How To Practice For Real

You and I both can vividly recall walking away from one of thoseconversations. The kind of conversation where we had high hopes and the topic mattered. We wanted to make a strong impression and convey an important idea.

And then, the exchange devolves in a direction different from the course we had expected.

Our well thought out message or idea, gone awry, is met with resistance and perhaps a hostility that we didn’t quite expect.

How did you react? Me? I froze. Sure, I tried to play it cool, but the unraveling had begun. It didn’t end well.

Later, I deconstructed the entire exchange sentence by sentence.

If I had said this…

If I had done that… 

If I could do it all over, I would…

To practice a plan of action after the fact (and before the next encounter) is a typical follow-up. It has the benefit of time and context, not to mention the benefit of in-depth analysis. We can search for the correct words, a better tone and inflection, as well as missed strategies.

All of which would be fine if the next critical exchange is a conversation with yourself.

So what do you do?

How DO you get better at raising the quality of your actions and more importantly… your responses? How does one make the jump from “think on your feet” to “act on your feet.”

There is a skill to acting on your feet. It takes practice.

Practice Reveals

It’s one thing to say you must make a plan and rehearse it.

The answer lies within our practice. To rewrite how our situations play out in real time isn’t a matter of better controlling the situation. It’s a matter of treating real time as the deliberate, yet uncertain, practice that is. If ever there is a better definition of “being in the moment”… this is it.

I get better when I intentionally practice during interactions with others, and not when I’m pacing a hallway holding the “if I only had said” solo conversation.

Practice in real time with others is the place where our actions and responses are not only subjected to, but invite, confrontation and criticism and other view points.

There is a set of tools you need to redirect a conversation back on track and with thoughtful dialogue. The use of these tools, should be effortless. Before any important discussion, have these tools ready to be employed:

1. Expect confrontation and do not fear it. It means that the person with whom you interact respects your intelligence level enough to engage in a counter-point discussion. Activate Expectation.

2. If you feel your temperature rise, your voice soon will animate and your body language will change. Breathing is a tool. When vision narrows and your body tenses up, slow down your breathing. Activate Calmness.

3. Learn to pause and really listen instead of thinking about what you want to say next. Pause is a tool. Your best tool. Allow them to do the talking for a stretch. Sometimes it’s what is needed for the other person to loop around on their own idea and realize you might have a point. Activate Pause.

My Own Challenge

Whether a stage presentation or with a pen, I improve the clarity and delivery of my ideas when my practice becomes:

• Conversations with others who challenge my viewpoints
• Podcasts interviews in which I have to answer an unexpected question
• Understanding that another person’s contradictory ideas have value
• Self-accountability every time I press the “Publish” button on a post

When I activate Expectation, Calmness, & Pause in the scenarios above, my message is delivered with more clarity and carries more resonance.

Expectation, Calmness, Pause: Practice isn’t preparation for real-time. Real-time is the practice.

With gratitude,

Joe

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Hi, I’m Joe, the owner of 5 With Joe Performance Coaching. My clients are leaders, organizations, and teams who utilize my Olympic Gold Medal performance strategies and 40 years of navigating whitewater river rapids to streamline decision making and actions when engaged in complicated river currents of business and life.

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