I’ve mentioned before that when I was a kid, I was really into bicycle racing.

There’s a point at the beginning of every race, immediately after the gun goes off, when everyone has a lot of energy. Everyone is sprinting ahead, the pack is going really fast.

It’s hard to quell that spirit of nervous excitement in you, too. It’s hard to quiet that voice screaming at you to join the frenzy, to go faster and faster and try to be at the front.

Later in the race, 95% of the people stirring this frenzy will have long ago been burned off. Their irrelevance will have shown itself, and now it is very easy to identify the 5% of the people you need to worry about.

I am sure that these people making up the 95% are perfectly good people. Great sons. Great daughters.

It’s just that for this purpose, in this time, they are irrelevant. If you listen to the noise they create, you will become part of that noise, and you too will become irrelevant.

The same thing goes for your presentations.

Something might be incredibly important to you, and you’re champing at the bit to talk about it. You and your team might have put your heart and soul into that period of time or that activity.

But if it is not serving your message, you need to shut up about it. The only things that get to come out of your mouth are the parts that help you get the buy-in you need.