When I teach presentation skills to my coaching and training clients, I always tell them to prepare to the point that they know their material inside out.  Because, as jazz musician, Bradford Marsalis has pointed out, “If you’re not prepared, it’s too late.”  Of course, this applies to anything you’re trying to accomplish in life, not just public speaking.But then there comes a point where you need to stop preparing and just DO it.  This requires a necessary leap of faith that is terrifying to many people. And so, they keep preparing, and stay stuck.Several years ago, while living in southern California, I participated in a weekend retreat designed to challenge fears and perceptions.  One entire day was devoted to tackling the elements of a rope-challenge course.  For those of you unfamiliar with rope challenge courses, suffice it to say that participants are safely led through exercises that involve the use of ropes in ways that make you come face-to-face with your fears, particularly the fear of heights. Participants work in teams, pairs or alone, building teamwork, trust and self-confidence, doing such hair-raising things as leaping off the top of a tall tree towards a swinging trapeze or walking across a tightrope. It is not for the faint of heart.

Let me say right off the bat, that I have a colossal fear of heights.  So the ropes challenge course both terrified and (strangely) attracted me.

The first ropes challenge I faced was, so I was told, a simple one, in that it did not involve climbing up a rope or a ladder:  “All” we had to do was take turns leaning off the side of a cliff, tethered to two ropes commandeered by the ropes course instructors.  To prepare for the experience, we were carefully instructed in the correct way to strap on the harness we would be wearing while dangling into the abyss, and shown how the belay ropes attached to the harness worked to prevent injury.  We were given helmets and shown the proper way to secure them to our heads. We each took turns feeling the tension on the rope attached to an instructor as she dangled off the cliff.  I, of course, asked a lot of questions:  How secure were the belay lines?  What if something went wrong?  Should we look down?  As far as I was concerned, I would have preferred preparing forever, and avoiding altogether the spine-chilling moment of hoisting myself off the side of a cliff with a wing and a prayer.

I managed to put myself as far back in the line as possible, watching with amazement and horror as person after person strapped themselves into the harness, walked to the edge of a cliff, yelled “ready,” and then slowly leaned out over a 300 foot drop.  The line moved much, much too fast, until, finally, it was my turn to buckle on the harness.  I truly didn’t want to go.  Wasn’t there more to do, more to prepare, so that I would be completely safe?  Was my helmet on right?  Was the rope secure?  The rope course instructor watched me with a knowing smile.  “You’re ready,” he said “just do it.”

And so, I did.  Somehow, I managed to make my feet move toward the cliff’s rocky edge.  “Now let go and lean forward” the instructor ordered.  And I did that too, my heart pounding like a bad headache, leaning slowing out into the cool fall air. “SNAP!” the ropes attached to my harness locked into place.  And there I hung, at a 45 degree angle, the scruffy gray-green of the southern California hills spread out beneath me.  I had done it! And, oh, it was a beautiful thing.

Afterwards, once my pulse had slowed and my legs had stopped trembling, I wondered:  Why had I let myself be so scared?  Because the fact of the matter was this: Actually DOING it wasn’t nearly as hard or scary as PREPARING to do it. 

There comes a time when preparation must end and you must just do it, whatever “it” is.

When you must simply pick up the phone and make that call, send that letter, have that conversation, take that action, step onto that stage.  So stop letting preparation stop you from doing what you know you need to do. And just do it.

Every night this week, I’ve screamed like a kid watching the American Olympic Team swim, dive, leap, run, and spike balls across nets.  I’ve loved watching Team U.S.A. win, especially Ann Arbor’s own Michael Phelps, who, as of this writing, did the impossible and won a record-breaking goal of 8 gold medals for his swimming prowess. But I’ve loved watching our team members lose, because it’s been there that I’ve seen the greatest courage saw the greatest courage and the hardest lessons learned.

Take the case of the American women’s gymnastics team, and most particularly Alicia Sacramone.  I’d already taken an interest in her simply because she attends Brown University, my old alma mater, and had been splashed across the front cover page of my latest Brown Alumni Monthly magazine.  So I got all excited when her name was announced last night and it was her turn to leap onto the balance beam and do her thing.  “You GO girl,” I yelled, as she strode up to the apparatus, a piece of wood four inches across and four and a half feet off the ground. “Show em how it’s done.”  And she did, alright. She showed the entire viewing audience how to leap onto a small strip of hard wood, land like a shaky stork on, off balance leg, and fall unceremoniously back to the floor.  The crowd gasped.  I gasped. Her forehead knotted.  But here’s where it got good: Darned if Alicia didn’t just pick herself up, set her jaw, leap back onto that beam and keep going all the way through the rest of her set. She didn’t kick and swear at the beam.  She didn’t run off the floor, crying.  She simply took a breath and got back on beam.

Wow.

That move cost her team a whopping eight tenths of point.  Alicia must’ve known that as she was tumbling to the ground.  But she still got back on that beam and kept on going.

