Presentation Skills That Will Take You to the Top (Collection), 2/e

48. The One-Eyed Man: Necessity Is the Mother of Invention

In the sixteenth century, Dutch humanist Erasmus wrote, “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Inherent in that statement is that a disadvantage can be an advantage. In the twentieth century, President John F. Kennedy frequently referred to the Chinese symbol for “crisis,” which is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and one represents opportunity.

As a presentation coach and writer, a major part of my technique deals with eye contact. But during a lecture tour about presentation skills—which, unsurprisingly, dealt with eye contact—I contracted an eye infection and had to deliver two presentations wearing a distinguished, but nonetheless distracting, patch ...