We all have a few unique skills that don’t show up on a resume but are nonetheless vital to everyday success on a personal and professional level.

Perhaps you know someone who can whip up a gourmet 5-course meal from a package of Ramen noodles, leftover chicken pot pie, and a limp celery stick.

Perhaps you have the ability to drive with your knees going 85 mph on the highway while texting your co-worker about a vital project (I won’t tell the cops).

Derek can whistle “Jimmy Crack Corn” in the key of F minor like a pro. Next time you see him, ask for a rendition.

Me? I’m an excellent liar.

While that may be hardly something you’d think someone would be proud of, I am. It’s not a skill that I necessarily tried to develop, but rather something that evolved over time. There are some secrets to being a skilled liar that I’ll reveal in a moment, though it’s important to recognize that I use my powers only for good (don’t worry, I won’t try to swindle your elderly parents out of their retirement savings). I’m kind of like a superhero that way — a really, really lame superhero.

So why am I telling you this?

Every year, we receive emails from a few people that go something like this:

“I’m so sad that I can’t watch the live CMEpalooza broadcasts this year, but my boss just put an all-day staff training on the calendar that day. I’ll try to catch the archives for sure.”

Or this:

“Can you believe that our hospital won’t give us time for professional development the whole month of October? Hopefully when November rolls around, I’ll be able to check out the archives.”

Now look, we appreciate everyone who checks into our archives, especially after Derek recently spent hours and hours (so he claimed) sprucing them up to make them more convenient for our audience. Our rigorous team of data analytic interns tell us each year that we get approximately the same number of people watching an archived session as the live version.

But in truth, we all know how the world goes. Life gets busy, priorities move up the list, and you simply forget about that important thing you wanted to do (ie, watch our archived sessions). Plus, you can’t ask questions in real-life on the archives like you can with our live broadcasts. And really, don’t you want a day to vegetate on the couch taking in a full-day of top-notch education without a care in the world? Maybe you have one of those fancy doo-hickeys that lets you project a YouTube feed (which is essentially what our broadcasts are) onto your 65-inch wall mounted TV – if you haven’t seen Derek in HD recently, you are really missing out.

So as a public service, I’ll let you in on some of basics of being a skilled liar that will get you out of that pesky staff training on Wednesday, Oct. 18:

1. Include just enough specifics to make the lie believable — This is really the key to a good lie. Let’s say someone asks me this morning, “What are the odds that the Philadelphia 76ers win the NBA championship this year?” If I say, “Probably around 100-1” that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. But if I say, “82-1,” that is much more believable both because it is specific and it is not a round number (ie, one that ends with a zero). It doesn’t matter if that is actually true or not, because at the end of the day, who really cares? That is what makes it an effective, superhero lie that hurts no one.On the flip side, don’t say, “At Circus Circus in Las Vegas, they are listed at 90-1, while at Westgate Jamaica, they are listed at 125-1.” That’s just weird and brands you as some sort of savant no one will want to sit next to at lunch.

Examples of how to use this to craft your CMEpalooza excuse

• “My son came down with a 102.3 degree fever last night and I need to stay home with him today. I’ll check email though.”
• “We finally saved enough money to buy a new king-sized bed and the delivery is coming between 9-3. They told me if I’m not here for the delivery, I’ll have to wait another month. I’ll check email though.
• “It’s my 12-year wedding anniversary and my wife said she planned something special for the morning. She’d be really mad if I had to work that day. I’ll check email as much as I can.”

2. Don’t create a lie with long-standing repercussions — For instance, you don’t want to claim that you just received a call from your Hollywood-bound stylist that he just got a cancellation for a 10:20 a.m. appointment and you’ve been waiting for months to get that “new look” all the stars are sporting. That’s kinda going to easily fall apart the next day.

3. Don’t feel guilty — Remember, you are lying for a very, very good cause. Lies should be saved for these kinds of important things. To this day, my wife still thinks I bailed on my son’s super-duper cute preschool concert/screamfest because I was invited to speak at a “professional event.” I’ve seen the video – I missed nothing.

There are some other subtle nuances I could add in here, but this is just a starter course. Being a lying superhero takes practice and persistence, just like the development of any other important skill. Starting your training with CMEpalooza Fall is the perfect time. And that’s the truth.

