COACHING FROM CONAN

I watched an interview with Conan O’Brien recently. It was on the show, Hot Ones, which, if you’re not familiar, is a show where guests are interviewed while eating progressively hotter and hotter buffalo wings. The interviewer was picking his brain about his family, comedy in general, and of course, his long running talk show. 

At one point, the interviewer asked O’Brien what the biggest mistake his guests would make on the show was. 

His answer resonated. 

“Tell the audience the interview isn’t going well. I‘ve seen it happen many times. It’s an amateur move because the host can do a lot to let people think it’s going great, even if it’s not. There are many things the host can do — the host can act a little bit, the host can do things. Audiences want to see a good show, they want to see a good interview.” 

He went on. 

“I was always amazed when someone would come out and they’d be doing okay, and then they would just look right at the camera and say, ‘This just isn’t going well is it?’ I would look out at the audience, maybe 200 people sitting there, and I would see 200 souls leave 200 bodies and float up to the ceiling, because they were just told they were not getting a good show.” 

Recently, my wife and I were invited up to our kids’ school for a presentation. Our daughter is one of only two female 3rd graders in the entire district to be selected for an accelerated program called APEX. We were at the school with about two dozen other families to hear more about the program. 

The lead of the program welcomed us and then shared all about APEX. At different points during the presentation, she asked us if we had any questions. 

When no one raised their hands she said, “I know. It’s 7:30 on a Monday night. I know you’re all tired. It’s a bad idea to have these so late on a Monday night.” 

On multiple occasions, she told us that the time and the day were all reasons why things weren’t going very well. But we were all there to hear about this super cool program that our kiddos were selected for. We were excited. But none of us had questions. That’s it. Nothing to do with Monday or 7:30 at night. We just didn’t have questions. 

Part of the reason why, I assume, is because she showed us approx 40 slides in 15 minutes, and she spoke quickly, standing off to the side of the room. But again, I can speak for myself and my wife when I tell you all, we were thrilled to be there. So her repeated mentions of the conditions being less than ideal were just, well, annoying. 

A few weeks back, I was invited to an event thrown by the United Way to honor one of our partner schools and other businesses in their city. It was a great event, and I was thrilled for our partners as they were honored. But at one point, the host either mistakenly shuffled the certificates or received them that way, but they were out of order. As someone who speaks in front of people a lot, I get how stressful that can be. 

A company’s name was announced, and she had a certificate to give them, and that certificate had another company’s name on it. 

Again, very stressful. We likely agree on this. 

But she had a choice: she could have said, “Friends, we’re having some tech difficulties up here, but we’ll get it figured out. Let’s give it up even louder for our friends from (insert company or school name).” 

Instead, she chose to say, “Well, this is going terribly.” 

The truth is, it was a small enough event, and most people there seemed to know each other, so she made it through just fine. But I couldn’t help thinking about all the people who left work in the middle of the day, who got dressed up, who brought props with them (one of the schools brought the entire cheerleading team), who may have been thinking - I’m so excited to be here, and she’s saying this is going terribly? 

There was a deodorant company slogan when I was growing up that went like this. 

“Never let them see you sweat.” 

I’ve been thinking of this since that Conan interview. Not just for us, which is how I always thought about this and how I thought about being on stage in general. But for them. For the people watching us,. So their experience is an A+. Even if our stress level is a 20 out of 10.