A Speakers’ Worst Nightmare…

By Pat Gage

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I was asked to speak to a Small Business Workshop here locally which I was looking forward to, but little did I know what that Saturday would hold.

I guess I should have known that something was not going to be normal when the morning of my presentation I was changing my PowerPoint. That is a big NO, NO because if the speech has been working and this presentation has been performing 15%, DO NOT CHANGE IT!! Great advice, I wished I listened to myself.

Well after racing across town to get to the event all relaxed and ready to go I arrived to find the event was running about 1 hour behind. Great I said now I can plug in my laptop and just enjoy the extra time I had. Now at this time I realized that I didn’t bring my memory stick that I usually bring with a copy of my PowerPoint on it just in case my laptop dies or God Forbid Windows decides to lock up. And at that same time I went searching through my bag to realize that the book with the print out of my PowerPoint was not there. My mind as it sometimes does began to race to that dark place we all have and as I was pulling it back, I said to myself –What is the worst that can happen?

Well as I sat there bringing my mind back down I also forgot to plug in my laptop so that it had a full charge, or any at all because it was dead – Mistake #3. You are probably saying well that is all not that bad, so you forgot a few little items, and in the over 100 or so speeches I’ve given I have used what I forgot maybe one time – but that one time made a huge difference.

Just as I was sitting there waiting for the lunch break to end the hotel ballroom were the event was being held went completely dark, I mean no lights at all we used cell phones to find each other. And then only a few lights came back on as the generator kicked in. Actually we found out later it was the emergency lighting. Oh, I said to myself this could not be good! Then I said they will have this fixed before the lunch break is over and everything will be OK and I’ll have a great presentation.

The promoter’s assistant entered the room after going to the front desk to find out what was going on, and stated that the whole city was without power and they didn’t know when it was going to come back on. Now, at that moment any seasoned speaker such as me would say, No problem I have my laptop that runs on a battery I’m set. Well, I also need a projector which runs on electricity –I’m not set.

Then I stated well the hotel has a generator that is running the emergency lighting they can just run us an extension cord and we’ll be all set. Wrong answer!
As the realization that the lights were not coming on before I was to present sank in, so did the fact that I had no presentation to follow, even though I have done this presentation hundreds of times for some strange reason I was forgetting large parts of it. Hence the Speakers’ Worst Nightmare begins. So as the promoter was on stage along with his staff trying to herd the people into their seats that they couldn’t see and get them to quite down – Something came out of my mouth which I didn’t or wasn’t thinking of saying, at least at that moment – I’m ready let’s Rock-N-Roll. I shocked even myself as I realized what I had just said. But I will tell you at that moment it was not about me, about the lack of a presentation it was about having FUN with what I love to do, speak in front of people.

So without event thinking how things would work out I took the stage and even though the people couldn’t see me sweating I had fun and gave them a presentation from my heart. Not that I don’t always give that but this time it was it was different. Different in the fact that I had no microphone, I had no slide show, all I had was myself and an audience that were sitting in the dark waiting to hear me talk. That is why I went on without fear, when I realized even if the lights were out and it was getting hot and there was no slide show and no microphone the audience sat there and listened to me because I had something of value to say. I can’ tell you that it was the best presentation because it become more of a social networking event not a presentation, meaning that yes I knew why I was there to get to the close, but the one on one interaction that I experienced was awesome.

See I thought that I forgot my presentation and some parts I did, but that is where the audience came in, at least the people who were taking notes and could see them.

So what I thought was going to be my Speakers’ Worst Nightmare really turned out to be a great teaching lesson for the speaker himself. All those words of wisdom that your mentors give you and share with that you do matter and someday they will reveal themselves, like have a copy of your presentation on a memory stick, or a printed copy or whatever. Not only did the event teach me about myself but it taught me about the audience and the fortitude that they have when you have a message that they want to hear, and for me that was very humbling. They were sitting in the dark trying to take notes to listen to me! Man, thank you God for my gift!