You faced harsh criticism from a tough crowd. How will you use it to improve your public speaking skills?

Constructive feedback is a gift. Sure, it might sting initially, but it’s the catalyst for real growth. Not all feedback will move you forward, but when it’s constructive, it provides the insight needed to improve. The key is to reflect and ask: What didn’t connect? Was it your content, your delivery, or perhaps your body language? Constructive criticism doesn’t just highlight areas for improvement - it offers a roadmap to help you get there. It’s not a measure of your worth but a tool to refine your approach and strengthen your skills. Embrace it, and you’ll become stronger and be even better at what you do.

Feedback is the breakfast of champions...eat it up! The first thing to do is to understand why there was a disconnect with the crowd. The problem will be at least one of the following: Poor research on audience, content or delivery. Lean back into the feedback and break it down into these areas. This will help you to improve. Enjoy your breakfast!

Harsh criticism can feel like a setback, but it’s actually a gift in disguise. It provides an opportunity to grow beyond your comfort zone. Instead of letting it shake your confidence, embrace it with gratitude. Every critique offers insights into areas you can refine, leading you toward mastery. Remember, the path to greatness is paved with feedback—both good and bad.

I was teaching a class on MS Office while my cohort taught another group the same stuff, in side-by-side classrooms. We both had a really bad day and bombed because we didn't mesh with the group we had. We got terrible feedback and our contactor was angry. What I realized is we failed to know our audience, we didn't plan enough for who we were going to teach, and instead of adjusting along the way (we should have changed the classes we were teaching at lunch time) we stuck to our own devices and tried to muddle through it. Three lessons learned that day: prepare well by truly knowing your audience, be able to sense the crowd immediately if it is going well or not, and use all resources available at that moment to change course.

Harsh criticism is the fuel that ignites growth. It's a wake-up call, a catalyst that forces one to confront their limitations and strive for excellence. When faced with a tough crowd, the feedback should be viewed as a valuable resource, a roadmap to improvement. One should analyse the criticisms meticulously, identifying the specific areas where one can strengthen their skills. This will involve introspection, seeking feedback from trusted sources, and relentless practice. By embracing vulnerability and learning from mistakes, one can emerge from this experience a more confident, effective, and resilient public speaker. It so happens that the speaker freezes at times in thought, but the best way to handle that is to rewoke with a pun

Warning: Not all feedback is valid. Constructive feedback is critical to continuous improvement. An outside, objective opinion can increase our awareness and provide invaluable insights. That being said, it’s important to consider the source. If the feedback is sincere with a desire to see you succeed, then embrace it. If it’s criticism from a negative person or an individual that feels threatened by you or is jealous of you then use caution. Also consider your topic and your audience. Are you passionate about your topic and delivering your message to the right crowd? If so, listen to feedback and learn from the experience. Next time will be better. If not aligned, move on and find opportunities to be your authentic self and shine.

Separate Emotion from Learning. The sting of criticism often lies in our emotional response, not the feedback itself. To improve your public speaking skills, you need to distance yourself emotionally from the criticism and look at it objectively. Ask yourself: What can I learn from this? By separating your feelings from the facts, you gain the clarity to turn feedback into actionable improvements.

Facing harsh criticism from a tough crowd can be tough, but it’s a chance to improve. Once you’ve gathered feedback, analyze it like a chain—each link represents a different part of your speaking skills. Just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, focus on the weakest part of your presentation. If the criticism highlights issues with your delivery, work specifically on improving that area. By strengthening one weak link at a time, you build a better overall performance and turn criticism into valuable growth.

Analyzing criticism strongly resonates with step 5 of reflecting regularly. Both practices are important regarding understanding our audience, compartmentalizing expectations from diverse people, and adapting to versatile opinions to ensure negative feedback or harsh criticism may still coexist with fluidity to learn, improve, and deliver more efficiently moving forward. Examining criticism allows speakers to study blind spots and prospective strengths or changes necessary, and reflections should ideally be utilized through assertive action steps as a solution contrary to discouragement.

Analyze criticism objectively by distinguishing constructive feedback from negativity. Focus on actionable suggestions that can enhance your performance and identify common themes from multiple sources. Prioritize refining the areas highlighted most frequently to effectively address and improve your public speaking skills.

Criticism, especially from a tough crowd, is often rooted in how your message was delivered. Take time to reflect on the areas where you might have lost your audience. Was your tone too formal or too casual? Did your message lack clarity or relevance? Use the feedback as a mirror to fine-tune your delivery, making sure your next speech is more aligned with what your audience needs.

One thing we must understand and admit to is that most of the time it is impossible to implement all the feedback received - at least immediately. Hence it is very important to plan how you are going to work on and implement the improvements - which ones you can achieve faster, which ones are more critical ones, how much time will it need for you practice those and deliver flawlessly - all these needs planning. Only if you are able to do you will be on the path of perfection.

Planning improvements require practice followed by feedback to work on areas for improvement. We all need time to regroup and focus and put into place the focused applied practice on the weak areas. For me, my failure at a District Table Topics contest allowed me to focus on always having an impactful opening and then just go with the flow.

When it comes to public speaking the only substitute of practice is more practice. Ideally your would want to do that in front of an audience - not just any audience but someone who can give you honest and constructive feedback. But that may not be possible always. However, with advancement of technology it has become much easier noe. One of the things i have always been doing in record (video or just audio) my speeches and list to them hours later or even sometimes the next. So whichever way you may chose, remember to practice, practice and more practice.

Sempre costumo treinar gravando minhas apresentações e analisando com auto generosidade o meu desempenho. Pedir feedbacks as pessoas próximas também me ajuda a ajustar pontos importantes e principalmente me ajudam a lidar com críticas. Olhar para dentro para poder ver os demais reforça meu compromisso com a conexão que quero estabelecer com o público.

Even after years of public speaking, I believe there is always room for growth. I consistently seek feedback from both the audience and experts, as reflection is crucial to improvement. By gathering and applying feedback after each presentation, I can identify areas for development and ensure that I am continuously refining my skills. Public speaking is indeed a continuous process, and incorporating feedback helps me stay on track and evolve with every engagement.

This is a real good one. I am a professional organizer and when I wrote my second book uncluttered, I wanted to make a shift in the conversation about becoming uncluttered in life, and it really didn’t resonate, and that felt disappointing to me. I reflected a lot. I did pull back did a lot of research and I finally enrolled into a speaker Boot Camp program with @robyndykstra that was more suited to the way I was going. I look forward to the future. Don’t give up reflect and make all the adjustments necessary.

If you put yourself out there enough, you are bound to meet some level of criticism from time to time. Take the feedback, use what you can and move forward. Remember, you can’t please everyone, and if you don’t rock the boat a few times, you’ll never make any waves!

Stay resilient when facing harsh criticism. Use each experience as a growth opportunity, maintaining commitment to improvement. Understand that criticism is a common challenge for all speakers. How you respond—by staying positive and focused on learning—defines your journey and helps you enhance your public speaking skills.