How to Capture the Hearts of Your Audience: Yes, this really happened

November 14th, 2014

Wanna know a great way to connect with your audience and show them that yes indeed, you too are an imperfect human?

Tell them about the time you got caught with your pants down.

Here’s a little story: 

I was invited to be a Featured Attendee at the Success 3.0 Summit in Boulder last week. It was a pretty remarkable weekend of creative minds gathering together to speak about their version of “Success.”

Lots of “fancy” people were there, both in the audience and on the stage, and lots of remarkable stories of failures and visions-in-action were shared.

I left feeling like ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

And it’s true. Anything IS possible! Even when unexpected things happen. Especially when unexpected things happen.

Many of you know that I get around by bike, and that I don’t own a car. Because of this I usually wear clothes that are easy to bike in, and do my best to show up looking like a professional.

One day of last week’s conference I had borrowed my sister’s car, so I decided to take advantage of my 4-wheeled traveling opportunity and wear a skirt and tights and some groovy shoes. The skirt was doing that stick-to-the-tights thing, so I put on a little slip under the skirt.

I looked pretty snappy if I do say so myself.

When I arrived at the St. Julien, I went to the breakfast buffet and got a plate of smoked salmon, capers, fresh berries and a hard-boiled egg, as well as a cup of Bhakti Chai. I had the plate in one hand and the Bhakti Chai in the other as I walked into the conference room to grab a seat.

Most of the seats were taken, so I walked down the aisle to the front of the room, and turned around to scan the room in search of an empty seat. As I walked back up the aisle, people were looking up and smiling at me and I thought, “What a friendly bunch of folks is here this morning.”

Then I spotted a seat in the middle of a row. As I looked down to step in front of the 5 or 6 people between me and that seat, all I saw was a startling wash of white.

It was my slip.

As in my snappy skirt had silently SLIPPED on that slippery slip DOWN MY HIPS and was hovering right above my knees!!!

I’m not kidding.

There I stood in the middle of the aisle at a conference full of fancy people, with a plate of salmon in one hand and a Bhakti Chai in the other, and my skirt halfway down my legs.

My hands were full. I couldn’t easily pull up my skirt. I just stood there and looked at the sea of faces surrounding me and said “Oh $%&@! My skirt’s falling down!”

I managed to put my chai on top of my salmon, yank up my skirt with my newly freed hand, share a chuckle with the person closest to my disobedient skirt, and sit down to enjoy the salmon and the next speaker.

In that seemingly endless and startling moment, I was slightly horrified. But I didn’t run out of the room in shame or put a bag over my head to hide. I gathered up my inner Yes-that-just-happened-and-I’m-still-here self, so I could carry on and stay present in the room.

And as I write this, I’m laughing out loud.

Because I survived. Nothing bad happened. I made it out alive.

With a story to tell.

So here’s today’s lesson:

When you go out in public, whether or not there are fancy people there, make sure your clothes are in tact and sufficiently secured to your body.

But if they’re not, tell a story about it, and everything will be fine.

Sometimes our foibles make the best stories.

When we’re willing to let others in on our mistakes and embarrassing moments, they get to see our humanness, recognize their own, and a real connection happens.

As listeners, we like to hear about other people standing in their mistakes. We want to know we’re not alone.

When we know we’re not alone, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

So you tell me your embarrassing moments and I’ll tell you mine and together we’ll change the world.

No, seriously. Will you tell me yours? Comment below and share an embarrassing story, OK?