A woman I used to know, Cynthia, was in the business of helping celebrities prepare to be on camera. They were accustomed to performing in front of thousands of people, they had reached excellence in their craft, but unscripted appearances and interviews on talk shows were really hard for some of them. My friend would meet with them, set up a mock camera, they’d sit down facing each other and she would ask probing questions about their careers and their private lives so they could learn to manage conversations that made them uncomfortable. She advised them how to dress, how
to sit, and how to appear relaxed when they were stressed out. How to smile when they were afraid. She showed them what to do with their hands, what to do with their legs and how to laugh at themselves.
Cynthia was in London in the early summer of 1997, when she got a call from Princess Diana’s assistant. He told her that the
princess wanted some help with her public appearances and he wondered if Cynthia could meet with her that afternoon. She came highly recommended. Cynthia was breathless, it was an extraordinary opportunity, but she was also intimidated. What would she say to her? What if she did a bad job and Diana was disappointed? She decided she wasn’t up to the task. Not yet anyway.
“I can’t do it today,” she said, “I’m flying home to Los Angeles. But I’ll be back in London next month and we can setsomething up.”
A week later, Diana was killed in a tragic car crash and Cynthia regrets her decision. The irony was that she was being
challenged by the very things she was teaching her clients how to handle and she couldn’t rise to the occasion. She had let her fear take over.
I faced the same kind of fear when I was hired to write a memoir for rock and roller Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane fame. She was more than a celebrity. She was an icon. I swallowed my fear and I got ready to go. But when two large Fed Ex boxes arrived at my house the next morning filled with write-ups, articles and reviews that I had to put in some kind of order, I made my way downstairs, went into my bedroom and climbed into bed. “Wow! I get to write a book for Grace Slick” quickly became, “Oh no. I have to write
a book for Grace Slick.” The celebration was over. My ecstasy had morphed into hardcore reality And yet, I never considered not doing it. After an hour or so of wallowing and winging and feeling sorry for myself, I went back upstairs to my office, opened the boxes, took out all the materials, spread them out on the floor and began to create my own filing system, organizing the singer’s life into highlights and relationships.
The first time I visited Grace’s house, she told me, “I don’t remember what went on in my life. I was drunk for most of it.” If she had said that to intimidate me, it worked. But I carried on. I visited her once a week to interview her. Obstacles came and got me at every turn. She fired and rehired me for no apparent reason. She went on an alcohol fueled bender and we missed a week of work. But little by little, her memory was sparked and she told me some of the most amazing stories I’d ever heard.
I really got to know her. How she spoke and how she looked at the world. The book made the bestseller list right away and I was
proud of it. If I had quit anywhere along the line, the experiences I had and the things I learned would have been non-existent. Publishers began to call and hire me for other books and after having worked with the rock and roll diva, I felt like I could write for anyone. Olympic athletes, news anchors, award winning composers and movie stars.
Showing up despite your insecurities or your fear of mediocrity takes a lot of courage and requires realistic expectations. You have no idea what will happen. I’ve learned important lessons along the way from each and every person for whom I wrote a memoir. How to be unapologetically myself. How to listen well. How to evaluate someone, not by the rumor mill but rather from my direct experience. How to read body language and how to hand in there when the going went rough. And it always did.
Wherever your creativity leads you, remember to show up and be
patient with yourself. You’re not going to pick up a guitar for the first time and play like Eric Clapton. You’re not going to your first ballet class and perform a pirouette like Misty Copeland. You’re not going to sing like Barbra Streisand or act like Meryl Streep. The ladder to excellence is tall, you have to climb up rung by rung, and whether or not you make it to the top, the reward is putting your fears in the background and enjoying the ride.
I’ve learned most of my life lessons, not by professional training but by showing up and doing what was in front of me, no matter how I felt about it. I was inspired by painter, Georgia O’ Keefe, who said, “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never
let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.”
That resonated with me and gave me courage at the beginning of each project when I felt frightened and overwhelmed. Fear was a constant visitor and I made a lot of mistakes but with every job, I kept feeling better and better and eventually, I learned to trust myself and know that nothing would stop me. That if I showed up, I could do what I needed to do.
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
– – – Nelson Mandela
Recent Comments