We Are All Just Ducks on a Still Pond, Furiously Paddling

I almost blew a presentation last week. Almost. A behind-the-scenes look at the scramble — because I was an idiot.

Live look at me and the Cobra Chicken many days.

9:55 last Tuesday, “Let me double-check the time for tomorrow’s webinar starts.”

25 minutes later I was in a different town in a different parent’s house.

Here’s what happened.

About 2 months ago, the lovely and talented Laura Wolff asked me to give a short presentation about the value of newsletters to her clients. We’ve been in each other’s online orbit for . . . a year? Two? After being in an online cohort together a while back.

I was flattered, yet terrified (hate speaking in front of groups), but as I was in a “say yes/confront fears” week. I said yes.

From there, a few mistakes on my part led to my last minute parent-to-parent dash.

The Original Sin

Me and dates have a nodding relationship — I often have to think about my birthdays (and my daughters’).

Despite having the right day in my Google calendar from the beginning, I got it into my head that the webinar was on a Wednesday and was at 1 or 2.

In my defense, I co-created and hosted a webinar program (over 100 webinars) that was on a Wednesday at 2 eastern so there’s some hard-wiring in my brain.

This wouldn’t have been an issue had I bothered to actually check the date at any point and time. But, I KNEW it was Wednesday at 1. Had told my Dad and my Mama when I first drove down here the first week of June I’d be staying at my Mama’s that Tuesday (June 23) night to talk on Wednesday.

It was also a good thing my paper planner was out of reach at the time, because I had even put it on the wrong day/time there. How? NFC.

So when I looked at Laura’s email with the date and time I confirmed for her (and my online calendar), I did the opposite of the advice in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and panicked for about 30 seconds

This is now how I will imagine the expression on Murphy’s/a Gremlin’s face as they screw some technology or other up for me; the cobra chicken as Murphy/Gremlin here of course. We can all relate the printer murder scene in Office Space.

Webbed Feet Furiously Paddle

After loudly yelling “FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK” a few times (my Dad and Benny-Benny, my stepmom, can confirm); threw a set of clothes into a bag, packed my laptop, and sprinted out the house.

You might be wondering why I needed to move houses. I mentioned the 100 plus webinars. In about 1/3 to a quarter of those, Murphy meddled to one degree or another. You learn early to remove as many moving parts that can break as possible – the moving part here is a weak Internet connection at my Dad’s (a bad thing for an online presentation).

Out of the house here in Sulphur by around 10:05 or so. It’s about 20/25 minutes to my Mama’s in Lake Charles. Made that in about 15.

10:20. Grab chair and put in bedroom that has the desk. (Say hello to Mama and my brother.)

10:25. Try to print notes.

10:35. Give up. Send to my brother’s Gmail on my Mama’s laptop. Try to print from there.

10:45. Give up. Decide that I’ll just have that laptop open with my notes on it.

10:46. I had already pulled a draft set of slide text with Claude. Had Claude create that as a PPT.

10:47. Save.

10:47 to 11. Stop sweating. Change shirt. Attempt to brush too-long hair. Bio break. Pour a glass of water.

11 to 11:05. Log in. Realize I had forgotten my external camera so the entire presentation would be me in what looks like those shadowed interviews with criminal informers. Then learned that Zoom hated my headphones, which, luckily a simple plug and unplug worked to fix (this time!).

11:05 to 12:30ish. Presentation and Q&A, which everyone enjoyed (even me).

What I Did Right — GenAI and Experience Helped

The presentation probably ended up better, in some ways, than if I had had the extra 24 hours to have a smoother slide deck as well as get the flow down.

A combo of lingering professionalism from habits formed during my webinar days and how friendly Laura and her folks are made it work though.

I had shared my initial thoughts on what I was going to cover and the general flow of the presentation with Laura a week or so before. Good to go there.

The week before, I had jotted down essential points I wanted to make in a notebook, pulled a presentation from my existing content using Claude (one benefit of having a body of work to pull from), and pulled a draft slide deck to edit.

Plus, I know this stuff.

So, planning:

1. Good outline

2. Talk track/notes

3. Presentation draft

4. Topic knowledge from living it

This is where genAI is a fantastic assistant.

