A ‘Permission Slip’ to Dare Greatly

Setting the stage… literally.

In my senior year of high-school I participated in a school wide speech contest My topic of choice: leadership through universal equality, non-discrimination, and unconditional love. I was speaking from the core of what I believed as a human being. Despite being a very controversial topic for my environment (conservative christian school), I won the whole contest, presenting my message in front of the whole school and community.

Through this experience I realized I have a deep passion to open my heart and share my unique voice in a way that others can relate to. Ever since that high school speech I have been throwing myself in front of crowds of all shapes and sizes.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to continue the pursuit of my public speaking passion – an invitation to Social Media Camp 2013.

I was thrilled and terrified in the same moment. This was big. My mind told me I should run away and my heart told me this is exactly what I was made to do. Before I could let my prefrontal cortex talk me out of it, I honored my lizard brain – accepting the invitation to be a featured speaker on the big stage… Gulp.

I spent 3 months and more than 40 hours preparing. I wanted to facilitate a powerful experience for attendees  – in my surfing language, I wanted to “kill it”. As I boarded the ferry to Victoria, BC I felt confident and prepared to stand in the spotlight the next day.

Little did I know I was on the brink of one of the most intense internal battles of my life…

Arriving in Victoria and joining the first networking event, I began to realize that my idea that “this was big” was a massive understatement.

This was huge. And I was swimming in the deep end.

I started feeling incredibly overwhelmed and next thing I knew my deep seeded gremlins started knocking on the door. Over the course of the night, the knocking turned to banging. By the time I left the event my gremlins of self-doubt and insecurity were running wild.

Silencing the gremlins

I did three things that helped me silence my doubts and shew the gremlins back to where they belonged.

1. Leaning on My Rock: The first thing I did when I got back to my room was call Tash. I told her absolutely everything, how I was feeling, that I didn’t think I could do it, that I wasn’t good enough for the stage. She listened, and then softly encouraged me, reminding me that all the heavy lifting is done and this is the fun part that I have earned.

2. Getting back into my body: After talking to Tash I had a decision – practice my speech again, or go for a run. Thankfully I chose the latter. Getting out in the fresh air on the beautiful seawall allowed me to regain perspective. I felt confident and calm in my body, I realized that regardless of what happens I wasn’t going to die, life wouldn’t end, and that I was going to be okay.

3. Owning the space: Upon walking into the 700 person auditorium the next morning, I made a straight line for the podium. I stood up on the stage and looked out to the hundreds of attendees that were starting to file in (getting some confused looks in return). I visualized what it would feel like to be presenting, how good it would feel to deliver my key stories, to feel the engagement of the crowd, to know I was “killing it”. I visualized myself owning the space.

By the afternoon I was feeling calm, confident, and ready to go. Don’t get me wrong, I was still nervous, anxious, and excited, but it was coming from a place of passion versus a place of fear.

The moment of truth

Finally, my time had come. I walked up to the stage as the room continued to fill to overcapacity. In my mind I recalled the feeling of “owning the space”. As the spotlight went on I realized that the gremlins were nowhere to be found, I had won the battle. I took the stage and the crowd quieted, the last thing I remember is effortlessly slippin “into the Flow” that I had been visualizing for the past 6 months.

An hour later, I knew I killed it.

The audience feedback was overwhelming and reaffirmed that my heart was right, I was made for this.

So, why am I sharing this with you?

This story is my permission slip to you.

It’s okay to jump into the deep end when you’re following your passions and aligned with your core values. It’s okay to feel completely overwhelmed, to feel afraid, to feel like you can’t do it… This is one of the most exciting places you can be – it is where magic happens. It means you are doing something profoundly important, and potentially life changing for others.

What I learned.

Listen to your lizard brain. Embrace the nerves, excitement, and fear. Acknowledge the gremlins (we all have them) and create a strategy to shew them back to where they belong. This is the equation for doing work that matters. I strive to apply this to all parts of my life, from my athletic pursuits, to the big hairy audacious goals I partner with clients to help them achieve.

In my very humble opinion, this is an equation worth living for.