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Ryan Levesque

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The Digital Contrarianâ„¢

Ryan Levesque

Issue #023

| The Digital Contrarianâ„¢

The Power of Being Unprepared

Play-by-Play Panic (& The #1 Marketing Lesson from My Whirlwind Trip to the UK...)

Ryan Levesque

10 min read

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1 | The "Secret Power" of Being Unprepared.

Sunday, November 17th (Cambridge, UK)

It’s 1:27 AM and I wake up with my heart pounding out of my chest.
 
I’m set to speak on stage in less than 8 hours.
 
My slides are not finished. My presentation is not done.
 
I have a rough idea of what I want to cover…
 
But I’ve never done this talk before…
 
This is brand new material.
 
And on top of that…
 
It’s my first time delivering a keynote in the UK…
 
And I’m starting to panic.
 
There are over 100+ people from all over the world who have paid to be at this event.
 
And Chris Ducker (my friend and organizer of the event, pictured with me above) is counting on me to deliver.
 
My heart starts racing as I lay there in bed, wide awake staring into the abyss.
 
I could hear a lifetime of voices in my head – my mom, my wife, my business partner, my dog:
 
“Why do you always do this? Why do you always wait until the last minute for everything?”
 
There’s no more time.
 
I need to wake up.
 
I need to figure out what I’m going to say.

2 | The Magic of Relying on "Weird Rituals."

Whenever I create a new talk for a live audience, there’s a ritual I rely on:
 
In the weeks leading up to the presentation, I’ll create an document to capture all the thoughts, ideas, concepts that I think I might want to share…
 
Then, on the day before the event (typically 24-36 hours before I’m set to go on stage) once I think I’ve got most of the ingredients down in one place…
 
I’ll find a quiet, private space (usually my hotel room if I’m traveling) and I lie down in bed, close my eyes…
 
And build the entire presentation in my mind.
 
It’s the only way I know how to do it.
One of my favorite parts of the UK is how “big” it makes you feel because everything is so tiny. The portion sizes, seats on the bus, and even the beds – so tiny, they gave me two! :-)
The reason why I do it this way is simple:
 
Mentally “building” the presentation in my mind helps me figure the order of things.
 
The flow. 
 
What comes first and what goes second.
 
How I’m going to open and how I’m going to close.
 
It helps me figure out my segues – how to transition from one point to the next.
 
It helps me map out the jokes I’m going to tell for moments of laughter…
 
The stories I’m going to share for moments of inspiration…
 
I imagine how the audience is going to respond to each and every twist and turn.
 
And how it’s all going to make them feel.
 
I’ll play the movie out in my mind over and over and over again in meticulous detail…
 
Making tweaks and adjustments each time I cycle through the session in my head…
 
Mentally rearranging the material – until I’ve finally gotten it to where I want to be.
 
Then I open my eyes, get in front of the computer…
 
And build my slides.

3 | The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men.

And what I just described…
 
That was my plan for this talk:
 
Arrive to England the day before my presentation, and get to my hotel early in the morning…
 
Then, leave the entire day to build my presentation using my ritual.
 
Except, there was a problem:
 
The night before, on my overnight flight from Boston to London, for some reason:
 
I couldn’t sleep.
 
Not a single minute.
Feigning a fake social media selfie smile after not sleeping the night before on my flight, as I walk into my hotel in Cambridge praying to God that my hotel room is ready and that they’re not going to make me sleep in the lobby :-)
In fact, by the time I arrived in Cambridge…
 
The jet lag had me so knackered (British English Easter Egg, you’re welcome…)
 
That my brain wasn’t functioning, I had a crushing headache, and I simply couldn’t think.
 
I tried fighting it for hours, but no matter what I did…
 
Nothing seemed to work.
 
So I decided to do something scary:
 
At 9:34pm at night…
 
After struggling all day to operate like a functioning human being…
 
With my talk still not yet figured out and my slides still not yet finished…
 
I decided to go bed to try to get a few hours of kip (another one for you…)
 
I set my alarm for 4:45am to give me enough time to pull it together before my 9:15am speaker slot when I’d be kicking off the event in the morning…
 
It was a major risk.

