Catalyst Was Spicy This Year

Last week, I went with 6 other members of our team to Atlanta for the flat-out best leadership conference in the world, Catalyst. We know that everything rises and falls on leadership and I'm so proud of our team for making leadership growth a priority. We got to hear the greatest leaders in our country talk about powerful principles. It was an amazing time for inspiration and some team bonding.

Now, here's the untold story that I need to tell you. The conference officially started Thursday morning. We got there early for the "white carpet" event, then it was time to check out all the vendor booths. One vendor was an internet distributor of video clip illustrations who were offering a $55 credit for anyone who would eat a whole, raw jalapeno. Zak ran across them and suggested that i "take one for the team" so that we could get the free videos. It sounded like a great idea at the time.

My other choice was to eat a habanero pepper that was much smaller for $75 credit, but after seeing the guy who'd just eaten one, I thought I'd better not, plus I couldn't figure out where I was going to get milk and bananas.

So I grabbed the jalapeno and ate it in 2 bites. It tasted like lettuce, absolutely no heat at all. But I wanted to get the credit and thought it'd be funny to play along and I was kinda acting like it was hot. After we walked off, I didn't even have a drink of water.

The conference started. After about 2 hours, I started feeling a little queasy. That feeling grew until after lunch, I was completely nauseous. I think I'll skip the details about what happened next, but I'll tell you, it wasn't pretty, and I feel sorry for those who were in my path at the time. I ended up missing the last speaker of the day and it got worse through the rest of the night. I was just slightly better off the next day. I ended up missing meals for the rest of the trip, other than something at the airport on the way home.

I have absolutely never been sick like that in my life! The silver lining was that Zak was able to get us an additional $75 credit after he told them about what happened. Oh, and they gave me a t-shirt that I wore for setup on Sunday morning. On the back it said, "I earned this." You know that's right!