one time I had this public speaking professor and unsurprisingly for a public speaking professor he liked to talk a lot but one thing I'll maybe never forget or remember sporadically at least is he told this story about how one time he had to give a speech at something or other and there were a bunch of people speaking before him and they all went on and on and each gave these long drawn out speeches and when it was his turn to talk he gave a very short and concise speech and it was a big hit.

And I think in that case, and in most cases maybe, rather than say 'be yourself', do the more complicated thing of 'pay attention to what's going on, see what is needed, assess what you are capable of doing to meet that need, and do that.'

And it's like if you can really listen to and understand what's going then it's not hard to be successful. right? I don't know.