Jack Daniels and My First Big Speech

The year was 1981 and I was working for Data Terminal Systems (DTS). One of the best things about DTS was the annual dealer conference.

DTS sold cash registers through a network of dealers and every year we’d hold a huge meeting, more of a convention, almost a party, and invite about 800 dealer employees. We’d pitch new products, take big orders, and do a lot of heavy drinking.

The Opryland Hotel

The 1981 conference was held in the Opryland Hotel in Nashville Tennessee. My big thing that year was to run an internal meeting to roll out our new software licensing policy – I know, it sounds boring – but it was important to me.

Not so much because of the topic, but more because of the audience.

I was meeting with DTS’s top sales managers and I knew they had no interest in learning squat about software licensing procedures. I was also pretty sure that most of them thought of me as a “Home Office Puke.”  And there were several of them lying in the bushes waiting for me to ask them to do something stupid so they could jump down my throat and show off for the audience by goring easy prey from  the home office.

Anyway, I worked my butt off for 2 hours and escape with no major wounds. It was day one of the dealer conference and my job was pretty much done for the week.

This meant that all I had to do was to seek out the best parties and ENJOY NASHVILLE.

One of the features of the Opryland hotel is this huge atrium that really looks like an indoor town park and buried deep down inside the atrium is a little bar called the Jack Daniels Tasting Room.

The Jack Daniels Tasting Room

Since it was the first night of the conference, there weren’t a lot of private parties going on, so I ended up down in the Jack Daniels Tasting Room  for the evening with a couple of buddies. Needless to say, the taste of that southern elixir and the relief I was feeling after having pretty much nailed my big meeting – led to a bit of Jack Daniels over indulgence.

Anyway, I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say that I arrived at the Sunday morning breakfast buffet about 5 minutes before they shut it down and started setting up for lunch. I’m sucking down 3 or 4 buttermilk biscuits with red eye gravy when I feel a little tug on my suit tail… I turn and see a sheepish looking John Shea.

John reported to me and he was the second keynote speaker of the morning in front of all 800 dealers and their employees – John had a huge speech to give.

So John says to me: “I can’t talk – I have laryngitis.”

My first reaction was to laugh – I’d never heard of someone coming down with Laryngitis outside of sit coms like The Lucy Ball show.

Then my hangover subsided long enough for it to hit me like a ton of bricks

JOHN IS TELLING ME THIS BECAUSE HE WANTS TO GET OUT OF GIVING THE BIG SPEECH AND STICK ME WITH IT INSTEAD!

And guess what? I was right.

But wait – it gets worse!

It was a one hour speech, and it was all about the nitty gritty details of the competition in the cash register business – a topic I knew nothing about.

Fortunately, John had done a pretty good job of writing out his speech, but I only had about 70 minutes before show time. So I ran back to my room and just started reading the speech out loud. It wasn’t enough time to any more than just highlight the sentences that made no sense to me or had names I couldn’t pronounce.

I dashed to the stage just in time for my introduction.

If you’ve ever spoken to a large crowd – you know 500 to a 1,000, for the first time, you know how unsettling it can be. You have super bright lights in your face. You can’t hear anything but your own voice. And you can’t see anyone in the audience – not even the people sitting in the first row.

It is a complete sensory deprivation experience — except for one thing – you can feel every one of the 1600 eyeballs starting at you through the dark.

Anyway, I took the podium and told a joke about John Shea, Lucy Ball and last minute laryngitis. I dragged myself through the one hour speech and escaped without having a nervous breakdown on stage.

Given the venue and my raging hangover – I’d have to say it was a stellar success – but if you were in the audience, maybe you thought otherwise.

The bottom line for me was that I learned that I could give a speech under the worst possible conditions that day.

I learned about the sensory deprivation that comes with speaking in large venues.

And I most importantly,  I learned that Jack Daniels and business events do not go together.

This Week on The Career Mechanic – Stamping Out Dysfunctional Behavior
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Is the world really in flames? Unemployment mounts, state cutbacks are “off the charts,” and now we have riots in Iran. Yes, there is plenty of dysfunctional behavior to go around, but here’s the thing about dysfunctional behavior is that it may show up at the national level, but it begins with the behavior of individuals like me and you. This week join Dave and his guests: Emmy award winner and member of the broadcast hall of fame – Connie Dieken and Pat Lencioni author of numerous books including “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” as they discuss this never-ending curse of corporate life.