Sponsor/Advertiser Voice (1:36)

I started my business as a sole proprietorship and at the time that made sense.

Jason Pfeiffer (1:41)

I was just trying to get moving.

Sponsor/Advertiser Voice (1:42)

But looking back I realized if I had known what I know now, I probably would have structured it as an S Corp at the start. Instead I had to switch later which was a pain. And you know that is true of many things. There are small decision that we would have approached differently if only we had known. But you don't have to learn from your mistakes like I did. You can do it right the first time. Under the guidance of today's sponsor, Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They are the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US with over 1500 corporate guides who are real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every every

Jason Pfeiffer (2:29)

step of the way.

Sponsor/Advertiser Voice (2:30)

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Jason Pfeiffer (3:47)

up your whole day.

Sponsor/Advertiser Voice (3:48)

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Jason Pfeiffer (4:43)

This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor in Chief of

Nicole Lapin (4:49)

Entrepreneur Magazine, and I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.

Jason Pfeiffer (4:57)

And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

Nicole Lapin (5:02)

And it starts now. So when we were deciding what episode to do today, we had one that was already planned and then we were about to record it and you said, but wait, I have another story. I'm not going to tell you what it is. It's a mystery.

Jason Pfeiffer (5:18)

So we're going to open the mystery box here. What's inside the mystery box is my nightmares. It's sort of like Pandora's box, but for me, which was a terrible, excruciating experience that happened, where I learned something really valuable. And I'm going to tell you about it. And I want to hear what you think, because I bet you will have something really smart to say. You ready?

Nicole Lapin (5:37)

That's a lot of pressure, but yeah.

Jason Pfeiffer (5:41)

Okay. So a couple weeks ago, as you and our listeners know, part of my business is that I travel around, that I keynote talk. I'm hired by companies and trade associations to get on stage and great at it. I appreciate that.

Nicole Lapin (5:54)

So if anyone else is listening, who wants to hire Jason, don't let what

Jason Pfeiffer (5:58)

I'm about to say on this episode dissuade you from hiring me. So I was hired and this was an event in Vegas. It was called Valuation Expo. It was for real estate appraisers. And I was speaking in the late afternoon in Vegas. So I woke up early in the morning in New York and I flew out to Vegas and I landed and then I got a Stage at around 4:30pm that was when I was supposed to be on stage, which is 7:30pm My physical time. Just to give you a sense of, like, how I'm feeling in this moment, but I'm feeling good. The crowd is there and full and interested. And this event, actually, I'm friends with the organizers, so it felt fun to be there with them. Just before I go on stage, a guy comes up to me and he says, hi, I'm the timekeeper. Because usually there's a clock that runs that a speaker can watch, but in this case they didn't have that. So they just had a guy and he says, I'm the timekeeper. I will hold up a sign with a 10 when there's 10 minutes left and a 5 when there's 5 minutes left. And I'll just be sitting right over there in the front row. And I said, no problem. Now I have been hired for a 30 minute talk. I've done versions of this talk a million times. I know exactly how long it'll take. I do not need a timekeeper. Thanks, guy. It's totally fine. I'm not worried about this. Anyway, I am introduced on stage and then I run up on stage and I'm full of energy and the crowd is with Me. And thank you. Things are going great. And my talk for 30 minutes is. There's an intro, and then there's three sections, and then there's an outro. So I am, like, in the middle of the first section. I get through the intro, and then I'm in the middle of the first section, and then the guy holds up the 10 sign, and I think to myself, that can't be right. Like, it can't. I must have misheard him, and he must be telling me that I've been on stage for 10 minutes, not that there are 10 minutes left. So I just. I put it on my head and I just keep going. And I wrap up the first section of the talk, and I move into the second of three sections, and then an outro. I start the second section, and then he holds up a five. And now I'm thinking, oh, he does mean that. Now I only have five minutes left. And I see that he's got a phone with a timer running. He's not wrong. And there are five minutes left, which means that 25 minutes has elapsed. And I'm still in the first half of this talk. Something is wrong. Like, some. Something bad has happened here. And now let me remind you that I had gotten up early, and I've flown out to Vegas. And so the first thing that I think about is, am I exhausted and delirious? Am I. Have I actually been rambling on stage for 25 minutes, sort of incoherently? And I think that I'm in the middle of this talk, but actually, I've just wasted a lot of time. I don't know what's happening, and I'm getting nervous and thinking about all of this is supposed to happen in the background because I also am still on stage, and I've got 300 people who are watching me, and I'm supposed to still be giving this talk. But when you are presenting, you have a very limited amount of spare bandwidth with which to process other thoughts. You know, like, I can do a little bit. I can do. Like, the crowd's really into this. The crowd's not into that. Or like, that guy over there is not paying attention. That's fine. I can do that. But I can't do what is wrong,

