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Breaking Murphy's Law

There are a lot of things that can go wrong when you're a presenter (or when you are supporting someone else's presentation). This site is going to try to help you break Murphy's Law so Murphy's Law can't break you.
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Don’t Kick the Bucket

Started by Lee Potts · 11 months ago

[Warning: Although this post is about eating, it might be best if it wasn't read while eating.]
What do you and your team do the night before the big show? Do you hold a three-course sit down affair at the meeting venue and invite everybody who had anything at all to do with the projec ... Continue reading »

6 comments

  • Rob Schweitzer

    1 year ago

    A guess it's a possibility your whole crew will get food poisoning together, but who can really worry about this stuff? Think good and it will be good (and don't eat at questionable establishments, just to be safe).

    Rob Schweitzers last blog post..Carbon Offsets for Green Events - A Sucker Born Every Minute
    reply
  • Lee Potts

    1 year ago

    Rob Schweitzer: Thanks for stopping by. I agree it's pretty unlikely but I can't help at least considering it. All it would take would be a handful of my speakers being incapacitated and we would have some pretty serious challenges to deal with.
    reply
  • coachlisab

    2 months ago

    This is sad but hilarious, Lee. When I'm traveling before a presentation, I may not be concerned about food poisoning, but I do try to be careful the day before and day of not to eat anything too heavy or anything that will disagree with me. I know what kinds of foods might trigger a digestive "incident," and I may eat them at home for fun, but not the day before a speaking engagement!
    reply
  • Lee Potts

    1 month ago

    Can't go wrong with bread and water.
    reply
  • Laura Bergells

    1 month ago

    Gosh! That's one for the books! (Or blog.)

    Working with wildly creative yet unstable people sometimes yields similar results. Watching a presenter imbibe in improbable amounts of inebriates the night before the show, I found myself thinking,

    "This isn't going to be good."

    Attempts to get her to stop seemed to make her angry -- and determined to drink all the more.

    Sure enough, the next morning, the presenter was in the hospital. Alcohol poisoning.

    The show went on... without her.

    I imagine it impacted her career. Or her life. Haven't heard from her since -- nor do I care to. Can't imagine who would hire her after such shenanigans.

    I've seen self-inflicted sickness like this go on before the show -- and word spreads, quietly and quickly. Presenters who self-inflict sickness soon become non-presenters.
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  • Lee Potts

    1 month ago

    Hope she's okay and was able to find help. You can do everything in your power to eliminate the possibility of external factors causing a disaster but sometimes there's nothing you can do against the internal.
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