What I’ve learned about getting ready — from the stage, the set, and the space
between.
Ask most people how they prepare for something important and they’ll tell you about what
they do in the hours before it happens.
They’ll talk about reviewing their notes. Practising their lines. Running through the plan
one more time.
And all of that has its place. I’m not dismissing it.
But here’s what I’ve noticed after years of performing, speaking, and showing up for
high-stakes moments:
Preparation rarely begins when the event begins.
It starts much earlier than that
It Starts the Night Before
The night before matters. More than most people give it credit for.
The quality of your sleep. The conversations you have. The questions you let yourself sit
with before you close your eyes.
These aren’t incidental. They’re part of the preparation.
When I was doing stunt work, I learned quickly that the condition you arrive in is already
half the performance. You can’t show up depleted, distracted, or mentally somewhere
else and expect the work to carry itself. The physical and mental state you walk in with
sets the ceiling for what’s possible.
The same applies to anything high-stakes. A presentation. A difficult conversation. A
performance. A pitch.
The event doesn’t start when you walk in the room. It starts with how you treated yourself
the night before.
So the first question worth asking isn’t about your material. It’s about your condition.
Are you arriving as the best version of yourself — or the most exhausted one?
The Question That Changes Everything
Before every keynote, I like to ask a simple question.
Not to the audience. Not even out loud necessarily. But as a genuine check-in with myself
before I step into the work:
What would make this an absolute slam dunk for you?
It sounds simple. Almost too simple.
But the answer to that question becomes my anchor. Everything else gets built around it.
Because here’s the thing — without an anchor, preparation can become noise. You can
fill your head with more information, more talking points, more contingencies, and arrive
on stage more cluttered than when you started.
An anchor doesn’t add more. It cuts through to what actually matters.
What’s the one outcome that, if it happened, would make this whole thing worth it?
Start there. Let the rest of your preparation serve that.
Stop Memorising. Start Noticing.
Here’s something that took me a while to learn.
As the moment gets closer — as the countdown begins — the instinct is to cram. To
review one more time. To rehearse that transition again. To lock in the information so
tightly that nothing can go wrong.
But I’ve found that that instinct, while understandable, is often working against you.
There comes a point in preparation where more information stops helping and starts
interfering.
What I try to do instead — especially in the final stretch — is shift from memorising to
noticing.
I ask myself things like:
- Does this story still feel relevant?
- Does this message actually serve the audience in front of me today?
- Is there something I’m holding onto out of habit that doesn’t belong here anymore?
Maybe I’ll look at the company’s website one more time — not to learn more, but to get a
feel for how they speak and what they care about. Maybe I’ll arrive early and chat with
people before walking on stage.
Not to gather data. Just to listen.
I’m trying to read the room before I get in the room.
And that requires a different kind of attention than cramming. It requires you to be present
enough to pick up on what’s actually in front of you — not just what you expected to find.
Preparation Is About Presence, Not Just Material
I think we’ve been taught a slightly incomplete idea of what preparation means.
We treat it like a packing exercise. Gather enough material, rehearse enough times,
cover enough bases — and you’ll be ready.
And the material matters. I’m not suggesting you walk in unprepared. The research, the
practice, the rehearsal — it all has value.
But the material only takes you so far.
What actually bridges the gap between a prepared person and a truly effective one is
presence. The ability to be fully in the moment and responsive to what the moment
actually needs — not just what you anticipated it would need.
In stunts, we prepared obsessively. But we also trained ourselves to stay adaptive.
Because the set changes. The conditions shift. Something unexpected happens. And
when it does, the person who performs best isn’t the one who memorised the most. It’s
the one who can read what’s in front of them and respond.
True preparation isn’t just about having the right material. It’s about becoming
present enough to know what the moment needs.
Those are two different things. And both of them require work.
So What Does This Look Like In Practice?
If you have something important coming up — a presentation, a meeting, a conversation,
a performance — here are a few questions worth sitting with beforehand:
- What condition am I arriving in? Sleep, energy, mental state. These are part of
your preparation whether you treat them that way or not. - What’s my anchor? What’s the one outcome that, if it happened, would make this
whole thing a success? Build everything around that. - Am I memorising or noticing? At some point, more cramming stops helping. Shift
your attention outward. Read the room before you’re in it. - Am I present enough to be adaptive? Can I hold my preparation loosely enough
to respond to what actually happens — not just what I planned for?
You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be present.
And that starts the night before, not the moment you walk in the door.
What’s one thing you do to prepare that most people overlook? Drop it in the
comments — I’d genuinely love to know.
And if you’re navigating a big moment right now and want a thinking partner to help you
get clear on your approach, let’s connect — that’s exactly what coaching is for.
~ Brett Solomano
Be curious. Learn often. Live deliberately
Nice writeup