth it," we can pretty seamlessly give it another go with brevity in mind. 

Even something as simple as pausing mid-conversation when you know you lost your audience a dozen filler words ago to say, "actually, I didn't explain that well. Do you mind if I start again?" works to this end. Not only does that re-engage your snoozing audience—it's unexpected and requires their participation—it gives you another at bat. 
 

Happy weekend,

Raman
 

📚 Open tabs

What team Rhetoric is reading during those awkwardly-timed few minutes between Zooms. 

If you, too, are wondering what value the Meta Quest Pro will provide other than excellent memes on your Twitter feed, this is a good summary of why Meta is so determined to make VR a thing. 

Some really tactical advice in here for leaders who are eager to build teams that are more than 21% engaged (the State of the Global Workplace average, yikes): This is why every team needs a KPI for joy.

"Resilient organizations don’t just bounce back from misfortune or change; they bounce forward. They absorb the shocks and turn them into opportunities to capture sustainable, inclusive growth." Here's how to build one. 

✨ New ways to present better

Here's what's going on at Rhetoric this week:

In addition to the auto-generated transcript on your sidebar, you can now include closed captioning on all of your Rhetorics.

Have a feature idea you want to see in Rhetoric? Add it to our public roadmap!