When Real Is Enough
Expression without performance and the return to your own voice
Expression is not performance
You have been trained to perform.
To curate your presence.
To filter your truth
To edit yourself in real-time.
This is not weakness.
It is adaptation – learned over years of sensing what is safe,
what is likable, what is rewarded.
But performance disconnects you from presence.
And leadership without presence becomes mimicry,
not embodiment.
When you lead from performance, your energy is split:
Part of you is doing the work,
and part of you is watching to see how it’s received.
That fracture costs you your wholeness.
— Soul of a Leader, p36
Conversation
I have been feeling an increasing frustration with creating videos. I have a long history of sitting in front of a microphone and having a conversation about almost anything with great ease. Yet, when I feel there is a camera in front of me, I respond differently.
I have been working with this for over five years. No matter what I tried, the outcome was the same. Yes, I could get something done, but it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like me.
Yesterday, I was talking to a dear friend, Sarah McCrum, about this. I recently attended an online event for Sarah’s new book. She was so at ease, and the message just flowed from her. I asked her how she did it—how she was able to lead that event and create so many videos each year with such ease.
Sarah said, “I feel the joy of what I’m about to communicate. I feel it within me and let that flow without any need to control it or a concern about how it might look to others.”
This advice extends beyond my current block with making videos.
How often do we fall into a mode of wanting to convince those we are speaking with to adopt our perspective? It often feels like a competition—I win, you lose. That strategy can work, some of the time, but at what cost?
I find I automatically get into the convincing mode because I want something from others. And my “training” tells me this is the way. I’m afraid to try another way—not because I don’t know it’s better—but because it’s unfamiliar.
What if we didn’t have to prove anything?
What if the most trustworthy thing we could offer wasn’t polish, but presence—not “getting it right,” but being real in the moment we’re in?
As Sarah reminded me, when you feel the joy of what you’re about to communicate, you don’t have to control it. You just let it move through. And maybe that’s the very essence of expression: not broadcasting but revealing. Not persuading, but connecting. Not proving, but being.
If you are enjoying this article, consider subscribing:
And still, the pull to perform is strong. It wears the familiar mask of effectiveness. It tells me: say it better, look more polished, make sure it lands. But when I follow that voice, I leave myself behind. I lose the aliveness that only comes from unrehearsed truth.
So here’s what I’m practicing today—not with perfection, but with presence:
To speak only what’s real.
To pause when I feel myself shift into performance.
To return—again and again—to what is true, even if it’s quiet, even if it’s unfinished, even if it trembles.
This is not about never feeling fear.
It’s about not letting fear drive the expression.
You don’t need to convince anyone to believe you.
You only need to believe yourself deeply enough that your presence speaks for you.
And when you do—when you express without performing—you give others permission to do the same.
Not because you’re asking them to follow.
But because you’re finally not hiding.
Let that be enough.
✧ Pause & Remember ✧
A practice in expressing without performing
The Practice: Return to the Real
Pause before you speak.
Feel your body. Place a hand on your heart or belly. Let your breath arrive.
Ask gently: Am I about to perform, or am I about to share?
Feel into your truth.
Not what’s clever. Not what will impress.
Just: What is true for me in this moment?
Speak from that place.
Even if it’s messy. Even if it shakes. Even if it’s still becoming words.
Let clarity come from contact, not control.
Let go of managing the outcome.
You are not here to convince. You are here to be real.
Let that be the offering.
You don’t have to perform presence.
You only have to return to it.
And from there, everything you express will carry the quiet power of what’s real.
To get your own copy of the book Soul of a Leader:
