My mother, Theresa, was a force of nature:  Joyous, divinely artistic, unpredictable, enthusiastic and passionately invested in every moment she had the pleasure to inhabit.

One sunny afternoon, when I was ten years old, after we had just finished eating tuna sandwiches at the white Formica table in our kitchen, my mother absentmindedly grabbed a black felt pen and began to draw.  Not on the napkin by her plate, or on a scrap of paper, but on the surface of the table itself.  I was shocked!  Had Ma gone crazy?  This was so against the rules! With a flourish, she pushed away the lunch dishes and sketched the large, fluid outline of what I realized was a cartoon horse.  When she was done, she paused to survey it, then added long, fluttery eyelashes.  “Ok,” she said, handing me the pen,” it’s your turn!” 

Draw?  On the kitchen table?  With a pen?  Really? “Come on,” ma said with a grin, “do it!”. Tentatively, I took the pen, and, after a moment’s trepidation, carefully added a flowered bathing suit top to what was surely a female horse.  Ma crowed with laughter, and added a girdle with garters and fishnets.  I snatched the pen out of her hand and drew big fat kissy lips and a band-aid on the horse’s thigh.  We laughed and drew madly for ten more minutes, trying gleefully to outdo the other.  It was fantastic.

Once we were done, we surveyed our creation with deep satisfaction.  And we kept it there,  on the kitchen table, prancing in all its finery, for the rest of the day, until dinnertime, when ma took a wet paper towel and washed it off.

Rules, rules, rules are everywhere.  Some of them are important, some of them not so much.  Life is, after all, short, and some rules—especially the ones that are self-imposed (“Never literally draw on the kitchen tabletop!”  “Never eat more than one scoop of ice cream!”  “Always give my presentatations the way everyone else in the office does!”) can keep us from having fun, expressing our deepest selves or leaping joyfully into the moment.. Choosing to break a rule every once in a while can be exhilerating and freeing, as my mother so ably taught me.  As she would have said, “Look at Picasso!  HE broke rules and look where it got him!”

Public speaking and presentations, like our lives, often benefit from punting the rules out the window.  Just because Microsoft invented Power Point doesn’t mean you are obligated to use it! What if you used your creative powers to come up with a whole new way – YOUR way– of giving a presentation?  What if your way was infinitely more memorable and impactful than the usual, ho-hum Power Point presentation burdened with gazillion slides and a gazillion-billion bullet points? 

I dare you:  Kick up your heels and break a rule– especially a silly one. Be a little wild, a little wacky.  Stay out late on a work night!  Eat cookies in bed and revel in the crumbs!   Throw the Power Point out the window and create a presentation that reeks of your uniqueness…  props, poems, juggling, whatever floats your boat and makes your point sing! Have a second scoop of ice cream! Remember: You’re in charge,  and the rules you — or others– make are yours to break!

As a performer, the worst directors or coaches I ever had barked out a result and expected me to fulfill it.

“Be more angry,” they’d say.  Or  “I need you to be more vulnerable.”  And I’d scratch my head, wondering, “how the heck do I do that? Give me something to DO?”   Because, as my acting teacher, Michael Howard, used to say, you can’t play a RESULT.  And acting is DOING.  The way to achieve a result—on stage or in life—is to make a choice  and take action– to DO something specific.

As an example, when I work with a presentation skills client to help her bring greater volume to her voice,  I don’t simply ask her to speak louder (a result). I ask her to imagine that I—or the members of her audience—are slightly hard of hearing and to speak accordingly.  Se’ll automatically make adjustments to the way she’s speaking to accommodate the direction, most often resulting in a louder voice.

Great coaches and directors focus on doable actions rather than results.  They also instill a greater sense of clarity and confidence in their clients by reflecting back their strengths.  I was reminded of this during this past season of American Idol –yes, I watch it, and you can stop laughing now– when several  guest mentors /coaches were asked to help the contestants perform more effectively.

The singer and producer, Usher, turned out to be my favorite Idol mentor/coach. As one of my own coaching clients observed,  after watching Usher work with the Idol hopefuls, “He really connected with those contestants. And he gave them specific stuff to DO!”

 Exactly!

“Take those glasses off and really look at me,” Usher said to one contestant, Andrew, wanting to help him dial down his nervousness by getting to him to connecting more deeply –with himself and another person– while singing.  Andrew did, and, as result, he sang with more focus and connection.

With another contestant, a young woman named Katie, Usher suggested she “connect with one person, and tell him your story.”  Again, he gave her something specific to DO, which resulted in the song’s meaning being delivered with more clarity, creating a deeper connection between Katie and the members of her audience.

To Didi, another contestant, whose teary, emotional connection to the song threatened to make it less effective, he said “Wait for the end of the song to show your emotion.”   She did, resulting in a more, more accessible, less emotionally indulgent performance.