Here’s my point—and it applies to facing obstacles in life as well as facing obstacles and fear as a public speaker:  When you fall, get back on the beam. Really, it’s that simple, (and, yes, that difficult).  When you fall, get back on the beam. Even with those nasty little voices in your head cutting your ego into ribbons. Even with your fear and your embarrassment taunting you like schoolyard bullies, so that all you want to do is run, run, run sobbing to the shelter of the nearest bathroom stall, swearing never again to make another cold call, fall in love or give another presentation.  When you fall, get back on the beam.  Because when you do, you lean three things: 

1. You cannot be stopped unless you choose to be stopped.

2. It’s better to dust yourself off and try again than wish you had.

3. You are more resilient, determined and able than you can even imagine. Even in public, with all eyes on you.

So, Alicia Sacramone, thanks for falling, and getting back up again.  You’re a champion in my eyes.

As soon as she gave her hand to him in marriage, the giving began in earnest:

When he balked at spending time with her beloved extended family, she gave in.

When he refused to let her relatives call her by her childhood nickname, she gave over.

When he belittled her dream to act in community theatre productions, she gave it up.

Bit by bit, she gave in, gave over and gave up precious pieces of her very essence, until, under her husband’s stern, unyielding and belittling ministry, she shriveled to the merest wisp of her former self– her passions, her dreams, her sense of worth dried up, blown and scattered like dirt in the wind. “I gave away such essential parts of myself,” she remembers, “that my mother considered me dead.”

And yet… and yet…even as she willingly gave away pieces of her soul, what remained of it rallied forth with panache and brilliance: She birthed and adored several beautiful children. Needing additional household income, she forged a successful career as a sales executive. At work, she felt brave, capable and appreciated.  At home, she felt shut down, shut off and utterly unseen by a husband whose needs came unequivocally first.

So, when the little voice inside her whispered “Could be more!” it was not only a wonder she acted on it, but a wonder she even heard it in the first place.  “Could be more…  More of you… More of what you love… More of what you need…” it hissed in the deepest recesses of her being.  And slowly, step by determined step, she began to heed it, paving the way for her departure.

By the time she filed for divorce, she had managed to firmly instill in her befuddled– and ultimately stunned– husband the tools and the skills to manage the house and she children she had been caring for almost single-handedly.  “I wanted him to be able to take care of himself, and I wanted to know he could take care of the children when they visited him,” she explained.

Pleasantly, but firmly, she helped her husband through and out the front door of the house in which she’d lived with him since she left her parent’s home, and into an apartment of his own.  In the process, she took him to Macy’s to help him feather his new nest, a last vestige of her habit of clucking over his needs.

In the houseware section, a porcelain platter stopped her short.  Large, white and gleaming, it was covered with the flaming orange-red of blooming poppies.  Her hands reached for it almost automatically, greedily.  “I want this,” she thought, surprised. It was nothing like the dishes she had owned since she had given her hand in marriage.  The poppies burst off the plate, wild, passionate, messy.  She stood, transfixed, her oblivious husband a few feet ahead of her. “This could be for my new home,” she thought.  “My new life.”

At that moment, her husband turned around and noticed her tight hold on the platter of poppies.  “That,” he said, “is one of the ugliest things I have ever seen. You’re not actually thinking of buying it, are you?”  For a moment, she hesitated; old habits tempted her to put the platter down and dismiss it with a shrug.  Instead, she took a deep breath,  squared her shoulders and looked her soon-to-be ex-husband in the eye:  “You bet I am,” she said. “And I’m going to get the matching dinner set as well!”

And though her husband rolled his eyes, she never even noticed.

A Platter of Poppies.  A declaration of courage.  A reclamation of self. 

It’s happened to all of us:  Just when we think things are going swell, something or somebody comes along and knocks the stuffing right out of us. Demoralized, mis-understood, mis-treated and miserable, we pack our bags and move to Bittertown, where we threaten to remain for good… or at least until we get our come-uppance…someday… somehow.  Some of us never make it out of Bittertown.

Bittertown:  Where, to quote my own song lyrics (BITTERTOWN, © 2007 E.Kelakos) “the coffee’s always black and it burns you going down”… Bittertown, where the café’s are filled with has-beens and never-weres… where you share and celebrate your wounds, point a wagging finger at  “them…the ones that did this,” mutter yourself into a dark and fruitless corner… Bittertown… where all roads lead in, and none lead out.
Bittertown is a darkly comforting place.  You’ve been there.  And so have I.  Just visited it this morning, in fact, after I was stood up by a new client who was supposed to begin two days of intense coaching on his keynote presentation. Yep, flat-out stood up. Despite a signed contractual agreement, this person left me swinging in the breeze… No phone call.  No e-mail.  No explanation.  No apology. No nothing.  To make matters worse, when I tried to phone this so-called client, at a number where I’d easily reached him before, the number was no longer accepting messages.

