When you’re giving a talk, are you truly giving it?
Or are you taking more than you give? Such as your audience’s time? Are you hoping to get more out of it than you put in?
And how much are you actually giving? A good effort? All of you? The bare minimum, as in “My assistant’s going to assemble a bunch of slides”?
When you spend your time evaluating whether you get as much out of a situation as you put in, that time can’t go into making the maximum possible impact.
The irony, or course, is that the bigger the impact, the more likely it is that you will get something of value back.