A couple of years ago, I coached a fellow with the Cleveland Browns on his speaking skills. I was surprised when he suggested that we have a session on the day his team played the New York Jets. You may picture the team and coaches rushing around, stressed right up to game time.
It is the opposite.
“Game day is chill,” he said. “Everything is done, and anything not done is too late to worry about.” We had our coaching session, he drove to the stadium, and the Browns beat the Jets 37-20.
I have observed that the best speakers, performers, and broadcasters are like that. It is good to be a little bored before you go on. Being more-than-ready in the moments before a show leads to calm, confidence, and a better delivery.
I met the singer Sade, and we had a lovely pre-show conversation backstage ten feet away from 22,000 waiting fans. I asked, “You are about to go on stage. How on earth do you spend this time making small talk with people like me?” Sade laughed, “I do it for me. Otherwise, I get nervous.” She shook my hand, stepped through the curtain, and had the audience dancing for the next two hours.
The time before the show is as important as the show itself. In my first broadcasting job, general manager Norm Wiseman told me, “You are either early or late. You are never on time.”
That couldn’t have been truer than the time when Randy Lane and I spoke at a convention in Hollywood. At 6:30 that morning, I brought the A/V guys some Starbucks and asked them to please test the video clips in our slides. Our session got great reviews. Another team took the stage right after our talk and had a Chornobyl-level tech meltdown. Maybe they slept in that day.
Crucial talks require extra calm and preparation. Part of my work is coaching other coaches, managers, and leaders on having difficult conversations. Preparing and structuring what to say keeps leaders calm, keeps the message clear, and lowers the temperature of the talk.
Important things are not done at the last-minute. Unless the presenter is Robin Williams or the cast of Who’s Line Is It Anyway, “I’ll wing it” is another way of saying, “I’m choosing to bomb.”
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld was on the Dax Shepard podcast talking about the legend Richard Pryor, who seemed to improvise on stage. Seinfeld said, “There was a tremendous amount of work done under the surface to make it appear that way. I watched him put these things together in the ‘70s. Every line, every beat, every move, the physical part, the facial part, the vocal part, he assembled it meticulously.”
Like master chefs with ingredients chopped and ready to cook long before diners arrive. Like touring musicians traveling all night after a show to be in place for their next show. Like airline pilots arriving at the airport way before you do for a flight. If you are ready, relaxed, and have spare time before you begin, you are probably good at what you do.
