Seth Godin doesn't want you to rehearse. Seth Godin is wrong.

I subscribe to Seth Godin's blog. I love Seth Godin's blog. I find it inspiring, entertaining, educational, and enjoyable.

But not always. That's good, because if we agreed with everything we read it would be an awfully boring world.

A couple of weeks ago Seth wrote that "Rehearsing is for cowards".

He quoted Jackson Browne, who I suspect when he said rehearsing is for cowards was being controversial, confrontational, or both. Browne has sold more than 17 million albums, headlined live shows across the world, and written some of the most powerful songs of the last forty years.

And you don't get that good without rehearsing.

The next time you have a presentation to make, or a conference speech, or you're part of a pitch team, please don't fall into the trap of thinking you can wing it. Plan it, prepare it, and rehearse it.

I'm lucky enough to see a lot of great speakers in my job - indeed, I'm just back from the annual convention of the Professional Speaking Association, where I got to watch some of the best speakers in the world perform. I even got to do a keynote myself.

If great speakers look natural, confident, spontaneous and off-the-cuff, that's because they have put the work in to do so. I had a laugh at the convention with the brilliant after-dinner and conference speaker Graham Davies about rehearsing ad-libs. I was only partly joking.

Professional speakers plan and plan and plan. And then they start rehearsing.

Don't think that being under-rehearsed looks 'edgy', spontaneous or relaxed. It looks unprofessional, unprepared, and for the audience, it simply feels awkward.