Everyone Needs a Wingman on Stage (Especially When You Think You Don’t)

You can rehearse for weeks, know your content cold, and still miss something huge in the moment.
This is the story of the day I thought I was doing great on stage — until my “wingman” started waving his arms like he was landing a plane.

The room, the stakes, and the worst time slot

Fairly early on in my speaking career, I was speaking at an event with Christian in front of about 170 people. It was a high ticket event. The people there had paid over ten thousand dollars to be in the room and we wanted to make sure we did our best!

My slot was the graveyard shift – two hours after lunch!

In the morning, Jay was speaking on stage for her first time. She had 10 minutes. She also wanted to do her best and so she had been practicing for weeks.

“Any tips for what I can do to improve?”

In the lunch break, Jay came up to me and said, ‘could you give me some feedback on my presentation?’

‘You did a great job’ I said, ‘lots of great information, very confident.’

‘Any tips for what I can do to improve?’ she asked, feeling pleased with herself.

‘The one thing you could do that would make a big difference’ I said, ‘is to put some space in between the different sections of your speech. You were talking quite quickly anyway, but when you go straight from one sentence into the next one with no pause, the audience feels rushed even if you’re not talking too quickly. So space out the sections a little more for them, and allow a little bit of thinking space.’

She nodded, but it was one of those times when someone asks for feedback, but really only wants to hear that they did great.

“You’re my wingman”

Shortly afterwards I was being introduced to go up on stage.

‘Christian, listen, you’re my wingman, so I need you to walk around the back of the stage and make sure everyone can hear me .. that there’s no dead spots.’ I said.

‘No problem.’ he said

‘And make sure I don’t go to the bathroom in the break with my microphone still on!’

‘Of course!’ he laughed

‘And if I’m talking too quickly, just motion for me to slow down from the back, just to keep it in my mind.’

‘Ok, good luck.’ He patted me on the back as I was called to the stage.

The frantic signal I could not ignore

All went well. In fact, it was going really well. All the preparation had paid off. At about 75 minutes in, someone walked through the door at the back of the stage and it caught my attention. I glanced over and I saw Christian racing along the back wall, with a real look of frustration on his face, waving his arms wildly like someone trying to bring in a rogue aircraft.

I caught his eye and read his lips ‘S .. L .. O .. W .. .. D .. O .. W .. N!!!!!!’ he mouthed. He looked exhausted.

I immediately slowed down by about 60% and everyone seemed to let out a sigh of relief!

The painful replay

A day or two after the event I watched the recording, and I realised that my presentation was even faster than Jay’s! And for the first 75 minutes there was hardly an inch of space!

It’s so easy to see other people’s mistakes sometimes, isn’t it? But much more difficult to see our own. Maybe because well over 80% of everything we do is habitual. And habits are things we do without thinking. So we are not aware of most of the things we do. This is particularly true for body language and use of voice when speaking.

Why this matters if you speak for influence

This is why I firmly believe that having someone to see what you’re doing and how you’re doing it is so valuable to making efficient progress in ANY area of life. Everyone needs a wingman sometimes!

What this means for you as a speaker

• Pace feels slower to you than it does to them. What feels “normal” in your head might be exhausting to listen to.
• You cannot self-monitor everything on stage. Your brain is busy delivering. You need someone you trust watching delivery.
• Space is service. When you pause, you’re not “losing momentum.” You’re giving the audience time to absorb and breathe.
• Get a wingman. Ask a teammate to watch for audio issues, dead spots, rushing, weird habits. Tiny live adjustments can completely change how you land.