287. My most unexpected tech-failure ever

What happens when everything goes wrong right before you present?

In this episode, I share the story of delivering a national webinar during a complete blackout and the lessons it revealed about preparation, confidence, and the true power of your voice.

Key Takeaways:

• Always prepare for tech failure (because it will happen)

• Deep content knowledge = real confidence

• Your voice is your most reliable communication tool

• Use unexpected moments to strengthen your message

• Let go of what you can’t control and focus on what you can

Transcript

You will not believe what happened to me last Wednesday night.

That’s actually what prompted this episode. If you’ve been keeping track, yes—this is two solo episodes in a row… but this one could not wait.

So picture this.

I’m about to run a webinar across Australia for PSA—Professional Speakers Australia. The topic? Voice as you’ve never heard it before…
Be careful what you wish for.

I was ready. Slides good to go.
I jumped on Zoom 15 minutes early.
The host is about to let people in from the waiting room and—BANG.

Complete power outage.

Now this is rare. Rare, rare.

I step out into the hallway—yep, whole building.
Look out the window—whole street’s dark.

No time to troubleshoot.

So I jump back on the call from my phone, with this dim, horror-movie-style lighting from the last bit of battery left on my laptop.

And I say, “Do you want to reschedule?”
They say, “If you’re good, we’ll power on.”
Great pun. Let’s do it.

So… I delivered the entire session from my phone.

Now, I’m sure there’s a way to share slides from Canva on your phone through Zoom… but I was not about to figure that out in the moment. So I just went for it.

No slides.
Encouraging people to unmute because I couldn’t see the gallery.
And you know what? We got through.

After every presentation, I always debrief—what worked, what didn’t, what could be better.
And I’ve done plenty of episodes on handling the unexpected—How to Catch Curveballs with Confidence is a good one.

But I have to say…
This blackout was the most unexpected tech disaster I’ve ever had.

And I’ve seen a lot—wardrobe malfunctions, dropped clickers, knocked laptops, slides reformatting themselves mid-presentation…

If you don’t have a storybook of things going wrong, you haven’t done enough speaking gigs.

So in this episode, here are five lessons from my 11th-hour blackout.

Number one: Prepare for tech to fail.
We’re told this—but we get complacent.

I was lucky my phone was charged. That’s not always the case.

I had my slides open, so I could loosely follow along—but I should have had a printed outline too.
Back when I read the news on breakfast radio, we always brought a hard copy into the booth in case the computer failed.

That habit? Worth bringing back.

Because if you’re relying on PowerPoint notes—which I don’t recommend—you’re going to feel pretty stuck if they disappear.

Number two: Know your content.

You’ll fall into one of three categories here:

1. You know more than you think—and you need to trust you can present without slides.

2. You don’t know the content well enough yet—and you need to study.

3. The content lives within you. It’s part of who you are.

For me, I use slides to keep me in scope—because I could talk about voice all day.
And that’s why I didn’t panic. I knew I had what I needed.

Which leads to number three…

Your most reliable technology is your organic, human voice.

When everything else fails—your voice remains.

And if you can’t captivate with that alone… that’s the skill to build.

Number four: Utilise the curveball.

Don’t ignore it—use it.

It was obvious I had to explain the situation. I was late, barely visible, sitting in near-darkness.

But I also used it to reinforce my message—
When the bells and whistles of tech disappear, what’s left?

Your voice.

And that fed perfectly into the content.

And finally, number five: Let go of what you can’t control.

I’m a recovering control freak—and even I knew I couldn’t control the power grid.

Later I found out an underground transformer had blown—900 properties without power.

There was nothing I could do.

No point over-apologising. No point dwelling on it.

What I could control was my voice—and how I showed up.

And yes—when I appeared in my little rectangle of darkness, I saw a few people drop off the call.

Of course the session would have been better with full lighting and slides.

And… I also received fantastic feedback.

Because the message still landed.

A couple of hours later, the power came back on—just in time, because I’m watching The Testaments on Disney+, and new episodes drop on Wednesdays. So that felt like a win.

So to recap—five lessons from my most unexpected tech failure:

1. Prepare for tech to fail

2. Know your content

3. Invest in your voice

4. Utilise the curveball

5. Let go of what you can’t control

And if you want to become the kind of speaker who can handle anything—tech disasters included—and still have people leaning in to listen…

Come and join us in Soul Speakers.

You’ll find the link in the show notes to book a call if you’d like to explore it.