The Most Embarrassing, Horrible, Cultural Faux Pas I Ever Made.

Sooner or later, it happens. Accept it. It’s How You Recover that Matters.

The auditorium was packed. From where I was standing backstage, it looked like about 500+ people had been invited by my client to attend my keynote presentation on managing global teams, and I was pumped and ready to go. I remember feeling thrilled to be in Mexico City again, one of my favorite cities, and was enjoying the adrenalin rush just before going on-stage. I gave myself a final mental reminder to adapt my presentation style to the realities of the language difference: I was presenting in English, to an audience of Spanish speakers, so “remember, slow down, Dean”, I said to myself, “speak clearly and simply, no slang and colloquial expressions…”, etc. I’ve done this a million times before, and each time I speak to a non-native English-speaking audience that has made the effort to listen to me in English (because I certainly could not present in their first language), I am humbled and grateful. “Make a point of thanking everyone for doing so”, I reminded myself. The curtains parted, lights came up, and I stepped forward.

“Thank you, gracias, thank you all for coming to my talk today, and I promise you that we are about to go on a global adventure, an exploration of the world’s great cultures, in order to discover how to think in…