I spent years thinking the magic happened because I was in the room.
The sales call.
The stage.
The meeting.
The podcast.
The dinner.
The conversation after the conversation.
And to be fair, sometimes it did.
But eventually I realized something uncomfortable:
If everything suddenly makes sense once you enter the room, then the signal outside the room is carrying too much weight.
That doesn’t mean your work is weak. It usually means your audience is assembling the wrong picture before you arrive.
A lot of smart people are compensating for bad interpretation with personality, energy, over-delivery, and charisma.
That works… right up until you get tired.
YES! to your work making sense before the live performance begins.