I don’t know how athletes do it, stay up all day, keep their focus, and then perform under bright lights at night. Somehow the Falcons managed to do that last night. I’m typically a morning person, I do my best work in my office in the morning with the sunrise. By the evening, I’m ready for to curl up with some tea and a good book.

But tonight, there’s no escaping it. It’s pitch night, the big LIFT Incubator showcase. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks, ever since I made the final cut. My pitch has gone through so many rounds of edits it’s almost unrecognizable from the version I started with. So now here we are: game day.

Last night though did me no favors. I called myself going to be early at 10pm, but what I ended up doing was tossing and turning for over 4 hours. When I looked at the clock at 2pm, I was still very much wide awake. That’s not gonna work, I thought, while mentally replaying which Parks and Rec episode had the catchphrase “Treat Yo’ Self” in it. (There are several, by the way. My overactive brain confirmed each one). When I finally drifted off, I woke up feeling… not terrible, but not “game day ready” either. I had to ask myself: how exactly was I going to make it through this day?

Managing my energy sometimes feels like a full time job, especially when I’m under pressure to do a lot. That’s when I force myself to go into energy conservation mode. Other times, it feels like I’m just moving with reckless abandon when I’m pursuing a goal. I don’t notice it until it’s far to late and by then, I’m running on fumes. That was me last week where after a week of meetings, pitch practice, and multiple board retreats, it felt like I limped to the finish line.

This week, my body decided to send me some friendly reminders. On Thursday, I actually took a nap. Me—napping! I’ve resisted naps since preschool (where I was also apparently in a hurry). Then on Saturday, after another long retreat, I came home and—get this—chose sleep over football. (That’s how you know I was done). Still, it paid off as I woke up just in time for the Georgia game, refreshed and ready to cheer (and thank goodness because that game went on for way too long…).

Yesterday evening, I decided to do one final round of practice with the girls as my audience. I called it my full dress rehearsal. I put on the theme song that I’ll walk onto the stage, I dressed up in my full suit attire (at least now I know what I’m wearing), and I ran through the pitch three times. The girls provided me lots of feedback (of course they did), ranging from you got this daddy (thank you littles!) to more constructive feedback about my pacing, energy, and word choice from the bigs. It’s times like these that I appreciate even more the self-directed school that they attend where they get lots of practice presenting to peers and adults every 5 weeks through their exhibitions of their work. They’re already better than most adults at public speaking as a result of their practice.

Their most important advice, though? “Get out of your head.”

They said my first run-through was the best because I wasn’t overthinking it. I just did it. By the third one, my energy had dipped because I was trying to be perfect. And that tracks. When I’m busy trying to get everything right, I forget to just be me.

So that’s the plan tonight: be me. Breathe. Trust the work. Because it turns out that being fully ourselves is the most energizing thing we can do.

SDW3