So, how did I feel?  Lousy, with a big L.  It wasn’t just the money that I had expected in return for my services.  It wasn’t just the fact that I’d painstakingly rearranged my schedule (and the schedule of some existing clients) to accommodate this no-show. It wasn’t the four phone calls, the fax and the many emails I’d taken the time to write and send to this person.  It was the fact that, in the end, he failed to treat me with the consideration due another human being.  And that’s when the road to Bittertown beckoned.

I thought about it:  Wouldn’t it feel good to roll around the rutted streets of Bittertown, let myself gnash and wail and fling my fist at the heavens?  “How could this happen to me?” I could cry?  I could check into the grimy Bittertown hotel, draw the dingy blinds, drop into a creaky bed, pull the linens over my head and stew in my self-righteous anger.  Aaah! The sweetness of Blame!  The oblivion of Avoidance!

I stood there for a moment, tasting the tempting, acrid smell of Bittertown, feeling the familiar  just-punched ache in my gut, the helpless hopelessness— All too familiar sensations to any one of us who has come face-to face with something promised and not given.  Something expected and not delivered.  When the job falls through.  When The relationship fails. When the promotion is given to someone else. When the red skis don’t appear under the Christmas tree (OK, so Santa didn’t come through when I was seven…).  We all know—and sometimes love—the sights, smells and sensations of Bittertown.

I remember my first few trips to Bittertown, back when  I was a young actress just starting out in NYC.  Every time I didn’t get the role I had auditioned for (which was often), I ranted and wailed and trundled stoop-shouldered into Bittertown.  “What was WRONG with those people?” I wailed to the equally distraught and disgruntled denizens of Bittertown.  “How could they not cast me? Don’t they realize what it took to go in for not one but three callbacks?  They made me improvise with the other actors, they had me learn bizarre interpretive dances, they insisted I learn and sing three new songs… but they DIDN”T GIVE ME THE PART!!!!  It’s just not FAIR!.”  And my fellow wretches in Bittertown would nod in grim understanding, sucking down their black coffee, sugar a mere memory.

For those first few years in New York, I stayed for long stretches of time in Bittertown, a regular in the decrepit hotel, feeling good and sorry for myself. After a while, yanked by a twinge of hope, I’d take a few disgruntled steps out of town, and back into the land of the living.  And I’d audition again.  And more likely than not, wind right back up in Bittertown. Stuck as a duck in muck.

Then, one day, something shifted:  I got a part.  A good one.  A role in an HBO movie, the part of French Diplomat’s wife… the director liked me so much that he promised to make the part even larger.  I had gone to three auditions to nail this part, beating out other, older, established actresses who actually WERE French.  The movie shot in Israel, somewhere I’d lived for seven years and had been longing to visit again.  I was ecstatic. This was a dream come true. How wonderful was this?  

At my agent’s urging, I got my passport updated and waited for the travel arrangements to be made.  I also called everybody I knew and shared the good news.  Bittertown seemed like a distant memory.

And then the phone rang, not more than one week later.  It was my agent, with the news that the “suits” at HBO (who had never met me, nor seen my audition), had decided that they could save money by hiring an Israeli women to play my part.  The role that had been bestowed onto me, that had held such promise, had been unceremoniously whisked away.

And oh, how my heart was broken.  Oh, how I wanted to point my sorry little self towards the familiar haunt of Bittertown and never leave. 

But here’s the thing:  I didn’t go. Sure I moaned and groaned and shed a few tears for an hour or so.  But then I got up and made a couple of new cushions for my living room chairs.  Nice ones, at that.  And after the cushions were done, I went to the gym and worked out, hard. And when I was done with that,  I went back home, sat down messy and sweaty at my desk and addressed a few promotional postcards.  And despite how lousy I felt, I also felt pretty good.

So this morning, when I realized my would-be client was just not going to darken my door, I let my eyes drift towards the murky shadows of Bittertown.   I took one step onto Bittertown’s dusty Main Street. And stopped in my tracks. “Naaaaaaaaaaaah.”  I thought.  “Don’t need to go there.”   Then I sat down at my computer and  wrote a scathing email to the so-called client who had stiffed me;   I followed up some leads I’d made at a recent conference; I assembled –and then drove to the post office to mail– a promotional package to a  speaking client;  And I wrote this Blog.

Because here’s the thing: If I’d chosen to hang my head in Bittertown, I would have given my heart, my soul, my purpose and my potential to an errant client who, for whatever reason—and unlike me– didn’t have the courage to show up.  And one little step away from Bittertown is one BIG step towards a life that is utterly and richly my own.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, it is all we can to do put one foot ahead the other and take a faltering step forward.  And yet, one foot, one step after the other, is all is takes to get us where we need to go—even when the icy winds of our fears conspire to blow us back. I recently facilitated a retreat called “What’s Next?” with my friend and colleague, Chris Wucherer.  We were gratified that thirteen wonderful women signed up with the intention of tapping into their deepest wisdom, revitalizing their precious dreams and mapping out specific action steps towards a vision of their desired lives.