Think Fast!

Something unexpected happened to me this week, and it wasn't a happy surprise.

Each month, I host a Virtual Speed Networking event for fractional executives. It's an opportunity for these professionals to build their referral base, cross-market, gain new client opportunities, and learn from each other.

It has become well-known among those in the fractional profession as a "power hour" of targeted networking with each attendee meeting 5-7 other professionals one-on-one for 8 minutes discussing timely topics I've prepared for them.

I prepare for every event by going to my Zoom account to test out the breakout room feature. Everything looked operational.

An hour later, the attendees filtered in, and I opened the Zoom breakout room feature. The feature allowing me to sort attendees into various rooms was gone!

I kept trying to close and reopen the feature, to no avail.

The attendees were very supportive and patient but this is where my 9th grade English teacher, Mr. Perrine's words, popped into my head:

"Always expect the unexpected."

Mr. Perrine would always retort with this sentence, a little smirk on his face, as our class moaned and complained about the pop quizzes he would throw our way.

I have never forgotten his words. They are deeply ingrained in me and have helped me enormously as unpleasant surprises have happened to me in business over the years.

Because I have learned to expect the unexpected, I've come to "think fast" when:

• the Power Point projector failed at a major conference I was speaking at.
• the workbooks and materials didn't arrive as expected at a workshop I was teaching.
• my luggage was lost at Dusseldorf airport before a big client meeting.
• when there was a power outage in the middle of a major virtual webinar I was leading.

All of these situations call for thinking fast on your feet and not letting yourself get flustered to the point of incapacity.

Always expect the unexpected.

Because of my training, I converted our virtual speed networking event into a fun town hall meeting where we discussed several engaging business topics.

And out of this adversity came unexpected advantages:

The attendees gained exposure to more of each other, the learning and ideas were more broadly shared, and it generated a beautiful ambiance of team.

The problem became a productive advantage.

There will always be challenges we are not prepared for, the unexpected.

There was a time when I was at a conference and quite unfortunately, the speaker that went on before me had a panic attack right at the beginning of his session.

The organizers changed the entire order of presenters and I had to go on right after this speaker. I was supposed to present in the afternoon.

Not only did I have to change my timing but I had to think fast about whether or how to address what we had all witnessed.

My solution was to thank and acknowledge the previous speaker and then throw a little humor into my talk. I usually avoid that because humor can fall very flat if done incorrectly.

In this case, the energy in the room needed uplifting and fortunately, it worked well.

I will be forever grateful to Mr. Perrine for being such a pain in the butt.

The hardest lessons are sometimes the ones that we need the most, and the ones we then pass onto to others that can make the biggest differences for them as well.

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Speed network with us every month, the 2nd Thursday of the month. (We are on hiatus in August 2024, back in September)

Register here: https://fractionals.ai/fc-speednetworking. For more tips and business building strategies, go to https://fractionals.ai and sign up for my every-Saturday-morning newsletter, The Boost.