This is a quite different Good Talk piece; it’s just a story. And a story that only you – the Good Talk Community – get to hear, because it’s a little bit of gossipy, inside-baseball talk.
 
I want to share a harrowing tale of survival from the most life-and-death environment anyone could ever navigate – daytime television talk shows.
 
Below you will find a juicy confession from my utterly shot-out-of-a-cannon appearance on Good Morning America. Why, you might ask, would I lift the curtain? Why would I tell you all the ways a very successful TV appearance was not entirely as it seemed to be?
 
Because it’s so very relevant to the communication moments you experience everyday.
 
You know those situations where everything you planned for changes in an instant? Imagine that, but then put it on TV.
 
If you haven’t watched the clip of me talking about my book Don’t Say UM on Good Morning America, do yourself a favor – pop some corn, put your feet up, and click HERE.
 
Spoiler alert: you’re not about to watch a crash and burn. Quite the opposite – the bit is great: funny, fast-moving, educational, dare I say, even interesting. But I want you to watch it with this insider’s knowledge: nothing in this bit unfolded as it was planned.
 
And in that reveal there is a lesson – your communication life will not go as planned. The dog will eat your homework; the slides will fail; the Zoom will glitch; the venue will flood.
 
It doesn’t matter. The test of your communication is not, were you nervous, did you look good, was your outfit (or your shoes) OK; the test is, did you persevere with your mission to reach the other person, or did you abandon ship?
 
We were planning on having a rehearsal.
 
We didn’t.
 
There were supposed to be two hosts.
 
There weren’t.
 
Same story for the placement, and the timing, and the script, and the intro and the outro, and and and…
 
This is in NO WAY a critique of Good Morning America! They were great (especially Eva Pilgrim navigating a balance beam in stilettos)! In fact, it was incredible to watch a well-oiled machine put out relevant, topical, polished content at a lightning-fast production speed. My hat’s off to them.
 
This reveal is to make a crucial point: prepare for the communication events of your life to always be different than you expect, because they will be. The goal in communication (and perhaps in life) should be Flexibility, not Flawlessness.
 
That concept is the core idea of chapter 18; if you haven’t had a chance to get the book, you can get it anywhere that books are sold. But regardless of if you get a copy or not, check out chapter 18 on recovering from mistakes – you can read it HERE.
 
So when (not if) your communication event doesn’t go according to plan, remember: it was never going to go according to plan anyway.
 
Focus on recovering and continuing rather than clinging to a fantasy of an ordered universe and embrace the changeability of being in the current moment.

Happy Learning,

Michael Hoeppner and the GK Training team