The Day Slides Betrayed Me

We drove back to the office in silence.

The twelve miles stretched forever. My teammates rode beside me like kettlebells. Stubborn, bruised, heavy. I gripped the steering wheel, trying not to rip it from the column, and counted my breaths to repress what had just happened. My body was buzzing with leftover adrenaline; my brain replayed the disaster on loop.

Thirty minutes earlier, I had experienced one of the most humiliating meetings of my career. And I would carry its lesson with me for decades:

Slides don’t sell ideas. People do.

And if you hand the responsibility of story to a deck, it will fail you. Every time.

The Call to Adventure

At the time, I was 25, newly promoted to Creative Director on the Pizza Hut account. The “upgrade” came when my supervisor was part of a layoff. One day I was pushing pixels; the next I was handed a battlefield promotion and told, “You’re up.”

My first assignment? Fly to Los Angeles for a photoshoot. But the first step was to gain client approval by pitching sketches for a new menu item, the “Stuffed Pizza Sandwich,” to the CMO and senior marketing team.

There was just one pesky problem. I had no idea what I was doing.

I had never led a shoot. Never pitched a concept. Never even met our clients face-to-face. Until then, I had been but a pair of wrists, obediently jiggling a mouse in my cubicle.

So when it came time to present our ideas, I did what so many unprepared leaders do.

I leaned on slides.

The Belly of the Beast

The conference room smelled faintly of coffee and dry-erase marker. My heart hammered in my chest as six clients filed in: CMO, VP, directors, brand managers. Suddenly there was more salary around the table than our agency billed in yearly fees. They laughed loudly, retelling inside jokes from their last meeting. The power imbalance was immediate.

Our account lead nodded at me to start. My body turned to liquid latex. My brain, a solid brick. My mouth motor locked up as adrenaline commandeered the captain’s chair.

“Tom’s going to show you some work,” I managed to squeak.

Tom, the art director, was a magician with a pencil. He had illustrated the sketches and assembled the almighty deck. I had trusted him with preparing the presentation, which he had interpreted as “standing up the slides.”

He plugged in his laptop and started clicking.

Trials and Ordeals

Slide one. Slide two. Slide three.

No context. No story. Just a parade of raw pencil sketches glowing coldly on the screen.

It felt like undressing in front of strangers. The bluish light from the projector reflected in their eyes. Their silence was louder than any heckle.

The CMO finally interrupted, “Wait. What’s our goal here?”

Tom, honest to a fault, replied:

“For you to buy a sketch so we can go shoot it.”

I was an actual popsicle.

The VP leaned back, half-smiling, clearly enjoying the unraveling. “So…which one do you recommend?”

Tom clicked back to option two. “This one.”

“And why should we shoot it that way, Tom?” asked the VP, turning the screws.

“Because I drew it that way.”

And just like that, the Stuffed Pizza Sandwich Presentation collapsed in flames.

The Abyss

The stomach-bats of adrenaline gave way to blood-boiling anger as we drove back to the agency. Silence hung thicker than it had in the room itself.

But by the next morning’s debrief, the terror had made way for embarrassment. And understanding. My anger wasn’t for Tom. It wasn’t for the account director, or for the clients.

I was angry at me.

I had let the slides do the talking. I had convinced myself I was “too busy” to prepare, so I outsourced the story. And the slides—cold, context-free, and utterly incapable of carrying conviction—did what slides always do.

They betrayed me.

Revelation

That humiliation was a turning point. It taught me truths I still teach leaders today:

• Slides aren’t storytellers. They can punctuate. Even illustrate. But they can’t create meaning.

• A click-through is not a presentation. Without story, slides are just wallpaper.

• Leaders can’t outsource story. If you don’t own the narrative, the room will own you.

The Return with Wisdom

Think back to your last presentation. Did you hide behind the deck? Did you hope the slides would “speak for themselves?”

They never do.

Slides are, at best, a supporting actor. Yet leaders often fall victim to activities like polishing transitions and fonts, while spending too little time rehearsing their story. Then they wonder why nothing sticks.

Slides are the enemy when they replace preparation. They are the enemy when they replace presence. And they are the enemy when they replace story.

A Better Way

Here’s how to flip it:

1. Start with story, not slides. Write down the one belief you need your audience to leave with.

2. Say it out loud. If you can’t sell it without a deck, the deck won’t save you.

3. Use slides as support (if at all). The only good slide is one that amplifies you. It will never replace you.

The Long Game

That day at Pizza Hut was humiliating. But also liberating.

I realized the only way to avoid that shame again was to own the story myself. I’ve spent the last two decades teaching The Campfire Method® to help leaders do the same: to turn strategy into story, so their ideas stick, spread, and drive action.

Because if you let slides do the work for you, they will only betray you.

🔥 Hi, I’m Eric, and every week, I share insights, observations and tools so you can ditch decks and light a fire in your high-stakes presentations. If you like what you see here, follow me on LinkedIn.