I was seated on the witness stand, feeling surprisingly confident—much more so than any time since the craziness of the custody battle had begun to consume my every waking moment two years prior. 

I kept my posture perfectly straight so that the lines of my red, tailored blazer and skirt would send the intended message:

“Don’t fuck with me.”

The attorney for my fiance’s ex-wife approached me. She took me in with her gaze, trying to size up how much of a threat I actually might be. She began with her questioning.

She discovered immediately how well rehearsed and prepared I was. After all, I had been doing my homework and preparing for this moment for months. She continued to try to find a way through my armor, and I continued to repel her bladed interrogation with fierce resolve. I could see she was backing up … backing away from me. 

I started to smell victory.

I glanced over at the judge and read his body language in an instant. He was bored! I realized that while I was making mincemeat of the attorney’s planned attack, I was losing the judge’s interest. In fact, he appeared to be completely zoned out.

I panicked.

The corners of the courtroom grew dark, as if I were viewing the scene through a periscope. I stared straight ahead and lost the volume of every noise around me. I had withdrawn from the present moment in plain sight.

The attorney had asked me a question, and everyone (including a now-awake judge) was waiting for me to answer. I mentally placed my well-rehearsed plan off to the side. 

I had no idea what she had asked me, but I chose to answer the question I wanted to address. Unscripted. From the heart. I leaned toward the microphone.

I opened my mouth, and I was delighted that not only were the words there, so was my composure and conviction. Two years of coping with my fiance’s ex-wife’s erratic behavior, and fearing for the well being of his children, had become pressurized inside of me and transformed into diamonds of passionate speech.

I brought the damn house down. Most importantly, I had the judge’s full attention and respect.

If I had remained aloof, continuing to speak from my intellect (from a relative zone of safety), things would not have turned out the same. By getting out of the stands and into the arena (out of hiding and into vulnerable engagement), I connected with the most important audience of one I had ever had.

I had to let go of being rehearsed and scripted and be willing to trust myself that the words would come and would connect.

Stephen Colbert, host of the “Late Show,” calls this connection with your audience as having an emotional skeg in the water. He learned on Election Night in 2016 the powerful lesson of improvising and being authentic in the moment. Facing an audience in despair over the election results, Colbert decided to dig deep and go off script as revealed in this excerpt from Variety.com:

‘The last 10 minutes of that election show were honest. They were honest, and that was a turning point for us,’ Colbert told Variety last year. ‘After that, we knew I could never do the show without at least attempting to keep my emotional skegs in the water.’ Each monologue he does now, he said, represents ‘an attempt to be honest with the audience so we can have an intimate relationship.'”

(Source here.)

Everyone (customers, readers, followers, audience members, colleagues, and your children) knows when your oar is resting in your lap—when you are not invested. Not visible. Not vulnerable. When you are playing it safe and sticking to a script, it’s so easy to tune you out.

But when your oar is deep in the emotional current, reverberating with passion from a deeply vulnerable place inside of you, the world will stand still, sit up, and hang on your every word.

Get Naked, Part II

“First of all, one of the powerful dynamics of leadership is being visible. One of the vulnerabilities of being visible is that when you’re visible, you can be seen. And when you can be seen, you can be touched. And when you can be touched, you can be hurt.

So all of us have these elaborate ways of looking as if we’re showing up and not showing up. Except in an organizational setting, it has tremendous consequences on other people’s lives. We’ve all worked in organizations where someone is sitting there at a crossroads or nexus in the organization. They’re there, but they’re not there. And because of that, they’re blocking everything that’s trying to come through their particular portal. So one of the dynamics you have to get over with is this idea that you can occupy a position of responsibility, that you can have a courageous conversation without being vulnerable.”

~ David Whyte (ON BEING podcast)

P.S.  You want to know that your time here mattered. That you made a positive difference. Yet, that restlessness you’re feeling… it’s your intuition telling you what you’ve tried so far won’t get you where you want to be. Let’s set sail together! 

Untold breakthroughs. Intimate community bonds. Unparalleled progress.