TL;DR: You get up, and it turns out to be the best thing that could have happened. On August 3, 2024, in Aurora, Colorado, I walked on stage to receive my CSP in front of 2,000 speakers. I cleared the three stairs I’d been dreading. Then I took one step forward and tripped anyway.
On August 3, 2024, in Aurora, Colorado, I received my Certified Speaking Professional designation. It is the highest one you can earn, and I was thirty-four, one of the youngest to get it. The ballroom was packed with two thousand professional speakers, bright lights, cheers every thirty seconds as each name was called.
There were three steps up to that stage. As I waited in line I kept repeating it to myself, over and over: don’t trip on the stairs, pick your foot up, don’t trip on the stairs.
Then it was my turn. I walked up all three steps and I did not trip. I was in the clear. And then I took one step forward, on flat ground, and went down. Of course I did.
Here is the thing about falling in front of two thousand people. The fear had been about the stairs. The fall came on the flat part, the easy part, the part I wasn’t guarding — and I got up, and I finished my walk to the front of the stage, and I waved.
If you spend enough years walking onto stages, eventually you’re going to trip. Mine just happened to be on the biggest stage of my career, in front of my entire profession. Please welcome Kelsey Tainsh, who just ate it on live risers. And I was fine.
Maybe He let me trip so that the person in the audience who thought they’d never make it now knows they can too.
— I’m Not Limping. That’s Swagger!, Chapter 6
My first thought, getting up? At least my foot didn’t come out of my shoe.
When the thing you dread finally happens on stage
• Name your fear, then walk toward it anyway.
• Expect the fall on the easy part you stopped guarding.
• Get up fast and finish the walk. People remember that.
That fall is one of my favorite stories to tell as a corporate keynote speaker, because everyone in the room has one. If your team is white-knuckling something they’re afraid to get wrong in public, I’d love to talk about it on your stage. And there’s a whole book of these if you’d like to read them.
Recent Comments