47: How My Community Carried Me Through a 20-Minute Zoom Blackout

😰 Your Worst Tech Nightmare (It Happened to Me A Few Weeks Ago)

Picture this: You've prepared for weeks. Over 1,600 people registered for your free workshop. You upgraded your Zoom plan to handle 500 attendees. You have presenter notes with sub-bullets for your sub-bullets. You're READY.

And then, within minutes of starting, Zoom crashes. You get kicked off. You reconnect, but your audio doesn't work. You get kicked off again. And again. And again. Four times in 20 minutes while 300 people watch you ping-pong in and out of your own presentation.

This isn't a hypothetical scenario. This literally happened to me on Tuesday. And honestly, my nervous system is still recovering.

If you've ever worried that tech failures will destroy your credibility, ruin your reputation, or prove you're not cut out for this online business thing, this post is for you. Because I'm going to walk you through exactly what I did in the moment to salvage a complete disaster, plus the three mindset shifts that will save you the next time technology decides to personally troll you.

Ready to watch the workshop that survived four Zoom crashes? Grab the replay of "Canva Carousels that Convert" here and tell me it wasn't as bad as I think it was.

💔 The Day Everything Went Wrong (And I Mean Everything)

Let me set the scene. I'm a Canva verified expert (one of only 43 in the entire world), and Canva reached out about their World Tour, offering to promote free events hosted by verified experts. So I pitched a workshop on creating scroll-stopping Instagram carousels in Canva, and over 1,600 people registered.

The morning of the workshop, there was a massive CloudFlare outage. Canva was down. ChatGPT was down. Payment processors were down. I'm at the orthodontist with my kids, watching Instagram Stories blow up with tech disaster reports, and my heart is racing. My workshop is at noon. I NEED Canva because I'm literally teaching IN Canva. I need Zoom to work. I need the internet to cooperate.

By 11 AM, things seemed to calm down. I took a deep breath, made my husband leave the house (he works from home and sometimes hogs the bandwidth), and opened Zoom at noon sharp. Nearly 300 people showed up live.

Within minutes, my worst nightmare began.

Zoom shut down completely. Window closed. Done. I reconnected, but people couldn't hear me. My connection was so bad that my audio just wouldn't work, even though my mic was on. Then I got kicked off again. And again. And AGAIN.

Four times in 20 minutes, I was booted from my own workshop while hundreds of people watched. I was literally sweating through my clothes. My stomach dropped every single time that Zoom window went black. I hit that tunnel vision place where your brain starts screaming, "This is the part where we should just cancel and crawl under a blanket and cry and hide for the rest of the day."

And here's the thing I realized in that moment: my need for control runs deep. Like, childhood-divorce-shuttling-between-parents'-houses-with-no-agency deep. As I've grown older, all I want is control. I want to know what's happening. I want to feel prepared. And now, in front of 300 people, I had absolutely zero control.

But I kept going. And honestly? That decision changed everything.

🛠️ The 3 Mindset Shifts That Saved My Workshop

When your perfect plan evaporates into chaos, these three pivots will help you recover with grace (and maybe even turn the disaster into a teaching moment).

✨ Lesson 1: Redundancy Beats Perfection Every Single Time

Perfectionism tells you to build the perfect slide deck with the perfect flow and the perfect presenter notes. Redundancy tells you to have a simpler, uglier backup within arm's reach.

Here's what I did in real time when I realized Canva and Zoom were fighting for bandwidth:

I closed Canva completely. I had been presenting in Canva with my detailed presenter notes visible. But sometimes Canva and Zoom don't play nice together (they both require significant bandwidth). So I made the unthinkable decision as an over-preparer: I abandoned my notes and closed the program.

I downloaded my slides as a PDF. While waiting to reconnect to Zoom (again), I downloaded my entire presentation as a PDF and saved it to my desktop. Was it ideal? Absolutely not. Did I lose my carefully crafted presenter notes? Yes. But it gave my system a breather and gave me one more variable I could try to control.

I had designated co-hosts who saved everything. About 10 minutes before the workshop started, one of my Content Coven members, Deb, DM'd me saying, "Hey Em, I'm sure you have everything under control, but if you want to make me a co-host just in case, do it." I said yes. Thank God I did, because that meant when I got kicked off repeatedly, the recording kept going and someone was managing the room.