3 | Duty, Responsibility, & Play-by-Play Panic.

I feel a deep responsibility as a speaker.
 
Somebody has invited you on their stage.
 
They’re trusting you with their audience.
 
And I feel a tremendous sense of duty when entrusted with this honor.
 
You want to get it right.
 
You want to deliver.
 
And at 1:27am, with my heart beating out of my chest…
 
I started to panic that for the first time in my life, I wasn’t going to be able to deliver…
 
—
 

2:05am…

 
The pounding headache is thankfully gone and my brain starts firing up…
 
My alarm was set for 4:45am, but my subconscious mind knew I needed more time.
 
My eyes are still closed but I’m mentally wide awake.
 
I begin to work through the movie in my mind to create this brand new presentation…
 

3:18am…

 
I’m struggling…
 
The transitions are not working…
 
The order of my points isn’t right. I’m trying to do too much in the 45 minute slot…
 
Do I have enough material?
 
Do I have too much?
 
This is all new material, so it’s really hard to know.
 
I think something is going to need to be chopped.
 
But what do I cut?
 
I’m stuck.
 

4:37am…

 
I have a breakthrough. But it’s a risk.
 
I’ve never done something like this before.
 
I try to imagine the audience reaction. Will it work? Will it land?
 
Will it be engaging or fall completely flat?
 
I wrestle back and forth with the idea playing out two alternate scenarios in my mind…
 
Do I play it safe?
 
Or do I take the risk?
 
I play with both paths simultaneously…
 

5:15am…

 
I’m going to take the risk.
 
I begin to get in flow…
 
But…
 
There are a few details that just won’t click.
 
And the ending.
 
I need to get the ending right for it to all come together.
 
I need to stick the landing.
 
Ugh. It’s not right.
 

5:53am…

 
I think I’ve got it.
 
The missing piece.
 
But I’m running out of time…
 
One last playthrough of the movie in my mind…
 
Does it work?
 
I think it works.
 
It’s gonna have to work.
 
I hear noises outside my window. The world is waking up.
 
I have to get working on my slides…
 
Less than two hours until sound check.
 
This is going to be tight…

4 | The Ultimate Goal.

As a speaker, you’re balancing a number of different competing factors.
Of course, you have your own self-serving business goals:
 
Get people to follow your work, sign up for your newsletter, read your book, take you up on your special offer, or whatever you’re focused on in your business…
 
But you also have the event goals you also want to support:
 
Help the event organizer to fill their offer and coordinate your material to be congruent with their event, so you can be a good friend and partner…
 
Of course, you want to connect with the audience.
 
You want your message to land.
 
And ideally…
 
You want to deliver an epiphany.
 
A paradigm shift.
 
You want your audience to walk away seeing the world they occupy in a completely new and different way.
 
But if you’re really ambitious:
 
You want to deliver an emotional experience that leaves a deep and lasting impact.
 
You want to make them laugh…
 
Perhaps even make them cry…
 
But most importantly above all…
 
To make them feel.
 
Because after all:
 
People may not remember what you said, but they WILL remember how you made them feel…
 
But…
 
The ultimate outcome…
 
The signal of all signals.
 
That one that tells you unequivocally…
 
That your message landed…
 
That you’ve connected deeply with your audience…
 
That you’ve created the epiphany…
 
That you’ve delivered an emotional experience that leaves a lasting impact.
 
.
 
.
 
Is Getting a Standing Ovation.

5 | A Last Minute Spanner in the Works.

It’s 8:28am and my slides are finally done.
I’ve checked and double-checked for spelling mistakes…
 
(“Ducker” is one of those names you do NOT want to misspell :-)
 
Shoot.
 
I’m using a custom font with my new personal branding.
 
Keynote is not going to work on the presentation laptop.
 
It’s going to have to be a PDF.
 
This means no slide notes.
 
