Should I say woo-hoo, or eeeek?!
Am I ready? Well, no. What am I doing to prepare? Admittedly, I'm a little stressed, because my other business is keeping me quite busy at this moment (despite the poor exchange rate for the dollar to the euro, I've gotten a lot of business for my bicycle tour company just in the last 2 weeks. When it rains it pours. Plus I'm writing a business plan and doing financial projections for expanding that business. Phew)!
After close to a decade of presenting at fitness and Spinning conferences, I can keep most of my pre-conference jitters under control, but honestly the adrenaline helps me to be productive. When I was a college student, and as an entrepreneur, I tend to do a few too many things at the last minute, but I thrive on pressure; I produce when I need to produce. Some may call it procrastination, and to those who must plan waaaaaay in advance (like my husband), it looks like unpreparedness. But there is a method to my madness, and it works for me. Yes, I get stressed; yes, I sometimes wish I didn't work this way; yes, my husband laughs at me and says, "why are you starting now? You've known about this for a year?"
But I actually have been preparing for the past 6 months - it's just not visible to others. I've been reading, visualizing, storing my thoughts, gathering ideas, jotting down a few notes here and there. But it's only this weekend that it will all come together into written form. Everything will be temporarily pushed to the side for the next week, and my life will be enveloped with my 6 WSSC sessions this Memorial holiday weekend. Even when I'm out on a bike ride, I'll be picturing my performance and practicing my words. It will be 5-6 days of non-stop visualizations and affirmations. My goal is to channel that adrenaline into productivity, and not into anxiety. It's amazing when you can do that!
Fortunately, this past year I have been gathering song ideas into a playlist on my iTunes I call "Potential WSSC songs", and this weekend, I'll finalize my playlists. For me, the music is the easy part. Two of my workshops will have almost the same playlists as in the past. Because I've done them for so many years, I've found amazing songs that convey the mood I am trying to evoke, and so far haven't found many to replace them. [Note - many of those songs are in my last few posts on favorite climbing songs. Also, I'll be providing my playlists after the conference on this blog].
I have one new session this year, called The Secret Ride. It will be a compilation of my absorption of a couple dozen or so books, ebooks, interviews, videos and lectures I've read, listened to, watched or attended, on the amazing concepts of The Secret - the reality that you can have, do and be anything you want if you adhere to a few simple Laws of the Universe. We'll apply these concepts as they relate to the fitness and wellness goals of the participants, their roles as instructors and coaches, and to their fitness careers and athletic goals. But these concepts can be applied to every aspect of your life.
This will be my most challenging session and will require the bulk of my preparation over the next week, because there's so much fantastic info to fit into a 40-minute lecture and a 45-minute ride. That ride is one week from tomorrow, and you can be sure, I'll be "practicing" on the plane ride over, while sitting out by the pool, and late into the night on Friday!
All the other sessions I've done before so I feel pretty confident about the presentation. Two were new last year, one is 3 years old, and both Moving Mountains and Alpe d'Huez are in their 4th and 5th years, respectively. Maybe it's time to retire Alpe d'Huez...but it consistently sells out in the largest room at the conference.
In fact, 5 out of 6 of my sessions are completely sold out, and 4 of them are in the Grand Ballroom, the largest room with the most bikes. This makes me insanely happy and proud, because almost nothing I do gives me as much joy as having an impact on my students, and knowing that what I'm providing them will allow them to impact their own students. I thrive, I grow as a person, I almost explode with joy, just taking in the energy that is generated from 133 full bikes and a room lined with spectators. And that energy fuels my presentation. I just need to remember that when I start to get a little nervous!
I leave Miami each year with such a profound feeling of joy and gratitude. I gain such personal satisfaction from helping others become better instructors and more inspired individuals. And it's this knowledge that helps me get through the next week of putting it all together!
If you are going to WSSC, please come up and introduce yourself to me!
No comments:
Post a Comment