5 Powerful Thoughts
so you're READY for blank stares, tough rooms, tech drama, and the whole-ass revolution in your mind
Some rooms are definitely easier than others but here’s the truth:
Showing up is won or lost in the tiny chamber of our own mind.
How we talk to ourself in there matters.
Prep prep prep for that big speech! people say. Of course—look—I’m all for knowing your material and thinking through what your big goal is in the days or weeks leading up to a pitch or presentation or pod interview. In fact, I’ll be talking about part of that in our next workshop on storytelling (April 12! Details below!).
But literally none of it works without a few kind thoughts just before you step out.
I was traveling all around the east coast the last two weeks and spoke to a ballroomful of therapists and a virtual room full of hundreds of college students and continuing ed professionals who I COULD NOT SEE BECAUSE TECH… so I have thoughts.
Specifically: thoughts to fill your chamber with love instead of fear AKA the worst-case-scenario-izing our oh-so-human brains are wired to fall for if we’re not ready with a handy intervention.
So this week’s love note to you is a few of my faves👇🏼
5 ON-PURPOSE THOUGHTS BEFORE YOUR NEXT THING
The trick is to practice these in advance (write them down or whisper them aloud to yourself throughout the day when no one is watching—FOR REAL) so the initial body discomfort that might come up has a chance to wear off. A regulated body can safely use its cortex’s wisdom; a dysregulated one cannot. (This is me restraining myself from getting into the science but I will nerd out in a future post!!)
The other trick is to do it with—yup—a twinkle of mischief. ALWAYS. As you practice these thoughts, and/or collect your own juicy ones that work for you and your brain, remind yourself: I’m up to something.
“Marines love me.” My friend Malika Amandi says this to herself before going in to high-pressure trainings she runs for the military. It makes her chuckle to herself because it’s so delightfully arbitrary: in fact, she said it to herself before the first time she ever worked with marines, before she had any proof. The point is the delusion. The point is to think with gusto, well why the f not? Come up with something equally silly/perfect for yourself if you’re speaking to a group of folks you don’t know. It’s a muscle to flex. The well why the f not? muscle.
There’s a famous study from the late 1970’s called the Still-Face Experiment. It’s painful but useful as hell: basically moms brought their infants into the lab and lovingly interacted with them until a specific moment when they were told to look away and then look back with zero expression. A video captures the babies’ responses over the next few minutes and it’s predictably excruciating. From Psychology Today the moment is described like this:
The baby goes into overdrive to reengage her or his mother—doing all the things that previously have garnered attention—but no go; the mother’s face remains still. What you see on the video is heartbreaking: When the infant realizes that while Mommy is there, she is also somehow gone, the baby begins to melt down. She looks away, she waves her arms in protest, slumps in the seat, and then begins to wail.
Oof. Talk about showing up without showing up.
But also, this is huge: if you’ve ever spoken on a Zoom where everyone’s cameras are off, or if you’ve ever been in a REAL LIFE ROOM where your audience’s faces are giving away nothing, you know what those babies felt. Predictably, any of us might start pushing (look at me! React to me! What if I wave my arms bigger??) and then we might start second guessing all our material and abandoning all our hopes and dreams (why am I doing this? Who let me do this? Who do I even think I am?? What am I even talking about?). Blank audience faces are a slippery slope to existential despair. So a) YAY GOOD TO KNOW IT’S NOT JUST YOU and b) fortunately—fortunately!—our brains are more developed than infants’. We can anticipate this and do something about it. My favorite thing to do is 👇🏼
Use your imagination to assume that your audience is choking and you know CPR. It’s just a metaphor—please don’t actually imagine an EMT scenario with sirens wailing. We’re not going for panic here but rather its opposite: armed as you are with the knowledge that blank faces can make ANY of us go haywire if we’re not prepared with a wise response, look out at blank faces you come across while speaking, breathe, and think your on-purpose thought, “they’re choking, they just don’t look like it. Thank God I know CPR. Thank God I’m here.”
