Failing privately.
On the way to becoming good.
Fail privately to succeed publicly.
Years ago, I was invited to speak on a panel.
‘Yes’, I thought. ‘This is what I want more of’.
So, I got to work preparing.
The week of the event, I mapped out ideas in a notepad. I mumbled them to myself as I went about my errands. I mentally recited them throughout the week, right up until the evening of the panel.
At the panel, I was asked to succinctly introduce myself.
I’m not sure who took the mic that evening,because it sure wasn’t the Rachel you know.
Key messages? Poof! Evaporated into thin air.
Funny one liners? Bleugh. More like mumbly word salad.
Sounding professional? Oof. I was swearing like a pirate.
While I was technically present, it was like someone else had taken over my body.
In the excitement of the opportunity, my adrenaline had taken over.
Because I hadn’t technically practised saying any of these lines out loud in front of anyone other than myself, my brain freaked out.
What happened?
I’d prepared, or so I had thought. I’d muttered them under my breath all week.
But what I had overlooked is what presenting would be like when something was really at stake for me.
I hadn’t prepared like it meant something.
I was just hoping I’d wing it. I’d done the least, expecting the biggest return.
I’d felt uncomfortable publicly, because I was embarrassed to be uncomfortable privately.
I had expected to go from an audience of one (me), to an audience of 200 with comfort.
The reason I was having an out of body experience was because I hadn’t said my key points in front of anyone else other than me before. I’d waited until ‘show day’.
As a result, sitting in front of 200 people became a sensory overload.
Plan to fail privately.
We don’t take action because we fear we will fail.
Instead, by planning to fail, in a safe space, where we can get useful feedback and tell our brains that we can do it, before going ‘live’, we can start to build our evidence bank of examples of us succeeding in these scenarios before we hit the stage.
It’s about thinking differently about failure.
If we can create our own version of success, we can also create our own definition of failure.
If we expect not to be brilliant at something the first time we do it, we can get on with practising before the event, instead of magically hoping we’ll be a rockstar on the day without any evidence to support our hopes.
At Happiness Concierge, we call this failing privately to succeed publicly. It’s the idea that anything that can be rehearsed, will be, so we’re never offering something to a client, or a special customer, without having done the groundwork to make sure it’s really good.
What we’re doing here is telling our brains we can be successful in a scenario that looks, sounds and feels like the one we’ll be going into in the future. We don’t sit around and ‘hope’. We practise, and get it not quite right, until we get it right.
By doing so, we’re also taking control of our experience.
And this is available to you, too.
Re-creating live.
Before a presentation at Happiness Concierge, we re-create what the live experience will be.
For example:
Instead of hoping new content will land, we ask family and friends to attend a short talk to get feedback on what landed for them. The feedback tells us what resonates.
If it’s feasible, we get access to the venue early and do a dress rehearsal. This tells our brains what the venue looks like, feels like, where the microphone goes, how to stand, what lighting will be in our face. We’re reducing the sensory shock on the day.
If it’s content we’re still finding our feet in, we record our talks and send them to a colleague to get feedback.
This way, we’re not waiting for ‘show day’ to do our best work when we know we’ll be compromised by adrenaline. Instead, we’re creating an environment where we can try it on, see how it goes, be okay with it being a bit messy and get feedback so we can improve.
Recreating live at work.
Recreating live is the idea of creating as many catch-alls as we can before we release something out to the world. It’s the idea that you can start to cultivate your own ‘stage’ before ‘show day’, so you’re never having say, a client, or your boss, to see your first attempt.
In previous newsletters I’ve written about preparing to feel confident. Failing privately is one of these practical ways you can embrace it in your work.
And it can be applied to work through a lens of creating your own quality control for anything you or your team produces.
For example:
Your work is sense checked by someone who isn’t you before it goes to the boss.
You rehearse a constructive conversation with a coach before delivering feedback.
You pitch your board update to a colleague a week before the big meeting.
Your excel formulas are double checked by a colleague to ensure they’re correct.
You’re simply bringing the standard of excellence closer, before you release it to the world. Instead of waiting for a client, or a boss to define what your output looks like, you’re setting the standard.
By doing so you’re cultivating ownership over your execution, you’re getting better and you’re lowering the risk.
Creating the conditions for it to be easy.
Basketball Hall of Famer Reggie Miller is often asked how he and his colleagues can remain so calm in front of huge crowds.
He says the reason it comes easy is because he’s re-created live, in the gym, countless times over. By the time the actual game day comes, two hours on the court is nothing in comparison to 4 hours a day spent in the gym pushing his limits.
And I like to think about that, when I’m alone, in my office, recording a new video.
Will I wait for a live audience to test something? Or will I create the conditions to figure out how to get better behind the scenes, regardless of who’s watching?
People say success is when opportunity meets preparation. When you decide you want to be great, it’s about preparing for the opportunity, so when it arrives: you’re ready.
I recreated live recently with Emma from The Broke Generation.
Emma had a talk coming up and she wanted to nail it. She, like me, had a story to tell about speaking on a panel. And she wanted a different outcome for herself.
We had so much fun working together, that, in her latest podcast episode, she generously shares her personal experience.
It’s a long chat, but a goodie. I hope you enjoy.
We run workshops to help teams create the conditions they need to present with confidence.
Before we do, we meet with you privately, to talk about what sort of culture you want to reverse engineer.
This gives us a clear scope to help the team focus on the right things in the workshop.