“Do or do not, There is no try.” Master Yoda
I did…NOT.
My first attempt at hosting a webinar earlier this evening ended disastrously, epic failure.
If fear can be defined as false emotions appearing real, what do you call false confidence making you look and feel foolish?
A learning experience from the School of Hard Knocks.
What went wrong? What didn’t?
After three hours of using the control interface in practice mode I thought I had it down, I thought wrong.
8:30 pm, time to open up the waiting room for when some one shows up early, except it wouldn’t exit practice mode.
I had sat down and planned out a couple of questions for my small group, actually pretty basic questions, just to get my feet wet, so to speak.
My headset garbled my voice and the volume was too low. It feels really weird for some one who’s always been told I have a big mouth to speak up.
Then it got bad, I fled in disgrace after barely ten minutes, could not even properly articulate my apologies for wasting my friends valuable time.
There are two possible courses of action after the fiasco that was my first Webinar.
- You can hide your head in shame and disappear off of the face of the Earth.
- You can use your pain and humiliation to fuel your fire, to forge forward with the lessons learned and not accept defeat.
I choose number two, for me there is no other option. I did the first one nearly twenty years ago and am not sure I’m fully recovered.
Yes, I retreated, but I wasn’t routed. I regrouped my injured pride and drove to the local Dept. store and bought the best desk top microphone they carry.
On the drive there and back I planned out my next move, I do not like being embarrassed and most definitely don’t like to waste other people’s time. Wash the egg off of my face and move on.
I’ve always been an early riser, that needs to change if I want to interact on a meaningful level in the evenings. The solution?
Stay up tonight until it’s almost my normal wake up time, 2 or 3 am. Had I been better rested things may have played out differently.
The main lessons I got from tonight are:
- Get a better quality microphone and learn to speak up.
- Get more training and practice using the webinar controls.
- Spend more time planning and then replaying the plan to work out the bugs, before I get more egg on my face.
My next course of action?
Plan out and give an Opportunity Webinar tomorrow night, no excuses, no delay. Give it even if no one else shows up at all.
Get back up on my Dark Horse before I lose my nerve and fade back into obscurity.
Did my Webinar fail?
No, not really, I learned a very valuable lesson, I need more practice. I’ll get more practice tomorrow night, the night after, what ever it takes to make it right. And to my friends Fernando, Allen, and Kevin, I thank you for your support and am deeply, truly sorry for wasting your time tonight.
I’ll make it up to all of you as soon as I possibly can.
Mike
ps learn from my mistake, I sure did.
