THIS MOMENT COUNTS · ISSUE 09

I hated that talk. So why did it work?

Wednesday, June 17, 2026 · by Dr. Michael Gerharz

Oh man, how I hated that talk.
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Though it seemed like I was the only one. The guy (let’s call him Buzz) got standing ovations. He had landed one joke after another. He was charming, had great presence, and clearly, as they say, owned the room.

But 10 minutes into the talk, I sat there like the one guy who didn’t get the memo. I just couldn’t find the point. I mean there were lots of punch lines, but it didn’t add up to a coherent idea.

The audience apparently didn’t bother. By every signal you could see from my seat in the back of the room, it seemed to be a great talk. It completely worked.

Which feels very unfair to the speaker 2 hours earlier who had a clear point, delivered it well, and got a clap on the back by someone saying “nice talk”. No crowd at the front. So, maybe doing it right is just a more noble way of losing?

I want to be careful here, because the easy answer is a lie. The easy answer is that the crowd is shallow and ovations are cheap and you’re the “real” one. That’s a comforting thought. It’s also unhelpful. The crowd isn’t stupid. The speaker has done a brilliant job. They’ve earned the applause and pretending they don’t is just a story you tell yourself so it stings less.

Here’s what's actually going on. You’re both being scored. But on different timelines. And looking at the wrong one will make you feel miserable.

Buzz’s result is in early. While he speaks and immediately after. Applause, laughter, the little crowd at the front. That’s his whole payout. It’s loud and it’s now.

Yours, in comparison, isn’t due yet. Yours shows up in three weeks, in a decision that goes your way in a meeting you’re not in, because one person in that meeting could still repeat your point to someone who wasn’t there. Buzz’s point can’t be repeated, as there was none. Yours can. But it doesn’t score in the moment you’re on that stage. It’s a score that counts three weeks later.

So when you walk out feeling like you came second … Well, wait. You can still come first on the score that counts later, even if nobody in that building is going to clap for it, then or ever.

However.

It’s a little more nuanced than that. You might be thinking now there are two options. Be Buzz, win the room, mean nothing. Or be you, mean something, lose the room. And you picked the second, with your chin up, being a little proud of the pat on the back ever since, the way someone is proud of a scar.

But. Honest question: Did you actually score three weeks later? Because there’s more to that than not being Buzz. The standing ovation was never the opposite of having a point. Buzz isn’t winning in the moment because his stuff is empty. He’s winning because he made his empty thing land.

You have the opposite problem and you’ve been calling it a virtue. Your point is real and you’ve left it sitting there, correct and unheard, because you never made it land with anything close to the force Buzz gave his.

That’s the thing we need to work on. Not depth. He hasn’t got depth. Not honesty. You’ve got plenty. The thing is that he made nothing feel like something and you made something feel like nothing.

Back to Buzz. In the coffee break, I was standing behind two women waiting in the queue. They talked about him: “How did you like the talk?” the left woman asked. The right one responded: “He’s a great storyteller, but honestly, what was his point?”

The audience wasn’t fooled. They simply enjoyed the moment. That’s all. A good time between the usual stuff.

Now imagine those two women in the queue talking about your talk. You know what you’d want them to say. Do you also know how to make them say it? That’s the work we do in a Clarity Lab.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael