The best “snatching victory from the jaws of defeat” moment I’ve ever witnessed

Three years ago, I spoke at a conference for entrepreneurs in Washington, D.C. I barely remember what I talked about that day. I can’t remember any of the other speakers, except for one.

That speaker was Lee Satterfield from the U.S. State Department. She’s a high-ranking diplomat who controls where the State Department deploys its multimillion dollar programming budget. So it’s her job to have her act together. But I was still caught off guard by what I saw that day.

As Satterfield approached the stage to give her keynote, her shoe got caught in the gap between the stairs and the platform. She tried to get her foot unstuck. No luck. The audience held its collective breath, wondering how she would recover from this awkward start. With 250 attendees watching, a conference staff member had to walk on stage and wrench her shoe out of the gap.

Instead of getting flustered, Satterfield put her shoe back on, leaned into the microphone, and said “Well, at least I didn’t fall on my face.”

And that was it. That was the moment the room became hers.

Her self-deprecating humor, delivered with impeccable timing and a confident smile, showed she was unfazed. This immediately put the audience at ease, transforming a cringe moment into a shared, lighthearted experience.

I don’t remember much else of what she said. But her reaction to the gaffe seared itself into my brain. Staying composed revealed more about her character than any rehearsed speech could. It was a display of genuine grace under pressure—a quality of a great operator that’s impossible to fake.

Takeaway: In times of stress or unexpected challenges, one’s reaction reveals more about a person than that the words they say.

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