A Performer's Confusion

I gave a keynote speech last year at the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Conference, an experience I thoroughly enjoyed. I’m tempted to say “It went well,” which is the common parlance of the performer. That is, the audience seemed very attentive, there was laughter when I made a joke, applause at the end, and people told me how much they had enjoyed it afterward. All of that is nice, of course, but not the best part, which is to say the reason I enjoyed doing it, and will happily do so again.

The best part is harder to describe or even identify. The kind of things I talk about in a keynote speech are also the sorts of things I talk about with my wife and friends, as well as my clients and students. It’s the subject matter of my favorite conversation. I would have a good time pacing around my office talking to myself about this stuff – and I have. But it’s one thing to tell an inspiring story to four or no people, and another thing altogether to tell that same story to 400, which is where a lot of a performer’s confusion begins.

It feels good to be fully present, and it feels even better to be fully present while focused on something you love, and it feels even better still when hundreds of people are also fully present and focusing with you. Not on you, really – though it might seem that way. They’re looking at you, after all, and listening to you, and reacting to you, but what they’re really experiencing is the story, which may have come though you, but has now come to life in them. If it weren’t, if they were all thinking about something else, or looking at something else, then I would have said my talk went very poorly. We would have all been in the same room physically, but 401 different places mentally, and that is not the same thing at all.

You can feel the difference when you’re talking with just one other person and their attention wanders in the middle of a conversation. Something has been reduced by half. When that same something is multiplied several hundredfold, the energy you feel every day within yourself – sometimes clearly, sometimes obscured by fear and anger – grows palpable in the room. That energy is yours and theirs and yours and theirs, and to call it anything else, to try to own it for yourself alone, is to lose the gift the moment has to offer, and find instead, there in the spotlight, the root of all your loneliness.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com