How to Recover When Something Goes Wrong Like Kristen Bell
What if I mess up? That’s the question I get from real estate agents, coaches, founders or any professional about to speak in public! The second you decide to put yourself out there more with more video, more speaking, more showing up where people can actually see you, the same worry shows up like clockwork: What if something goes wrong?
What if I ramble? What if I blank on my own point? What if the tech glitches and I'm just standing there?
So let me hand you the best example I've seen in a while. And it comes from the voice of Anna in Frozen.
This August at D23, Disney's big fan event, Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel walked out to preview Frozen 3 in front of a packed arena. And almost immediately, the tech fell apart. The music cut out. The audio glitched. The exact kind of thing that would make most of us want to disappear into the floor.
Kristen Bell did the opposite. She started talking the crowd through what was supposed to happen. She joked about it. She and Idina kept singing right through the malfunction; no music, no problem. And the audience loved it. The next morning, nobody was writing about a tech disaster. They were calling the whole thing charming.
Here's what I want you to notice: the glitch didn't become the story. The recovery did.
That's the entire lesson, and it's what I tell every client who's terrified of flubbing:
Nobody remembers the mistake. They remember what you did next.
I spent nearly 20 years in media, Netflix, Fox, Inside Edition, US Weekly, where I launched their entire video unit, and I've watched live segments come apart in real time more times than I can count. The pros aren't the ones who never stumble. Everyone stumbles. The pros are the ones who recover without making it weird.
So here's how you do that.
Skill #1: Follow my PHD Method
Your instinct when something goes wrong is to say "sorry" and then say it again. Resist that. An apology spiral actually announces to the room that something broke and that it rattled you.
A great framework to use is my PHD method to help you recover from a glitch or mess-up while presenting.
P is for pause. Most people's instinct when something breaks is to fill the silence immediately. Talk faster, apologize, explain. But they did the opposite. They paused. And the audience didn't feel the awkwardness. They leaned in. So for you, just take a beat. It might feel like an hour, but it's really just a few seconds. So don't try to fill the silence.
H is for humor. They started joking about the glitch right there in front of thousands of people. It's not a rehearsed bit, but it's light, it's human, and it's relatable. That's what turned a dead air moment into one the crowd actually was cheering for. And also ask for what you need, whether that's someone to tweak the Zoom or if your clicker doesn't work and you need a new one. During the speech or the presentation, ask for that.
D is for do it again. Once the audio came back, they didn't try to jump in mid-song where it broke. They took it from the top, restarted the whole thing clean, almost like it was intentional. Your Zoom will freeze eventually. Your slides will glitch. That's not the risk. The risk is not having practiced your pause, your humor, and your restart before you need them.
Skill #2: Bring the energy back up, not down.
The moment tech fails, most people collapse: shoulders drop, voice trails off, they mentally leave the room. Do the reverse. That warm, dinner-party energy I'm always talking about? That's exactly when you need it. The audience takes its cue from you: if you're fine, they're fine. Bell didn't shrink when the music died. She got bigger.
Skill #3: Know your three points cold.
The reason Bell could roll with it is that she knew the song in her bones. When you actually know your three points, not your entire script, your three points. A tech hiccup is just a hiccup. You're not depending on the slides to remember what you came to say.
One honest note: the fear of messing up never fully goes away. I still feel it. The goal was never to stop being nervous. The goal is to know that if it goes sideways, you'll be fine because you decided in advance that a stumble isn't the end of the world.
Your Homework
Before your next video or meeting that matters, do two things. One: pick your three points and know them well enough that you could deliver them if the slides vanished into thin air. Two: decide your recovery line now; one calm, slightly playful sentence you'll reach for if something glitches. Write it on a sticky note. You'll almost never need it. But knowing it's there is what lets you relax enough to actually be good.
Nobody's chasing perfect. We're chasing "I handled it." That's the whole game.
Put yourself out there this week. And if you flub? Do a Kristen Bell.