amado diaz

“So, I have a question: where are you in the development of the new sales platform—things like the pricing model, sales targets, and commission rules?”

The client paused.

“We haven’t even started that conversation yet.”

Without thinking, and under the false comfort of “mute,” I muttered,

“Well, this project isn’t going anywhere…”

My mic wasn’t muted.

Everyone heard it.

Within seconds, my teammates were frantically messaging me:

“You’re not on mute.”

“Yikes.”

I didn’t see any of it until after the meeting, when a colleague called and said, “They all heard you.” The classic hot-mic moment.

At first it was just raw embarrassment. But the real fear and uncertainty didn’t hit until the next morning, when texts from senior leaders appeared on my phone: “Call me.”

That’s when the “What if…?” spiral began: What if the client demands I be removed from the project? What if my own leadership loses trust in me? What if this one comment becomes the story about my professionalism?

Those questions weren’t about a single careless sentence anymore; they were about identity—my reputation, my value, my future. That’s where fear does its real work.

Phase 1: Frustration → Sarcasm

The hot-mic moment didn’t come out of nowhere.

Our company had been hired to implement a new sales platform: dashboards, reporting, and workflow tools meant to help the client’s sales team work smarter. The problem was, they hadn’t defined basic parameters—no clear revenue targets, no commission rules, no alignment on what “success” even meant.

Every meeting, we seemed to loop back to square one. Requirements shifted. Priorities were fuzzy. Timelines moved, but nothing really advanced. The project felt directionless, and in the back of my mind was a steady worry: At some point, someone is going to look for someone to blame.

Instead of naming that concern in a clear and constructive way, I let it leak out as a cynical aside: “This project isn’t going anywhere.”

The uncertainty was real. My delivery was the least helpful version of the truth.

Phase 2: Fear → Avoidance

Once the reality of what happened sunk in—after that “They all heard you” phone call—my first instinct was pure self-protection: Maybe they didn’t really catch it. Maybe the audio glitched. Maybe if I stay quiet, it’ll blow over.

In other words: avoidance.

My chest tightened, my thoughts started racing, and I caught myself mentally drafting a defensive story before anyone had even asked what happened. It’s a predictable pattern: when we feel exposed or threatened, we default to fight, flight, or freeze. Avoidance feels safest in the moment because it promises we won’t “make it worse.”

The catch is that avoidance almost guarantees the situation will stay worse. The client is still wondering what you meant. Your team is still uneasy. Your leaders are still filling the silence with their own assumptions.

Phase 3: Rumination → Repair

After the meeting, I replayed that moment over and over. Every time, the imagined outcome got a little more catastrophic. In my head, I went from “awkward moment” to “career-ending disaster” in about five mental reruns.

That rumination is another form of avoidance. It looks like you’re “processing,” but really you’re just spinning in shame instead of moving toward repair.

At some point, I realized something simple and uncomfortable: the only way to reduce the uncertainty was to walk straight into it. No more “What if…?” scenarios. Just actual conversations.

So I did three things.

1. Call the person who took the hit First, I called the client stakeholder who had been speaking when I made the comment. I didn’t lead with excuses or “what I really meant.” I led with this:

“I’m calling because I made an unprofessional comment in yesterday’s meeting, and I understand you heard it. I’m sorry.”

They did hear it. They also laughed and admitted they’d had their own hot-mic moments. But they appreciated that I brought it up directly instead of pretending it never happened. It didn’t erase the impact, but it turned a lurking tension into an honest interaction.

2. Own it with the internal team Next, I met with my internal team. I owned the statement and acknowledged that it was out of line. No “I was just frustrated” or “I didn’t mean it like that.” Just: that was unprofessional and not how I want to show up in front of a client.

Then I shifted to the real issue underneath the snark: my concern about launching a major sales platform without clear definitions of success, pricing, and compensation. With the air cleared, the focus shifted. We weren’t gossiping about a hot-mic screwup; we were talking about strategic risk.

The same frustration that had come out as a cynical jab became fuel for a more honest, useful discussion.

3. Reframe the lesson Finally, I reframed the whole thing for myself. The lesson wasn’t, “Never make another mistake.” That’s not realistic. The lesson was: when you do screw up, don’t let fear and ego dictate the rest of the story.

That means: No hiding behind silence. No defensive rewriting of what everyone clearly heard. No using “stress” as a hall pass.

It means moving from self-preservation and back to intent: What does the client, my team need now? Who am I choosing to show up as right now?

What this taught me about leadership

That hot-mic moment remains a humbling memory. But I’m oddly grateful for it, because it surfaced some uncomfortable truths about leadership, fear, and conflict.

1. Fear and uncertainty don’t disappear; they either drive you or inform you. You don’t get to choose whether you feel fear in conflict. You do get to choose whether it quietly drives avoidance and defensiveness, or whether you acknowledge it and let it steer you toward honest conversations.

2. Your worst moment isn’t the measure—your repair is. Leaders are going to have bad days, careless comments, and unflattering recordings. What people remember over time is: Did you own it? Did you fix the relationship? Did you learn anything?

3. Sarcasm is usually a lazy shortcut around a real concern. Most sharp, cutting remarks have something legitimate behind them: frustration about clarity, risk, workload, or respect. The work of leadership is to bring the real concern into the room without the cheap shot.

4. Courage is often quiet and awkward. Genuine courage is mostly quiet and frequently awkward. It is almost never a movie-script speech. Sometimes it’s a shaky phone call that starts with, “I’m sorry,” or a meeting where you say, “Here’s what’s really going on for me.”

That hot-mic moment could have stayed a private shame reel that I carried around for years. Instead, it became very expensive—but very valuable—tuition in the practice of leadership.

Fear and uncertainty didn’t vanish. They were there the whole time. The difference was whether I let them shove me into avoidance, or treat them as a signal: This matters. It’s time to step up, own the impact, and lead.