Christina asked Tara Mohr:

In your book, you encourage women to move away from "good student habits" and to be more spontaneous. What advice do you give to women who want to be spontaneous without seeming underprepared or inexperienced?

Tara Mohr My biggest piece of advice is this: don't assume that you are coming across as underprepared or inexperienced just because you aren't as prepared or expert on a topic as you think you should be.! A lot of women have an unfounded fear of coming across this way, and we have room to be far more unprepared than we realize. An example: a friend of mine - a good student all her years in school - would feel flustered and panicked every time she'd be asked for numbers or projections that she wasn't sure about or couldn't give in detail. She'd say she wasn't sure, or she didn't have the number. Then she saw how in fact the culture in her field was for loose projections and very general figures to be thrown out in meetings, and there was an understanding the numbers weren't exact and that the projections were just that - projections. She started to more confidently present even when there was uncertainty around the numbers. So test this out. If you are getting repeated feedback that you are coming across as underprepared or inexperienced, that's the time to change your approach, and start to include more substance or detail. But don't do it based on a fear or assumption.

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