You may have noticed (or not, in which case you should look now) that the CMEpalooza Sponsor page is pretty packed these days. For the first time in the history of CMEpalooza, we’re officially sold out of both our Gold and Silver level sponsorships for CMEpalooza Fall, and we’re still more than 2 months from our live broadcast date.

Before I continue along to some of the new stuff, I wanted to recognize all of those wise organizations who have currently chosen to align themselves with our event as Official CMEpalooza Sponsors:

• Gold Sponsors — Genentech and Prova Education
• Silver Sponsors — ASiM, Forefront Collaborative, Global Academy for Medical Education, Integrity CE, Practicing Clinicians Exchange
• Bronze Sponsors — Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning, Clinical Care Options, CMEology, HighMarksCE, Impact Education, Kynectiv, Primary Care Network, PVI, RMEI, Thistle Editorial

In his usual meandering post that took 1,000 words to get to the point (Hey, I was on vacation. I had time. -DW), Derek wrote about the challenges of constantly needing to be creative to come up with new ideas for our Spring and Fall broadcasts. It’s the same story with our sponsorship opportunities – it’s easy to just trot out the same things every year, but we try to come up with some new ideas when and where we can.

In that vein, today we are trotting out two new sponsorship opportunities for CMEpalooza Fall, both of which are included within our updated Sponsorship Prospectus:

• #CMEpalooza Mega-Blog — On 1 specific date prior to CMEpalooza Fall, we’ll open up our blog to members of the CME community, who will all be asked to write a short (250-300 words) essay on a specific topic related to CME. Maybe it’s “The Day I Learned That CME Makes a Difference” or “Why We Love Our CME Community” – we’re not sure and we can work with you on an interested sponsor.
• #CMEpalooza Chat — A few years back, there used to be a periodic moderated CME chat on Twitter that was pretty popular and was a good way to get people talking about important issues in our industry. This would be a Sponsored reincarnation of that chat, where Derek and I (and/or another invited moderator) would coordinate a Twitter discussion on specific topics during 4, 30-minute blocks on a specific date prior to CMEpalooza Fall. Again, we could work with the sponsor on the specific topics for each discussion block.

There are other opportunities that remain available as well — we take an unlimited number of Bronze sponsors, for instance. The CMEpalooza Q&A Line is still available for the Fall as well. I’m not even going to mention poor CMEpalooza Spotlight anymore.

So take a look and let us know if you are interested. Things are moving fast these days so probably best not to wait too long.

On a totally unrelated note, a quick personal plug: I know how much our audience likes FREE things, so if you are at all interested in history (especially Philadelphia history), you can follow along with me as I give a FREE Twilight Tour of Independence National Historic Park this Friday (that’s Aug. 18) from 6-7 p.m. on Facebook Live. Just go to this link – the promo photo is terrible, but that’s out of my hands: www.facebook.com/FINHP. You can ask questions and everything, right along with the tourists on the actual walking tour itself.

There is a reason you don’t hear much from Derek and I in the immediate months after each of our CMEpalooza broadcasts.

We’re mentally exhausted.

Let’s face it, there is only so much patience you have for your little annoying brother who keeps pestering you every day for weeks and weeks about some excruciating minutiae (and yes, in this parable, Derek is the annoying little brother, even though he is older than me). We both just need a break from each other, from the blog, and from thinking about CMEpalooza.

So we take our requisite tropical island vacations (wait, New Jersey’s Long Beach Island isn’t tropical?) to recharge our batteries and let the ideas start to simmer for the next event.

And boy did they bubble over this time.

Today, we proudly present the agenda for CMEpalooza Fall, packed chock full of 7 hours of interesting and unique sessions sure to pique your interest.

We’re got Graham McMahon from the ACCME joining us for the first time. We’ve got advice columnists, breakers of myths, a 3-act performance. We’ve even got a session about Donald Trump (yikes).

It’s seriously a lot of really interesting stuff, and I’m not just saying that because Derek and I have spent the last month lining up faculty and solidifying the session schedule. We’re going to be asking our devoted fans (that’s you) for some help, and soon, in providing material for us to maximize the impact of some of these sessions, but for now, feel free to admire the educational bounty that will be provided for you on Wednesday, October 18. And mark your calendars, if you haven’t already.

Click here to view the CMEpalooza Fall agenda