Failing Forward: how the worst lecture of my life helped me grow as a speaker

I have always been passionate about public speaking, though I have not always been good at it. This has not stopped me from putting myself out there and trying new things. After all, I am the kind of person who takes risks and is not afraid to make a fool of himself or walk into embarrassing situations. ??

When I defended my Ph.D. thesis, I knew this was going to be a gruelling one-hour-long lecture with peers, clinicians, and professors scrutinizing everything I had to say. Intimidating? Absolutely! This is not your average focus group. These are people who are experts in your field, and wading through graphs and arguments in front of them, for one hour, is part of the coming-of-age ritual for any scientist.?This is so critical that nobody wants to take a chance. I did.?

I did not start my presentation by showing statistics and facts on how relevant the problem I was trying to solve was. Instead, I told a story:

"... I was 20 years old and my brother and I were staying with my grandma for the summer. Her guest room had a bunk bed, I took the one at the bottom and my brother the one at the top. At 3 am, the bed started shaking, and I called out to my brother to be still. Let me sleep! - I said. He didn’t stop. I finally stood up to check on him, half asleep still, and I witnessed something that chilled me to the bone and woke me up immediately. He was pale as a ghost and having a seizure..."?

My thesis was about finding the origin of seizures in the brain using machine learning. Sharing this personal experience, brought the message home and created the proper context to explain why my work was important. I am glad I took that chance.?

However, there is nothing certain in public speaking and disaster can strike at any time. As we say in Spanish, not everything is like a walk in a garden of roses or like a sweet pear dessert that everybody likes. When a public talk goes wrong, there is no Control (or Command) + Z, there is no re-do. I believe this is why we fear public speaking so much. The feeling of defeat and shame that comes when things don’t go the right way can be overwhelming.

The worst that could happen, happened to me.

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In January 2017, I was on my way to give an invited lecture at the University of Guelph in Canada. I had recently finished my post-doc and I was very excited about sharing with students what I had been working on. I had prepared beautiful slides, following the guidelines by Nancy Duarte, a communication expert and advisor for many TED talks. I couldn’t wait to show the applications of deep learning in Ultrasound that I had been working on.??

As I was driving there, I unexpectedly hit a traffic gridlock. There had been an accident on the road and it was impossible to move ahead. I started to panic. If the accident didn’t clear up I was not going to make it on time. I opened the email app on my phone to let my host know when I saw this message:

" Hi, Diego,

OK, the talk is out to several groups and we've got a bigger room set up to accommodate... "

My stress went to the roof. What if I couldn’t make it on time? I replied letting my host know of the delay. I made it to the campus 10 minutes late and 5 minutes into my presentation my laptop died. In the rush, I had left the charger in the car! This was it. This was the dreaded moment, the worst nightmare for a scientific presentation and I was in it. I wish I could tell you that I woke up and everything was a bad dream but it was not. What was I going to do?

I am sorry. This had never happened, if I survive it today, drinks are on me!

I continued doing my best to describe the research. I told students about the challenges I had faced, how my project had been the only project in the medical domain that year, and how my project could improve the lives of people who did not have access to medical imaging.?

It was not a presentation anymore, I was storytelling. Not having slides became an opportunity to tell my story and connect with the audience. It wasn’t about the science anymore, it was about my experience after my Ph.D. Something very relevant to my audience, in graduate school, looking to the future.?

A few days after my talk I received this email from my host:

"Hi Diego. I already got some nice feedback on your talk (from both a prof and an undergrad student).? I know things did not go the way you had hoped/expected but you handled it very well..."

What did I learn? To be better prepared, have contingency plans in place, etc. you bet! More importantly, the real lesson for me was that communicating effectively is possible without any slides. Storytelling is as important in scientific communications as it is in business. We are wired by nature to listen to stories. This is how we have preserved our culture over millennia even before the Guttenberg printing press had been invented. We all look to connect as human beings, and when that connection is there, the message, your message, will reach everyone. If the worst ever happens to you. Use it as an opportunity for learning and growth! ???? ??

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