Nicole Lapin (9:20)

you know, and go through your to do list.

Jason Pfeiffer (9:23)

Yeah.

Nicole Lapin (9:23)

Hopefully focused on what you're presenting. The big bucks, Jason.

Jason Pfeiffer (9:27)

That's right. People pay me a lot of money to be there. And I start to. Because I cannot figure out what's going on. I start to stumble in the talk. I start to lose my place in the talk because I really. I do picture it like a pipe. The majority of the pipe has to be clear for ideas to go from my head to my mouth. And right now, too much of the pipe is getting filled up with these worries about what has happened on stage, which means there's not enough bandwidth for me to tell my stories. And so I start to stumble. And then I'm aware that I'm stumbling. And so now there's a third thing going on in the pipe, which is a kind of panic that I'm now losing my place. And now it looks like I'm falling apart on stage. And then I derail. I can't find my place in this story. And I'm in the middle of telling this story about this beer company. I've told it for years on stage. I know this story, and I'm losing my place. And now the audience is trying to help me. They'll repeat back the last words that I said. They're trying to get me back on track, and it's becoming deeply embarrassing. And I'm starting to get that cold sweat, and I don't know what to do now. I will tell you what I did, but first, has anything like this ever happened to you where you just got derailed? Maybe you're on tv, maybe you're on stage and words just stopped being able to come?

Nicole Lapin (10:35)

Yeah, totally. There have been a few times where I just completely lose my train of thought and I try to recover by. I don't even know what's happening in my brain, but I'm like, wow, completely blank. Totally lost it. Holy shit. But now I'm curious about this timekeeper guy. I'm assuming he's wrong. I want to beat this guy up for breaking you out into cold sweats.

Jason Pfeiffer (11:05)

So it's funny, by the way, I was talking to a mutual friend of ours, Randy Zuckerberg, about this, because she had me on her radio show a week or two ago, and I also asked her if she had ever had a moment where she just, like, completely lost her ability to talk. And she said she was once hired to give a talk and the audience didn't speak English, so there was a translation, but the translation was happening on a loudspeaker. So she was trying to give her a talk, but then there's like a version of her kind of coming back as she's talking, and it was just impossible. And so she said that what she did was that she just started singing. She just broke out into Random singer. That's her thing.

Nicole Lapin (11:41)

I probably wouldn't have been as concerned about the time.

Jason Pfeiffer (11:45)

It wasn't so much that I was worried about the time. It was that I was worried that I was not in control. Because if you're on stage and you think you've been on stage for about 12 minutes and someone tells you you've been on stage for 25 minutes, and they seem to be authoritative in that information, then I don't know about you. But the first thing that I think is, I don't know what time it is. Like, something my. I have lost track of time. I know exactly how long it takes to say all this stuff. And so I must not be saying this stuff. I must have been on stage for 25 minutes, and people are watching me incoherently ramble and they don't know how to make it stop. That's what I thought.

Nicole Lapin (12:25)

But instead you could have just thought, this guy's a dumbass.