The most powerful thought any of us can have in front of a crowd is thank God I’m here. It’s self-love and mischief and trusting your content all at once. It’s deciding that in lieu of knowing everything about your audience already, you know enough to know they need you.
I do this ALL THE TIME. If you’ve ever attended anything I’ve ever run—a workshop or keynote or small-group discussion—I can pretty much guarantee at some point during our time together I heard my brain start with the ol’ “oh God I can’t read them, do they not need this, am I way off base, what am I even doing here?” because brains are gonna brain. And I responded to myself, with an up-to-something gleam and well-worn practice, “they’re choking, they just don’t look like it. Thank God I’m here.”
It’s permission work of the highest degree. Try it and see.
In advance of your moment-before, collect a few juicy memories of times you felt really seen. Maybe someone you admire admired you back. Maybe you said something and the person listening said “wow, I needed that.” Maybe it was a hug or a DM or a voicemail or just something you heard through the grapevine, that your work mattered or that your presence helped. I think about an incredible woman who told me after my very first in-person speaking gig coming out of the pandemic, “the whole time you held my heart in your hands.” I mean—!! I I bring that memory to mind before I speak, and breathe in the memory with my whole body. I let it move me and call me to greatness. Psychologists call this “priming for power.”
I like the reminder that it’s up to us whether we call to mind thoughts that make us feel small or thoughts that make us feel big. The first is easier—‘cuz brains and evolution. But the second is justice and legacy work and a whole-ass revolution inside your own mind.
Collecting kind memories and then recalling them on purpose is the sort of tiny radical act that can change a life. Likely, many.
Say yes to your leadership-with-a-lowercase-L. Even if you’re about to walk into a room to pitch an idea and every single other person there has more money and power than you, you’re the leader when you have the floor. What kind of leadership do you wish there was more of in the world? Maybe you want to see more leaders who take care of those around them—who make sure folks feel welcome and loved and free to be themselves and honor their own intuition and offer their diverse ideas. Maybe you want to see more leaders who are funny or playful or who share the floor or talk feelings or make space to breathe up top and connect to their humanity. I don’t know but I do know this: you can literally be that leader in the room not by saying out loud “hi, I’m in charge now” but by doing things your type of leader would do. Leadership isn’t a title; it’s a collection of actions. Tiny choices in tiny moments that add up. For me it also helps to connect to: who am I do this brave leading thing for? My kid. My friends and clients who need to see more folks showing up when they show up. My community that will benefit from me getting more yeses and making more money (OMG I have dreams of being an angel investor, but for now I’ll be a small-time investor—who am I seeing next week at
’s event in LA??).Walk into that room with all those folks’ hands on your back and lead your way.
AND please don’t forget the body part: warm up to show up. Every single thought above is easier if you’re breathing into a body that’s been loved on.
A few spine twists. Rib stretches. Downward dog or jumping jacks. Lip and tongue movements. Wiggle it out. Get into your hips. Dance to your favorite Cowboy Carter track and know you’re a queen.
Warming up is about creating the space for possibility.
When we’re stiff and tight, we think we can control everything.
When we’re loose we remember that’s not how the best things happen EVER.
Soweeeee. But I’m here to call you to your greatness, too. And greatness is sometimes/mostly at odds with comfort-zoneness.
👉🏼 REMINDER: join me April 12th for our next Zoom date. 9a PT/noon ET/5p GT.
Half hour on my secrets to storytelling, half hour live coaching YOU. Listen: your comfort and confidence in telling stories, and especially telling YOUR OWN STORY, determines your impact, and we need you making all the impact—not worrying about if your story is good enough, relevant enough, what part matters, how to tell it, hiding and hoping no one asks.
EVERYONE has these questions. This is where you work them out.
Upgrade to join and you’ll see the Zoom link below.
👉🏼 AND I’m being experimenty and including a juicy prompt below for all-access members! Check it out and join the chat 💥
Love,
Samara the Good Witch
PS. If you want help prepping your next big thing, you can work with me privately. I’ve opened a few one-on-one spots in April and I’m here to make sure you show up in all your glory. If you’re needing support, GET IT.
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