(And no confidence monitor.)
 
Crap. I’ll be working without a net.
 
But there’s no other option at this point.
 
Quick conversion to PDF.
 
Email slides to Chloe, Chris’s daughter and COO.
 
Off to quickly shower, get dressed in my blue shirt uniform, and hustle downstairs to get into the room…

6 | Game Time.

I anxiously await Chris to introduce me on stage…
Chris says some opening remarks – which I pay absolutely no attention to, because I’m mentally rehearsing my open so I don’t completely cock it up…
Chris calls me to the stage… And then, we are off to the races…
We do a bit of hand-raising…
Apparently we do lot of hand-raising…
We learn together…
We laugh together…
We cry together…
We connect…
We do more hand raising…
And then…
 
When it’s time to say good bye….
 
And just before I step off stage…
 
It happens:
 
.
 
The entire room gets on their feet:
 
.
 
A Standing Ovation.
 
.
 
 
And in that moment…
 
Everything leading up to that moment…
 
Was completely…
 
And entirely…
 
Worth it.
 
.
 
BTW – Massive shoutout to photographer Jean-Luc Benazet for documenting the event so thoroughly and taking all these awesome photos.

7 | Setting the Tone.

Sometimes being unprepared sharpens your focus.
 
Sometimes being unprepared leaves you open to possibilities that are even better than what you ever could’ve ever envisioned.
 
This, or so much more.
 
And that, is what set the tone for the rest of the trip:
 
The time with Richard in the English countryside planning the next evolution of our business together:
(Exciting things on the horizon, btw…)
 
The time in London with our new business partners Daniel Priestley and Steven Oddy at ScoreApp, planning the future of Bucket and the integration of our two technologies:
(Stay tuned for some big announcements…)
 
Another sold out speaking event in London…
And lots and lots and LOTS of filming…
All to say… it was a whirlwind trip.
 
And while I desperately miss my family and the farm (as I sit here typing this on the very last leg of my sixteen hour return trip home…)
 
There is one final lesson I’ll end with before wrapping, and that’s this:

8 | The #1 Lesson & My Single Biggest Takeaway from the Trip.

While I didn’t get much actual writing of my upcoming book while in the UK…
 
I might’ve made more progress on the research behind my book in the last week than I was able to make in the last month…
BTW – For those who wrote to me last week in response to my question in Issue #022: How to See Hidden Patterns Others Completely Miss… if you haven’t heard back from me yet – it’s because I’m still catching up on replying to messages. Thank you for your patience :-)
And that progress came from…
 
The dozens of IRL conversations like this one right here:
Time spent in person, connecting with a few members of my Strategic Advisory Group Mastermind and guests who made the trek to London (some traveling from as far away as Ireland and the country of Georgia to be there).
(Thank you, Mojgan for the photo!) :-)
 
The dozens of private messages I received on what landed from my talks:
The actual words written down in their notes:
Are you this obsessive in ASK-ing and gathering feedback from your market??
 
If not, I urge you to consider it.
 
Because it’s the combination of all this feedback that creates the gold.
 
The interplay between your ideas and their reaction to those ideas.
 
It’s the dialogue with your audience that your monologue inspires.
 
It’s the exchange…
 
It’s the conversation…
 
Yes, the ideas behind what you build need to be birthed from you…
 
But, your message should come from your market, not from your mind…
 
This is how you combat the “beigification” of the internet…
 
This is how you create something different…
 
This is how to create something unique…
 
Which at the same time resonates with your audience…
 
And speaks to your personal truth…
 
This is how to create a category of one.
 
A product or service that nobody else can replicate.
 
A business that nobody else can copy.
 
Because it comes from a deeply personal place.
 
Whilst at the same time….
 
Is deeply rooted in your relationship with the actual real-life human beings you support and serve…
 
Because as my good friend Sally Hogshead likes to say:
 
It’s better to be different…
 
But only is best.
 
Zig when they Zag, baby…
 
Until next week,
 
Ryan :-)

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