Your redundancy checklist for live events:

• Have at least two designated co-hosts who can hold the room if you drop

• Download a PDF version of your slides before you start (I'm traumatized, so this is non-negotiable for me now)

• Have a simple backup plan you can pivot to if your main system fails

• Test your setup at least an hour before, but know that things can still go wrong

• Have a "plan B" message ready: "If tech doesn't cooperate, I'll send a clean replay"

Redundancy isn't sexy. It's not Instagram-worthy. But it's what saves you when perfection crumbles.

🧘 Lesson 2: Let Go When Control Is Gone

I do not like uncertainty. I do everything I can to tame the variables, give everyone the best experience, and not waste anyone's time. I know how busy my people are. But here's the paradox: the tighter we grip, the slower we're able to respond.

The second I said to myself, "My control is gone. The next best step is to record this and just send out the replay," my nervous system calmed down just enough to let me think clearly. That was a huge moment for me.

Letting go isn't giving up. It's shifting from perform to serve.

When you're in performance mode, you're trying to look good, maintain credibility, and prove you belong. When you're in service mode, you're asking, "What does my audience need right now? What's the next workable step?"

Here's what that looked like for me:

• I made a micro-promise to the room: "I'm going to deliver as much value as I can, and I will follow up with a clean replay."

• I leaned on the structure I already knew, even without my notes. I had over-prepared (as usual), so I mentally anchored to my three big beats: the core concept, the examples, and the action steps.

• I gave people confidence plus a next step. They didn't need perfection. They needed to know I wasn't abandoning them and that they'd still get value.

After the workshop, I had to run to acupuncture (my acupuncturist does not tolerate lateness), and then my kids were coming home 20 minutes later. I didn't have time to re-record the entire thing. So I watched the chaotic beginning, edited out the 20 minutes of crashes in Loom, added a disclaimer, and sent the "good enough" replay.

Done is better than perfect. And honestly, I was exhausted.

If you're serving, you'll always be able to find that workable next step. But if you're white-knuckling control, you'll freeze.

Want to master the art of pivoting under pressure? Listen to the full podcast episode where I break down these lessons in even more detail.

💛 Lesson 3: Your Community Is Your Safety Net

This is the part that still makes me a little emotional. Deb didn't do anything flashy. She didn't run my full production or take over teaching. But she did three incredibly powerful things:

She reassured the room. While I was frantically trying to reconnect, Deb was telling everyone, "Hang on, she's back! Let's give her a round of applause. Let's show her some love."

She offered an acceptable alternative. She suggested the replay option, which gave people permission to leave if they needed to without feeling like they were missing out.

She enrolled everyone in generosity. Instead of letting the room dissolve into chaos or frustration, she created a culture of support. People stayed. They gave me grace. They offered tech suggestions in the chat.

And afterwards? My DMs were flooded with kindness. "It happens." "You still delivered." "I would have just given up." "Don't beat yourself up." "I learned a ton."

That feedback mattered. Because yes, the numbers stung. We started with just under 300 people, and I lost over 100 during that 20-minute disaster. But drop-off doesn't equal no value. It just equaled tech friction, which is a totally different metric. And the replay numbers have been quite high, which tells me people still wanted the content.

Here's what I know for sure: Culture is built long before you need it.

If you show up consistently, teach generously, and admit when things are messy, your people will hold you up when the room wobbles. Deb stepped up because I've been building community through The Content Coven for months. Nicole (my VA and community manager) was there because we've worked together and built trust. My audience showed grace because I've shown them my real, imperfect self over and over again.

Your community isn't just a nice-to-have. It's your safety net when everything goes wrong.

Join The Content Coven and experience what it's like to have people in your corner who will literally co-host your workshop when tech fails.

📚 Resources & Links Mentioned in This Post

Workshop & Replay:

• "Canva Carousels that Convert" workshop replay

💪 What This Means for Your Next Live Event

Over 100 people dropped off during those chaotic 20 minutes. My perfectionist protector wanted me to shut everything down and hide. But I stayed in the room, made tiny pivots, and delivered value anyway.

And you know what? The people who stayed got an incredible workshop. The replay is solid. The workbook is comprehensive. And I learned three lessons that will make every future live event better.

You don't have to be perfect to be valuable. You have to be present and adaptable.

Prep your backups. Invite your community to help. And when the tech gremlins show up, just choose the next best move. Your people will appreciate you for it way more than they'd appreciate flawless perfection.

Listen to the full story on this week's podcast episode where I share even more behind-the-scenes details about my nervous system response, the childhood wound that surfaced, and how I'm changing my approach to live events moving forward.

And if you watched the workshop replay? Comment below and tell me it wasn't as awful as I think it was. I need the validation.

Keep going. Keep showing up. Keep being beautifully, authentically you (even when Zoom kicks you off four times).