Connecting the Dots: Five Lessons That Link Teaching and PR
I worried I was falling behind.
While friends and former classmates (the ones on LinkedIn) moved into agency roles or started climbing the ladder in-house, I was still in the classroom. Most days, I was lecturing, grading and working to present ideas students could use beyond those four walls.
For five years, that was my world. I taught courses in public speaking, nonverbal behavior and relational communication. I mentored new instructors and earned a master’s degree.
The work meant something to me. As a first-generation student, teaching felt like a way to give back. But eventually, I started feeling antsy. I could feel the ground shifting beneath me. I wanted a new challenge, even if I couldn’t name what I was looking for.
One year ago, I made the jump.
Today, I’m a communications specialist at Peritus PR. Our name means skilled teacher and we live that out by asking smart questions and serving as a trusted thought partner to people and organizations when the stakes are high. The timelines are tight. Expectations, often exacting. We make sure the right audiences hear the message clearly and know they can trust it.
The classroom didn’t prepare me for agency life in the traditional sense. But it left me with instincts I trust: navigating ambiguity, reading the room and staying grounded when the work feels personal.
Here are the five lessons that come from that experience.
1. When in Doubt, Take Something Out
Early on, I thought every 75-minute class needed a full slide deck, an activity and a backup plan to hold students’ attention. But piling on content didn’t lead to better understanding. When students struggled, I learned to pause and focus on what they could take with them.
I still carry that habit into my work. People need structure — something clear, usable and easy to act on.
Fast Company puts it plainly: in fast-paced, uncertain environments, people aren’t looking for more words. They’re looking for direction. Strong communicators know this. They distill the message, remove noise and make the point accessible, regardless of who’s in the room.
Clarity earns trust. It shows you’ve done the work and respect people’s time.
Say less. Mean more.
2. Know Your Audience and Master the Pivot
In basketball, pivoting means planting one foot and moving the other to find a better angle. The play continues; the goal stays the same. You just adjust the path to get to the basket.
I was never much of a hooper, but I learned the value of a pivot in the classroom. What worked for first-year public speaking students often missed the mark in an advanced seminar. Sometimes both were in the same room, and I had to shift on the spot, reworking how I taught without losing what they needed to learn.
In PR, things change fast. Clients rethink strategy and priorities shift. I didn’t always get it right in the classroom, but learning to adjust mid-play became one of the most useful skills I carried forward. A message might look solid on paper, but if it doesn’t reflect the audience’s priorities or context, it won’t land. The key is keeping the goal in sight. Before anything else, I ask: Who needs to hear this, and how do we meet them where they are?
Getting the message right starts with knowing who it’s for.
3. Create the Conditions, Not the Answers
In the classroom, the best moments came when I stepped back. During final projects, my goal wasn’t to steer students toward the “right” response. It was to get them to think more critically about the choices they were making.
I would tell them: I can ride in the passenger seat. I can help map the route, flag roadblocks and even steady the wheel if you’re drifting. But I’m not the one driving. That part is on you.
That “teaching mindset” travels well. At Peritus, I often walk into conversations where the goal is clear, but the message isn’t. I might bring a few starting points, but more often I’m listening for what keeps surfacing — what sounds like the real point, even if it’s not fully formed.
One question tends to bring the rest into focus: What’s the one idea we want people to walk away with?
I’m not there to provide the final word. I’m there to help create conditions where the right idea can take shape.
4. Reframe the Role of the Red Pen
Feedback isn’t always easy to hear, but I’ve learned to see it more as a tool than a threat. That perspective didn’t come right away.
Most of us were taught to see feedback as a final step. You turn in the work, get a grade, maybe a few comments and that’s it. No revisions. No second tries. The case is closed, whether the feedback helped or not.
That model shaped how I approached feedback in my own classroom. I over-engineered rubrics and left notes I hoped would help. But in doing so, I reinforced the idea that learning stops once the work is submitted.
Agency life doesn’t work that way. A Harvard Business Review survey found that 92% of professionals believe constructive feedback, when delivered well, improves performance. Fine-tuning is part of the job. You revise early and often and keep the work moving forward together.
If I could go back, I would give students more chances to revisit their work. Learning how to take feedback and apply it is a skill. And like any skill, it gets stronger with practice.
5. Show What the Slide can’t Tell
I didn’t grow up thinking of storytelling as a skill. It was just something people did.
My grandfather was one of them. He’d sit out on the porch and talk about riding to the creek with his family, working in the mines and dancing at union halls on Saturday nights. His stories weren’t polished, but they imprinted on me. They made people feel real. They made the past feel close. More than anything, they helped me understand things I didn’t have language for yet.
That stayed with me in the classroom. Turns out, a slide with a few bullet points on theory could only take you so far. What stuck were the moments that felt familiar — when students could see themselves in the material.
Have you ever smiled through small talk while your mind was somewhere else? Cleaned your house before company came, even if it wasn’t bothering you? Rehearsed an update before a meeting just to sound like you had it together?
Those small behaviors have a name. It’s impression management — the quiet effort to influence how we’re seen by managing what we reveal and how.
If I had stopped at the definition, would it have landed? Probably not. That’s why we use stories to bring concepts to life.
Our Takeaway
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward.” — Steve Jobs
I ended every semester with that reminder because progress rarely feels linear. Careers seldom unfold the way you expect, but the skills and perspectives you acquire along the way have a way of showing up when you need them most.
Looking back, I can see how the classroom bridges my work today. Staying steady when circumstances shift, listening for what’s unsaid and keeping people at the center of the message have proven just as valuable in PR as they were in teaching. In both, the dots connect when time reveals how each step prepared you for the one that followed.
The only way to see the bridge is to start crossing it. That’s how you find where it leads.
If you’re in the middle of a pivot or curious how your own dots might connect, I’m always glad to compare notes. Let’s connect!