The presentation itself was about the basic value of newsletters for businesses today. I’ve written about those topics across multiple posts:

1. I wasn’t going to be saying anything new

2. I pointed Claude at my relevant posts (about a dozen or so here) and, based on my outline, had the pattern matching machine pattern match

3. I could have spent 30 minutes flipping through the text and pulling out slide content or do what I did – tell Claude to pull a slide deck of talking points from the presentation notes content only.

   1. This is also where “assistant” is the key word here. Because you do not want to simply use unedited/un-reviewed genAI-generated content, even if pulling directly from your own work (because genAI will make things up – read that again and internalize it).

      1. The only thing I wish I could have done differently or had slightly more time for would have been to smooth out the slides so they sounded 100% like me.

The root cause of the mad scramble — flipping the dates (only in my mind).

The Lesson: Screw Up and Keep Paddling

I did think in those first 30 seconds of calling Laura, apologizing profusely, and rescheduling. But that would’ve been shitty. So I pulled on my big boy pants and scrambled.

1. I knew I had the basics down and, worst case, could give a good presentation via my phone and my notes

2. I knew, barring an accident on I-10, I had enough time to drive, setup, and still breath for a minute or two before starting.

3. I knew I could use genAI (Claude) to spit out a basic set of slides in minutes.

Writing this, it hit me that while there is a LOT of truth in “fake it until you make it” advice; a baseline of experience and knowledge helps you pull it off. A looming webinar disaster didn’t faze me because I’ve been through that before. Fake it till you make it gets easier when you know, deep down, that you can make mistakes and still muddle through (I think this is true even when the mistake is a new one in new endeavor). I didn’t need a great deck, my talk track, or a decent camera; I knew I could do this presentation with just my notes and what’s between my ears.

As I was trying to get my mic to work, there was a conversation about not telling folks you’ve made a mistake because they won’t know. I do think in some situations that is 100% golden advice.

But as I sat there trying to get Zoom to acknowledge my mic existed, it didn’t feel right. So I quickly shared my mad scramble to get ready. And decided to use the slides to point out how genAI can be so, so wrong, but also so, so right.

I think the honesty was appreciated. Plus it gave me the opportunity to poke fun at both my writing style and how genAI sometimes poorly attempts to recreate my writing style.

As I went through I pointed out how Claude almostbutnotquite got wording right, but also, especially on the last slide (below), also gets it right. The line here is pretty good. At the same time, I would have cut “That’s the whole pitch” because that line makes my skin crawl a little.

By being honest about the last-minute scramble (and using genAI), I was able to point out pros/cons of the tool and turn a potential mistake into presentation material.

I know it’s easy to look at the folks who are doing spectacularly well here (and there and everywhere) and just feel like you’ll never get there.

Not me today, but once upon a time I was a medium fish in a smaller pond. It always amazed me that people would read the magazine (which was excellent) and then assume that I had my shit totally together — those things met less regularly then than they do now!

We’re all experimenting and trying new things and succeeding and failing and flailing and sometimes catching a ledge to pull up and sometimes falling into the abyss.

So, I guess, as I wrap this mess up, we all know we live in a mostly-curated social bubble. You don’t feel like you have it all together. That goes for about everyone, so don’t judge yourself too harshly by mistaking the front someone shows to the world as, necessarily, the reality. And be kind to each other.

And give yourself a break too. I hadn’t had to scramble like that in quite a while. It sucked, but was also reassuring to know I can still pull a rabbit out of my buttockal region.

Or, to tie into the title, can still swim relatively smoothly even as I paddle like mad beneath the water.

One last thing, make sure you have the day/time right for anything with a deadline! (Still don’t know how I manage this at least once a year.)

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Scrambling with your newsletter? My Newsletter-in-a-Box service will let you paddle a little less furiously because you’ll have one less thing to worry about. Let’s talk and see if we’re a fit: bryant@simplyusefulmarketing.co.

And it’s not a webinar, I don’t miss publication dates!

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Music Festival

Had a little Blackberry Smoke mix in the background as I popped this into here. One of my favorites of theirs.

My relationship theme song! Maybe the next time it’ll end up being this. And see Stapleton in concert. He’s great.