The Conscious and Unconscious Ways of Being Ready for Our Opportunities

I am of the belief that you must be ready for any and all opportunities that may cross your path. You may be familiar with the maxim that says something along the lines of "Dress for success" as a way of conveying that we must arrive in appearance for the opportunities we seek. While I was taught to live this ideal, I discovered that it was a minuscule data point within the whole universe of the concept of human preparedness for life. What I have learned throughout time is that our conscious involvement in our readiness for our lives is only a slice of the equation.

Growing up in Hartford, CT, being ready meant a lot of things that extended beyond any professional setting. Being ready could mean anything from: "I may need to be ready to 'take-the-earrings-off-and-throw-down'; Be ready by knowing where a quick exit is; Be ready to capture the attention of the cute popular boy to holla at you; and/or Be ready for the job you will be offered.

Though my examples offer quite a range, it speaks to the way that readiness also journeys into other territories that aren't just about physical presentation. Within these and many other examples I could offer, being prepared includes a certain kind of spirit and mindset that then creates space for whatever may come. This has often been true in my experiences that ranged from encountering a stranger who had a message to impart or bumping into something I never expected in a way that took me down a new path. On some level, I was ready within myself because there seemed to be a spaciousness to fully engage with whatever was unzipping.

For me, these incidents always illustrated that regardless of the many ways we equip ourselves in life, there is an unconscious element alongside a few other unseen ingredients. About a month ago, I received an invitation to participate in the TEDxHartlandHill as a speaker. I was so shocked that I kept re-reading the email and my response to it to ensure that I did not imagine it.

Within this instance that I am sharing, my preparation was directly connected to arriving to a meeting with my genuine curiosity and full honesty about my super limited knowledge. This meeting in particular was not directly related to my art or anything else I created. As I shared briefly some time ago, I have been fortunate to be connected to a project that involves adding audio to identified sites along the Vermont African American Heritage Trail. One of these visits included a trip to Woodstock, VT in order to gain a better understanding of the stories of the 8 African American Veterans within the River Street Cemetery who were a part of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. As you might recall, the 1989 movie Glory was based on this military regiment. My clarity and the details about the lives of these soldiers were not complete without my talk with the Woodstock History Center.

This visit was just as insightful as all of my other site visits this summer. It has been clear that each individual across all of the sites that I have conversed with weren't just stewards of the history, they also have a dedicated passion. When I initially embarked upon this project, it never occured to me how much it would shed light on the ways that each of us really are each other's butterfly effect.

Across 6+ hours of recorded conversations (maybe more), the miles of travel and the hours of exploration, most of these individuals may not be aware of how each site visit added more nourishment to so many things within my creative garden (and of course I will have to make sure to do my part to share this fact as I re-share with them working drafts of the audio templates I have created).

Within my travels and exploration of these sites in ways that have also deepened my inquiries about early history within America, I was unconscious of the ways that this too was planting seeds. It was a kind of unconscious preparation just based on how I entered each room while conducting these interviews. While my meeting with the Woodstock History Center was not a chance meeting - it was a very scheduled one - that interaction led to a casual conversation which unzipped into this moment where I am in the thick of preparing my TEDx talk for this September.

Before this point, I didn't pursue doing a TED talk or TEDx though I wanted to do one for years. Each time I saw an ad for workshops that claimed to bring people closer to this goal, I always kept telling myself, "No, it isn't the right time" in between wrestling with my doubts and a main question:

What story was I going to tell on that stage? What was going to be my potent message?

In reverse engineering the invitation to do a TEDx talk, I think about the ways we all walk between seen and unseen readiness the moments that arrive in our lives. My reflection has also illuminated another truth about preparedness that links back to something I was taught growing up.

On most days before leaving the house for elementary school, I was always told (and this is a paraphrase): Behave because you never know who is watching. Due to being a lifelong imp, the part about behaving was always questionable, but I kept thinking about the piece connected to "...you never know who is watching." With time, I transformed this from being paranoid that someone would run back and tell my parents I was misbehaving to you never know who might be seeking you out to give you a message or open a door into an opportunity.

This moment is also another reminder of the ways that being ready for anything in life walks between the conscious and unconscious, seen and unseen.

While we may be aware of the ingredients we use to prepare for the people, places and things we may encounter, there are many times that we are participating in a dress rehearsal without realizing it. Thus, knowing this, let's make sure we bring an undeniable stage presence.