Rising above disappointments
Because shege is constant; a little here and there, but you're still gonna ball! Oloun!
Hello my lovelies. How are y’all doing?
I woke up really early today to get some hefty work done before sunrise. In the midst of that, I took a break for a moment to mindlessly browse through Twitter (or X as Melon Musk has renamed it). Then, I came across this tweet from Adora.
Adora’s tweet about seeing rejection and disappointments as a redirection placed a leading in my heart to share a story with y’all. Something happened to me recently that would have meant my embarrassment on a global stage and the possible loss of my job (ok, I’m exaggerating, but you’ll get my drift soon).
Now, I don’t know who needs to hear this. There’s only one absolute constant about life, and that is the fact that nothing is promised. As Murphy’s law states: "anything that can go wrong will go wrong”.
And when things don’t go as planned, you can choose to either see it as a opportunity to learn, re-access your strategy, or pivot. Or, you can dwell on it, declare that your fortune must be really bad, and then go on a downward spiral from there.
In summary, the lens you put on a setback paints the whole picture.
Let me share a story with you. The day was June 23, 2023. I was supposed to present a talk on some abstract cryptography and authentication stuff as part of the line up for the Kansas City Developer Conference in the USA. My talk was slated for 8:30 a.m. that Friday. I arrived early, at about 8 a.m., just to get some time to get a feel of the hall, do last minute rehearsing, and pace around to calm my nerves (you see, even after delivering several conference talks, I still always get ridiculously nervous right before a talk).
I wasn’t expecting many people to turn up. I mean, 8:30 a.m. was a bit too early. But to my surprise, by 8:20 a.m., a couple of people started trickling in, and by 8:30 a.m., there were over 50 people in the hall. That was quite an impressive turnout for an early morning presentation, especially considering that other talks were happening concurrently in different halls.
Fueled by the encouraging turnout, I dived into my talk with so much passion, until the unexpected happened.
15 minutes into the 45 minutes scheduled for my talk, the projector that had worked absolutely fine without any glitches the previous day, decided to take a breather and go kaput. My first guess was that maybe it was a connector issue and I just needed to touch the wire. It turns out it wasn’t. The projector fan had stopped rotating, which meant it had to be replaced. The hall technicians estimated about 20 minutes to fix it or hustle for a new one.
For the first 5 minutes, I was frozen. I was so confused, here I was with over 50 white people looking at me, with all that awkwardness. I have to emphasise that my audience was made up of only white people. Around non-black crowds, I often grapple with this need to prove myself, because I subconsciously assume they hold some intellectual superiority over me (I’m aware that this is a lingering residue of colonisation, a battle I'm still waging). Because of this simple fact, the pressure and embarrassment I was feeling was X2, along with a mini panic attack.
So there I was, completely thrown off my game. This wasn't how I envisioned the day unfolding. Three months of researching and practising this talk, and this? Was I supposed to just walk out the door? Or wait for the technicians to fix the projector, while my audience waits? But by then, the time slot for my talk would be almost over, and I would have to make way for another speaker to take the stage.
My company and the conference organisers were footing the bill for me to deliver that presentation (flights + hotel + feeding). So, there was just no way I could leave without delivering that talk. I thought about delivering the rest of my talk without slides and how that would work. My talk was extremely technical and somewhat abstract, requiring graphics to drive the point home.
Out of nowhere, an idea came to me. I thought to myself “my slides are available online on Canva, what if I could just somehow share the link with everyone, so they’ll have a copy on their device?”. I voiced this idea to my audience. Obviously, the projector had kaphooshed, so using it to project the link for everyone to see was not an option. Then someone from the audience chimed in: "How about a QR code?”
Well, that was how I created a QR code, passed my phone around the hall until everybody got my slides open on their phone or my laptop, and proceeded with my talk. By the time technicians restored the projector, there was just 5 mins left off my speaking slot. If I had waited for them, I wouldn’t have delivered that talk, and 3 months worth of research and planning would have gone to waste.
My talk didn’t go as smoothly as I had planned. I didn’t have time to take any questions, as the next presenter was waiting right out the door by the time I got to my thank you page. Still, I delivered the talk, and that’s what’s most important. Surprisingly, after my talk, a number of participants came over to meet me personally to tell me that they were impressed with how I handled the situation and persevered in delivering the talk to make sure that they got value for their money.
(Quick aside: Huge thanks to everyone who joined me on that rollercoaster day. Your patience through the freezing, confusion, and chaos meant the world.)
When things don’t go according to plan, I hope your immediate reaction isn’t to conclude that the universe is against you. I hope you find the strength to see it as a redirection, an opportunity to learn, and an opportunity to get stronger. It may not be obvious at the moment, but it is.
For my talk, I could have easily concluded that the universe was working against me, and called it a day. But I’m glad I stuck with it and saw it through, because it taught me an important lesson that I now apply to all of my talks. I ask myself, “What if slides crash, or gear glitches, or something unexpected happens mid-talk? How would you adapt to still deliver your talk successfully?”
And let me tell you, the lesson has sure come in handy. Roughly two weeks ago, I was in Nairobi to deliver a talk, and guess what happened? If you guessed that the projector malfunctioned, you guessed right. But this time, I wasn't fazed. I'd been there before. I handled it really smoothly, told some jokes (because, yunno, I’m a part time comedian), and engaged the audience in some Q & A. In about 7 mins the projector came back on, and I proceeded with my talk, leaving out some unimportant parts to make up for the time lost. The audience barely felt the effects of the mishap.
Today, I want you to trust that things will work out. Maybe not exactly the way you planned, but in the way that’s best for you. Even though it may not always make sense to you, your job is to keep going anyway, knowing your life is not defined by your difficult days.
Your disappointments and failures do not define you. Get up and try again. And you know what’s rad? As Moe says, this time you’ll be starting with what you already know and not from scratch. I promise you, when the break you’re waiting for comes, the dots will connect and it will finally make sense.
As always, I’m rooting for you, more than you could ever know.
Till I write you next time, stay Jiggy!
Your internet auntie turned your number one fan :)
A little personal life update you didn’t ask for: I’m currently on 5 weeks travelling spree across Europe (some of the countries I’ll stop at are for work, speaking at conferences, and all that rizz. Others are personal). I’ve had so many random and bizarre encounters that will surely make for good stories. Maybe I’ll gist y’all about it when I’m back. Stay tuned.
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