The Stage Is an Arena, Too.

When I was five or six years old, I wanted to be an actor.

I loved the idea of being able to escape reality and become somebody else for a moment.

But even at that age, I was already aware of how other people might perceive that dream.

I worried that people might think I was egotistical for wanting to be a “famous actor.”

So I suppressed it.

For a large part of my life, I tried to find ways to become anything but that.

Eventually, I found athletics.

Basketball became a major part of my life, and for a while, that dream of acting seemed like something I had left behind.

Then, toward the end of my junior year of high school, something happened that brought it right back.

My English class was invited to watch our school's performing arts program put on West Side Story.

I didn't even know our school had a performing arts program.

I remember sitting there watching the performance and thinking:

“Why didn't I think to pursue acting sooner?”

Apparently, the acting bug wasn't gone.

It was just waiting.

A Second Chance

By my senior year, I was attending a new school and starting over in a new environment.

When I was given the opportunity to choose my electives, Drama was one of the options.

I didn't hesitate.

That's where I met Mr. Juan Arteaga.

Mr. Arteaga was my Drama teacher, but he became much more than that to me. He believed in me and supported my dream of becoming an actor.

He encouraged me to audition for a play he was directing at the school: Noises Off!

I didn't get the part.

That one hurt.

It was particularly difficult because I had been cut from the basketball team only a few weeks earlier. Two rejections, in a very short period of time, can make you question yourself.

But then something unexpected happened.

The two actors who had originally been cast for the role dropped out.

Suddenly, I was cast.

And there was another catch:

I was now the only performer expected to perform the role every night.

Some of my castmates were worried about me.

I thought that was strange.

I was excited.

I had an opportunity to play pretend and become somebody else every single day.

I couldn't wait.

Preparation Created Freedom

I loved that play so much that I rehearsed at home every night after I finished my homework.

I rehearsed so much that I eventually knew not only my own lines, but the lines of my entire cast.

And something interesting happened because of that preparation.

I found that knowing the entire play made it easier for me to improvise during the actual performance.

If something unexpected happened, I wasn't panicking because I had lost my place.

I understood where the scene was going.

I knew what the other characters were supposed to say.

I knew what came next.

I had prepared so thoroughly that I had room to respond to what was actually happening in front of me.

The show became a huge success.

To this day, it remains one of my favorite experiences of my life.

Unfortunately, footage of the performance disappeared a very long time ago and will probably never resurface.

Which is a shame.

I'd love to watch that kid perform again.

But even without the footage, I still remember what that experience taught me.

Preparation doesn't always make you rigid. Sometimes, preparation gives you the freedom to perform.

The Stage and the Arena

I continued acting after high school. I performed again in community college and took another acting class during my undergraduate studies at UNLV.

At the same time, athletics remained an important part of my life.

And the longer I spent in both environments, the more obvious the parallels became.

Performing under pressure.

Managing anxiety.

Building confidence.

Working as part of a team.

Preparing for moments when other people are watching.

Responding when something doesn't go according to plan.

Staying present.

These aren't exclusively sports skills.

They're performance skills.

An athlete walks onto a court, field, track, or into a cage.

An actor walks onto a stage.

A musician walks onto a platform.

A dancer steps in front of an audience.

Different environments.

Different forms of performance.

But underneath them are many of the same human experiences.

The Audience Only Knows If You Let Them Know

One of the most important lessons Mr. Arteaga taught me about acting was remarkably simple:

“The audience will only know you made a mistake if you let them know you made a mistake.”

Of course, an audience may actually see the mistake.

They may see you miss a line.

They may see you lose your place.

They may see something go wrong.

But what they don't necessarily know is what that mistake means to you.

Sometimes we tell them.

We might say, “Oh man, I messed up.”

But sometimes we communicate it without saying a word.

Our shoulders drop.

We stop making eye contact.

Our expression changes.

We look lost.

We start rushing.

We stumble over our next words.

Our body language tells the story for us.

We've taken one mistake and turned it into a performance.

I learned that lesson on stage, but I've carried it with me into every other performance environment I've experienced.

An athlete misses a shot.

A fighter gets caught by a combination.

A musician misses a note.

An actor forgets a line.

The mistake happened.

Now what?

The goal isn't to pretend it didn't happen.

The goal is to move forward as though the next moment still belongs to you.

Because it does.

The audience doesn't need to know that you're still thinking about the mistake.

Your opponent doesn't need to know that you're rattled.

The crowd doesn't need to know that you're questioning yourself.

And sometimes, the person who most needs to stop being told about the mistake is you.

That doesn't mean ignoring mistakes.

It means understanding that there is a difference between recognizing a mistake and continuing to perform the mistake.

You can acknowledge what happened.

You can learn from it.

You can adjust.

But you still have to perform.

Sometimes the best recovery is to behave as though everything happened by design.

Not because you're pretending to be perfect.

Because you're reminding yourself that the performance isn't over.

Mental Performance Isn't Just for Athletes

My experiences in both athletics and the performing arts have shaped the way I think about mental performance today.

When we hear “mental performance,” sports are often the first thing that come to mind.

But the stage is an arena, too.

The pressure may look different.

The environment may be different.

The consequences may be different.

But the person standing in that moment is still dealing with attention, emotion, uncertainty, confidence, preparation, mistakes, expectations, and the challenge of performing when it matters.

And perhaps that's what makes performance so interesting to me.

We're not simply trying to teach someone how to “perform better.”

We're helping people understand how they respond when performance matters.

What happens when you're nervous?

What happens when you make a mistake?

What happens when you don't feel confident?

What happens when something unexpected happens?

What happens when you realize people are watching?

And perhaps most importantly:

What have you been practicing before you ever step into the arena?

Life Is a Performance

I've carried these lessons with me throughout my journey—from basketball, to acting, to my graduate education, to my work with athletes, and now into mental performance consulting.

I don't mean that life is a performance in the sense that we should constantly pretend to be someone we're not.

Quite the opposite.

I think performance gives us an opportunity to understand ourselves.

The athlete.

The actor.

The musician.

The first responder.

The student.

The parent.

The professional.

All of us find ourselves in moments where something matters and we have to show up.

We prepare.

We experience pressure.

We make mistakes.

We adjust.

We continue.

And we develop through the process.

For me, that's one of the most meaningful connections between performance and human development.

The stage may look different from the arena.

But the person standing in the middle of it is still a person.

And that's why, to me:

The stage is an arena, too.