Today I bent down to help carry a box of books that my client had bought and ripped my pants through the whole groin area -we are talking a 30 cm hole at least…
Here is the worst part of the story: it was 15 minutes before my speech was scheduled to begin and at 10 am (= before shops open in Singapore). And venue was 20 minutes away from my home so could not send for new pants…). Luckily I had an extra pair of pants in my suitcase since I was flying to Shanghai later in the day…
Had I not had that I might have had to deliver my speech with my jacket over my bum… or while wearing a strangers pants, or made my clients move the speech by 20 minutes (all options doable but not perfect).
But now everything turned out fine.
I am telling you this story to show how the speaking business is really one of the least complicated or difficult businesses to be in (as long as you are not afraid to potentially making a fool of yourself in front of a few hundred people…)
A speaker friend of mine in Sweden recently posted how he by mistake put the antenna of the lapel sender in his own ear (!) while trying to take it off and it hit him so unfortunately that he had to go to the hospital to stop the bleeding…
Again, the work place hazards of this job is just ridiculously minimal.
Posting this as a reminder to everyone who is or think about becoming a keynote speaker that the job of being a speaker is not only a privilege and one hell of an inspirational job – but it’s also one of the least dangerous jobs I can think of. :-). Let’s appreciate that when we fly around the world and spread our message. Today I did it for a few hundred people at PayPal, now off to Shanghai (with a brand new suit in my bag) for another speech tomorrow