Sure, you want to come across well when you give a presentation. But don't focus on that. If you do, you may be 'taking a selfie,' and that ain't good! 

TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains a tough-love message.

There's an article in this week's The Epoch Times newspaper that caught my eye as a speech coach. The piece contains a valuable lesson—especially if you give speeches or presentations. 

It's one that can help take your performances from mundane to memorable. Best of all, perhaps, audiences will love what you're showing them if you take this lesson to heart.

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The Selfies That Conquered the World

The article's actual subject is worlds apart from public speaking. The title is "The Original Selfie," by Sarah Isak-Goode. The author gives a brief history of self-portraiture through the ages by focusing on nine painters, including Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, and the American Charles Willson Peale, who portrayed many of the founding fathers.

But these people were painters, and their "selfies" are part of a long tradition in art involving "a global practice of artistic self-exploration, revealing both the makers and the historical moment in which they lived."¹ Our thoughts about selfies are apt to head in a different direction, more likely to involve an effort to maximize the likes on a social media page than artistic expression.

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In truth, these images all say, "Look at me," no matter how artistically accomplished or mundane they may be. And that's precisely what we need to avoid when we're presenting to an audience, whether our own efforts are modest or monumental in terms of the audience and the occasion. (For formal speaking events, here's how to read a speech and still be an effective speaker.)

'Birthplace of the Renaissance,' or Selfie Central?

For many years, I had wanted to visit Florence, Italy, and I finally got the chance. I was hired to train Italian business people in presentation skills for two weeks in Umbria, the province next to Tuscany and its famous city. On one of my free days, my family and I took the train to Florence.

If you've ever been, you know that one doesn't even have to step inside a museum to experience the glory of the Renaissance in Florence—the streets are chock full of glorious architecture and statuary. But the day we visited, the streets were also filled with . . . vendors selling selfie-sticks. They were literally everywhere! (Perhaps you're familiar with people visiting great museums all over the globe, only to discovers tourists posing in front of famous paintings and sculptures taking selfies.)

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Why You and I Don't Matter . . . and Why That's Good 

Here's how all of this relates to your own presentations, speeches, pitches, updates, and any other public speaking you do. As I said above, it's normal to want to "be good" when you give a talk. You've probably worked hard to prepare, and who doesn't want his or her efforts to be appreciated? (Not to mention your job and career!)

But that's not why listeners are there. To put it bluntly, most of the time they don't care about you at all. And really, why should they? If they're interested in your message or the information you're sharing (and they always are), it's wonderful if that's the wavelength they're on. The chances are good that they accept that you the speaker are informed and prepared. It would be a waste of their time and your time to be nit-picking things about your presentation skills.

Unfortunately, too often we worry about that as the speaker. And so we get in the head of "How am I doing?", "Do they like me?", "How's my pace—should I speed up or slow down?", "Why is that guy looking so bored or angry?", and a real killer: "How long will it be before they realize I don't know what I'm talking about?"

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The only way you will ever succeed in a speech is if you understand what your audience needs from you, and you hand it to them. Exactly like an actor, you must forget you exist in service of giving the audience what they need every second of your performance. Believe me, they will love it if you do, and they'll think very highly of you because of it.

Or, you can turn your attention (and probably everyone else's too), toward you. That will put you smack dab in the middle of the frame, where no one wants you to be.

That's taking a selfie.

¹ Sarah Isak-Goode, "The Original Selfie," The Epoch Times, June 3-9, 2026, C1.

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Instead of my picture in this spot this week, here's a photo of the famous Ponte Vecchio in Florence:

Photo credits:

Selfies image: cottonbro studio on pexels.com

Ponte Vecchio: Editor's Choice on pixabay.com