One afternoon in New Jersey, I was anxious, and screwed, and under a lot of pressure.
First, the gig started really late because of three different grave technical problems. But, I had to get up there and Do My Thing. Unfortunately, my slides wouldn’t work, the mood in the room fell somewhere between total death and roiling hostility, and, so, I had to wing it. For 90 minutes. Lotta winging here.
Long, rambling, and off-the-cuff, it’s essentially my best-ever first draft of The Book That Simply Was Not Meant to Be (see also). Shambling though it was, I’m very proud of this talk and of how it turned out.
I still get a lot of nice notes every week from people who say it helped change their game. Which feels nothing short of awesome.