Jason Pfeiffer (12:28)

But I don't know how because he was looking at the time. There was a timer. So the audience is trying to help me along. They're repeating the words back to me. And I try to pick it up and tell a little bit more of the talk, but then I lose track again and I just can't get back. And my body is full of adrenaline and panic, and it was awful. And then I realized this thing, which, to me, the happiest part of this story is that I came to this realization really fast, which was my job right now, is not to finish this story because people are trying to help me finish the story. The story doesn't have a point anymore. My job is to make sure that the audience is having a good experience, which means I gotta stop right now. So I took my clicker, because I'm holding a clicker for this slides, and I just toss it onto this couch that was behind me on stage. And I just said, you know what? And at that, the audience laughs and claps, and it broke the tension. But I'm still panicking because I don't know what's happening. I just think, let's just talk through this as best I can. So I turn to the audience and I just say, look, I've seen this happen to other speakers, and it's never happened to me. And it is really scary right now. Like, it's scary to be on stage in front of you, because I'm usually very good at this. And right now I'm very bad at this. And I don't know what has happened. And I don't know why I can't get back on track. And it's hard. And then I tried to find a couple lessons in it. I, you know, I talked about, I'm standing up here thinking I'm basically in control. And when you're in control, the most important thing isn't to say the thing that you were trying to say, but just to project confidence to people or calm. So I don't know what I was trying. And I tried a couple other things to say and about messing up or whatever. And I was just, I couldn't find good words. And eventually I said, thank you for tolerating this. Really sorry. Have a great rest of your night. And I got off stage and, and I got off stage and Hal, my friend, is the event organizer, runs on stage to just conclude the day. And then people rush over to me. And the first person who rushes over to me is the timekeeper. And the timekeeper explains what happened.

Nicole Lapin (14:51)

Fuck this guy. I'm so mad at him.

Jason Pfeiffer (14:55)

Stick around. Help wanted. We'll be right back.

Sponsor/Advertiser Voice (14:59)

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Jason Pfeiffer (16:14)

Welcome back to Help Wanted. Let's get to it. So here's what happened. I was supposed to be on stage from 4:30 to 5. That was his instructions, was to get me off at 5. But I didn't get on stage at 4:30 because the previous session ran long. And then the sound guys had to fix something. So I got on stage around like 4:43. And then the timekeeper, nobody gave him information about what to do and he just had to make an executive decision, which was, does he time me for 30 minutes or does he time me to 5pm and he decided to just time me to 5 and get me off stage at 5. So he was giving me signals for a considerably shorter talk than the one that I had planned to give and the one that anyone had told me I should get. So that's why the signals were off and nobody communicated that to me. I am not. He was so apologetic. I am not angry at him because I realized I was on stage, I was in control. I could have just said, hey, sorry to be awkward. Sorry, everybody, this is a little weird. I'm just going to stop the talk for a second. I'm getting these signals from the timekeeper. Has 25 minutes actually elapsed? Have we been on stage for 25 minutes? And he would have been like, no, you've actually been on stage for 13 minutes. But I was supposed to get you off at 5. And then I would be like, oh, am I supposed to get off at 5 or should I keep going? And then the organizer would have said, keep going. And then it would have been fine. It was because I didn't interrogate this that it all went off the rails. So the guy was wrong. But it's still my job to make sure that this is a good experience. And so I think I did the wrong thing, not him. I mean, he did the wrong thing too, but, like, I could have fixed it. So that's why I'm not pissed at him. There is more to this, but should I be responsible for this?

Nicole Lapin (17:57)

I think that when you're in some sort of awkward, uncomfortable crisis, which we've talked about before, it's actually quite endearing to open up the fourth wall or whatever and just show a little bit of the behind the scenes action. I'm seeing this weird thing. Just want to make sure everybody's okay over there or whatever it is. And so I think that I just know this from anchoring breaking news and wanting to say a lot of things, because that's what I think I'm supposed to do. But really I'm like, my producer is screaming in my ear or I'm not getting this information. And what's probably better is to be a little bit more transparent about what's happening in that meltdown situation, because I think the audience understands that shit happens and can stay with you more than trying to cover it up. And in hindsight, first of all, I would have just steamrolled this dude. Personally. I would have steamrolled the dude. I was like, I flew here from New York. I'm getting paid for this. I know this talk. And also, this is like my Oscar moment. I'm gonna keep going even when the music is playing.

