Messing up in a pitch does not have to damage your credibility. What matters is how quickly you regain composure, reconnect with the room, and continue your message. The best founders are not mistake-free. They are recovery-ready.
The real skill is not avoiding the stumble. It is what you do in the three seconds after it.
"The room does not remember your stumble.
They remember your presence."
I ended last week's newsletter with those two sentences.
And then I asked you to do something a little unusual - watch my Women in Tech interview and try to find the moment I messed up.
The replies came in.
And no one could tell.
And that is the whole point.
But I have practised a lot - because believe me - I mess up tons of times.
So here are the three things I do when I mess up.
Breathe. Just breathe.
When something goes wrong - you lose your thread, you blank, you say the wrong thing - your first instinct is to rush. To fill the gap. To say something, anything, to cover it.
Don't.
Take one slow breath.
Not a dramatic, visible pause.
Just a breath.
That breath does two things at once. It slows you down - which is exactly what you need. And it gives your brain a fraction of a second to catch up and find where you were.
Most of the time?
The thread comes back.
And even when it doesn't, that breath gives you composure.
The room sees someone who is not rattled.
That composure is far more powerful than whatever you lost.
Use the water. Use the notes.
This is one of those things that sounds almost too simple - and works every single time.
If you are on a big stage and there is a table with a glass of water and your notes, use them.
Walk over.
Take a sip.
Glance at your notes.
Walk back.
And don't start talking until you are back to the same spot.
It looks completely intentional. It looks professional. It looks like you own the room.
No one in the audience thinks:
"She must have forgotten something."
They think:
"She knows exactly what she's doing."
And if you are in a smaller room - a meeting, a pitch, a panel - you don't even need to move.
One step to reach your glass.
A glance down.
Then back to them.
That small, deliberate physical action resets everything.
Your body.
Your breath.
Your focus.
Put water and notes at your station.
Always.
Even when you think you won't need them.
My secret weapon. The Smile.
I know.
I know exactly what some of you are thinking.
I heard the same thing from colleagues at Ericsson when I first said it.
"Smile? That's naive. It's not that simple"
It is not naive. It is simple.
It is human.
When you smile in a moment that could become tense, the room relaxes.
You relax.
The audience gets a signal that you are still okay.
And when the speaker is okay, the room is okay.
So when you mess up and smile through it, something interesting happens.
The tension disappears.
You reset.
They reset.
And suddenly the moment does not feel like a mistake anymore.
It feels like presence.
Not because you faked it.
But because a genuine smile in a hard moment is one of the most disarming things a human being can do.
It signals:
I am okay.
We are okay.
Let's keep going.
I have used this on stages in front of thousands.
I have used it in investor meetings with one very skeptical person across the table.
I have used it every time I mess up, get lost, forget words, stumble....
It works every time.
Smile.
It is your most underrated tool.
The Real Skill Isn't Avoiding the Stumble
It is what you do in the three seconds after it.
Breathe.
Move deliberately.
Smile.
None of these are about pretending the stumble didn't happen.
They are about refusing to let it own you.
The founders who win rooms are not the ones who never make mistakes.
They are the ones who know how to recover without handing the room their panic.
Because here is the truth:
Everyone will lose their words at some point.
Everyone will blank.
Everyone will get a question they do not know how to answer.
Everyone will have a moment where the plan breaks.
So what?
And I mean that So what? with full conviction.
We are all human.
And investors invest in humans.
See you next week,
Jenny
P.S. If this resonated and you want the full toolkit - not just for recovering, but for walking in with clarity and conviction from the start - I put it all in one place.
Grab it for free: 7 Tips to Pitch With More Clarity, Credibility and Impact.
Simple. Practical. For founders, speakers, and anyone who walks into rooms where their voice matters.
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