Finally, and most impressive of all, Usher spoke from his heart to Lee Dewize, a good singer plagued by self doubt.  “You have an incredible voice.” He said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, especially considering the kind of talent you have. Believe that you belong here. If you don’t believe it, they won’t.”  Those words, which were, coincidentlly,  repeated in a video clip literally before Lee stepped out on stage to sing his number, lifted Lee’s shoulders and brought out a whole new level of confidence.  He sang the heck out of this song, provoking the notoriously negative Idol Judge Simon Cowell to say “this night might have changed your life.”  It did, in fact, pushing Lee ahead to eventually win the title of American Idol– thanks in no small part  to Usher’s kudos and coaching.

Business coach and guru, Alan Weiss, writes “What we need are people who can help us believe in ourselves and jettison the accumulated baggage that impedes our actions.”   The best coaches – like Usher– do just that, by not only helping us to see and embrace our own strengths, but by encouraging us to take specific actions.  And actions—what you choose to DO– create real, and lasting– results!

“First it takes your money.
Then it takes your freedom.
Then it takes your life.”

The words were, raw, bare, and gritty with feeling.  Behind him, pale, still, tattooed, and in a brown wooden casket, lay his son, Andy.  Dead at 24 from a two-year dance with heroin.

The mourners–snuffling, sobbing, shifting– listened, devastated but rapt.   The man’s wife and four daughters huddled an arm’s length away, propping each other up with trembling shoulders.

The father pointed to the young people facing him, his son’s childhood friends, newly-minted adults squirming in unfamiliar suits and ties, sitting puffy-eyed and shock-stunned on hard folding chairs. “I left this casket open so you could see for yourself what drug addiction can do.”

“Don’t let Andy die in vain!” He said. “Don’t let him die in vain! Take a stand in his memory! It’s up to you, it’s up to all of us, every member of this community, to stop the drug dealers from killing our kids.” 

Choking on a sob, he stopped, laid bare in front of us. Then he walked, unsteadily, to the casket, and, for a long, heartbreaking moment, laid a hand on his son’s unlined forehead.

Then, he pivoted and faced us, his eyes fierce:  “Tomorrow morning, the sun will come up again.  And you will be there to see it.”   He was silent for a moment, the unspoken statement filling the room:  “But Andy will not.” 

His voice now rose, took hold, half plea, half command, like a preacher, or a general, calling us to action:  “As you move forward in your lives, let Andy’s death be a signpost, a turning point, a symbol for the moment you decided to take charge of your life and make yourself a better person.” Vulnerable, challenging, impassioned, he was convincing and compelling beyond measure.

Afterwards, bursting through the doors to the funeral home, we blinked in the midday sun and collectively exhaled the weight of our emotions. A perfect spring day materialized around us, in all its bee-buzzing, grassgreen glory. My stepson lit a cigarette with a shaky hand, and unbuttoned the tight collar of his dress shirt.  We stood largely silent: After that eulogy, there really wasn’t much more to say.  But, it seemed, there was certainly a lot left to DO, in Andy’s name.

Because, like the greatest of the world’s preachers, teachers, politicians, public speakers, and commanding officers, Andy’s father had used his spoken words to touch our souls, stirring our deepest feelings and renewing our sense of purpose and commitment to take action.  And he did this by being fully present with us, speaking simple words of truth, from his heart. Nothing is as memorable, powerful or persuasive.

Ferdinand Foch said “The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”  Andy’s father is a soul on fire, a fire sparked by the tragedy of his son’s death. I have no doubt that, from this moment forward, he will give new meaning to his life, and the too-brief life of his only son, by speaking out, passionately and sincerely, against drug use. And, in so doing, he will save others from Andy’s fate. 

I’m grateful to Andy, and to his father, for reminding me that sometimes the greatest tragedies and circumstances can spur us into new action, new directions and a new commitment to changing our lives – and the lives of others–for the better.

As some of you already know, I watch American Idol.  I do this for many reasons, not the least of which is that I get to observe performers come through under pressure, which provides fodder for articles like this. Last week, one of my favorite of this season’s performers, Crystal Bowersox, knocked Kris Kristofferson’s classic song “Me and Bobby McGee” out of the park. As usual, she was relaxed and emotiohnally available, grounded, solid and, seemingly, utterly herself– everything I strive to help my clients achieve when they step onto the speaking platform.

When you step onto the speaking platform, it’s your time in the sun.  So set the stage for your success: Do whatever it takes to stack the deck in your favor.  Do whatever it takes to help yourself feel grounded and human, and well, truly yourself.  Because as Crystal Bowersox demonstrated, sometimes something as simple as a scrap of rug can turn a bare stage into your living room, and your presentation into an intimate, powerful and memorable experience.