Jason Pfeiffer (19:07)

So it's so funny. My thinking is part of my job is to stay on time, and so I always really obsessed with the clock. But what you just said there about being really transparent with the audience is exactly what was validated by the next thing that happened. Because, like I said, lots of people ran over to me. The first one who got to me was the timekeeper. And then there were all these other attendees, and the attendees all said, that was the most real thing that I've seen today. Thank you for what you just did there. Like, I have blanked in presentations myself or in conversations, and it was actually really helpful to see someone who does this professionally do the same thing people were saying. It made me feel better about myself to see that happen to you and for you to be open about it. And that was really. It didn't make it feel better, but at least made it feel like I didn't just waste everybody's time, and that was really helpful.

Nicole Lapin (20:06)

Well, you certainly didn't waste everybody's time, that I can tell you. And I was not there. And I think I misspoke when I said, you don't open the fourth wall, you break it.

Jason Pfeiffer (20:14)

I guess you could open it. To break something is to also create an opening in it, and I would allow it. So I get back to my room that night, and it is late. It's probably 11:00pm Pacific, which means that it's 2:00am, my biological time. I'm exhausted, and I cannot fall asleep because I am now counterfactualizing the hell out of this thing. So I am imagining other scenarios and how I would have handled them, which is, of course, the thing that we do when something regretful happens, which it's called counterfactual thinking. We just start to imagine alternate realities and then wish that the alternate reality was the actual reality. And in my case, what I was thinking about was, how could I have made this moment epic for people, right? I lost the train of thought. I throw down the clicker, I say, you know what? Fuck it. And then what do I do next? What amazing thing do I. What rabbit do? I pull out of my hat, and I start to come up with all these scenarios, and I have this one in my Head where it's. I should have asked everybody to write, raise their hands if they've ever blanked in an important moment. And then I would be like, look around. This happens to everybody. So the next time you. Whatever, right? And then I'm beating myself up because I'm like, why did you not do that? Why did you not have the presence of mind to do a better version of the crappy, like, falling apart on stage that you did? And I couldn't get out of my head. And I really. I thought, I need a professional. I need a mental health professional to help me right now, because I just feel, like, really lost in this. And fortunately, I have a friend who's a psychotherapist who also listens to the show. So shout out Katherine, Morgan, Schaffler and Nicole. You know, I love a voice memo, So I just hit voice memo on my phone, and I just narrated this whole thing to Catherine. And, like, literally up to the moment that I'm telling you right now where it's. And now I am in the room, and I'm trying to fall asleep, and I can't because I'm ruminating on other ways I could do it. And here's another way people could raise their hand, and I was just like, I just don't know how to get out of this. But I know that you will have something smart to say, so here it is. Please say something smart when you wake up tomorrow morning. And then I hit send. And that actually was really helpful because I found that just when something's in your head saying it aloud, you just, like, take it out of your brain and you can put it on a shelf. It, like, becomes an object that's just like.

Nicole Lapin (22:35)

Well, you also create a narrative as you're going, which gives some cohesion to the chaos that's swirling around the rumination, which, by the way, the rumination is like from a cow digesting twice. It's, like, a very weird word, but it is how it can feel when you're in that spiral. And that's why therapy is mostly just you, blah, blah. You didn't even know you were getting free therapy with.

Jason Pfeiffer (22:57)

All totally getting free therapy. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Katherine. Unless she's gonna invoice me.

Nicole Lapin (23:01)

And us, by the way. Yeah, I'm talking about me and more.

Jason Pfeiffer (23:04)

Yeah, yeah. You're also free to invoice me. I'll go broke paying everybody who helps me through my various anxieties. So here's what Katherine said to me in the morning. I woke up, had A voice memo from her. It was so useful that I wrote down the best part. So what she said was that she loved everything that I did in this story where I recognized that the thing was falling apart and I threw the clicker down and I just spoke to the audience. But what she did not love was my fantasy. She did not think that it was actually a very good idea. And so I'm just going to read what she said to me. She said this. You're looking for a perfect version of this, but your perfect version is much less powerful than what ended up happening. Your perfect version is a version where you don't trust the audience to figure out what everyone in that room knew and now gets to remember, which is that we all get scrambled and we all have a choice to make about how we recover. And the speed and efficiency with which we recover isn't the thing that matters. What matters is that people see us trying to. People see us making mistakes and people seeing us making reparative measures. The reparative measure is what matters, not whether the reparative measure is immediately efficient. So in other words, don't measure yourself by how quickly or impressively you recover. Measure yourself by your effort and your intentions, because that's what you can control. What do you think? I love that. Yeah, good advice. And I didn't even have to pay for it.

Nicole Lapin (24:31)

That's my favorite price.

Jason Pfeiffer (24:33)

So it really helped me recontextualize this and then also understand why people found it to be a positive experience. Because what they saw was not a perfect version of me recovering, but what they saw was me acknowledging the problem and then making an effort at recovering, which was really the only thing that mattered. And then I flew home. And then I told this story to Jen, my wife, and she said this great thing to me, which was she said, you went to give people a helpful message, and what happened wasn't the message that you intended to give them, but it was an important, helpful message anyway, and they'll totally remember it. Which I also loved. I gave people a thing. And unfortunately that thing came at the cost of my own sense of self worth for an afternoon.

Nicole Lapin (25:20)

But it was a night. Yes.

Jason Pfeiffer (25:22)

Yeah. And late into the night, but it was really useful. And anyway, and then I went home. And then for the next week or two, I just kept getting messages from people who were in the audience. There was a guy who wrote me. He said earlier today I was shaking just to stand up and ask a question of a panel in front of my peers like a fragile child. You were A rock star and another person wrote, I know you felt like you bombed and lost track of your story, but literally, you were the best speaker by far. And I loved how authentic you were, even with your frazzledness. It just made me think, to channel Catherine, you're not measured against. Against perfection. You're measured against something deeper and more human and more realistic. And so in difficult moments, move towards that thing and don't worry about whether you do it well or quickly or beautifully. Just worry about doing it. And that, to me is like such a valuable lesson that I'm actually kind of glad that this whole thing happened. Yeah.

Nicole Lapin (26:13)

I think that in those scenarios, people rarely remember what you say, as fantastic as it is, but they always remember how you made them feel.

Jason Pfeiffer (26:25)

Is that Maya Angelou?

Nicole Lapin (26:27)

I don't know. Is it? Did I just steal Maya Angelou?

Jason Pfeiffer (26:31)

I guess.

Nicole Lapin (26:32)

Anyway, to paraphrase myself. But they do remember now. Now I feel weird about it.

Jason Pfeiffer (26:40)

Yes. Sorry, I just looked it up. It is often attributed to Maya Angelou. Apparently the line is, people will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. But it seems to be a kind of no origin quote, so we can just attribute it to Nicole Lapin.

Nicole Lapin (26:56)

No, we don't need attribution, but I think the sentiment is right. Even though I dislike cliches and I dislike all the quotes that are attributed

Jason Pfeiffer (27:03)

to Marilyn Monroe or incorrectly or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Nicole Lapin (27:08)

But I do really see that lay out just in my own experiences around media speaking, being in front of others. We really focus on the details of what we're presenting and what's on the receiving end of that clicker that you're holding. And I'm sure it was beautiful and fantastic and you made a lot of really important points, but what you're seeing from reading those responses is how you made people feel, which is really all they're going to remember, truly.

Jason Pfeiffer (27:39)

Yeah.

Nicole Lapin (27:40)

And now I'm just annoyed that it's so cliche that I tried to say it so dramatically.

Jason Pfeiffer (27:46)

Yeah, you really felt like you were onto something there. You're like, this thing will be remembered for decades.

Nicole Lapin (27:52)

I don't know. I think we're running up against time. Literally we're one minute over time. And so I wanted to wrap it up. Now I'm in a fucked up headspace. Look at this contagious.

Jason Pfeiffer (28:04)

Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason

Nicole Lapin (28:09)

Pfeiffer, and me, Nicole Lapin. Our executive producer is Morgan Lavoy. If you want some help, email our helpline athelp wanted moneynewsnetwork.com for the chance to have some of your questions answered on the show. And follow us on Instagramoney News and Tik Tok MoneyNews Network for exclusive content and to see our beautiful faces. Maybe a little dance?

Jason Pfeiffer (28:30)

Oh, I didn't sign up for that.

Nicole Lapin (28:31)

All right, well, talk to you soon,

Jason Pfeiffer (28:41)

Sam.