Eddie Pinero

Pulling every alarm it can.

And so he goes, Eddie, what you need to do is literally teach it that it's okay.

You need, through repetition, to show all those nerves and all that stuff down there.

Clearly, I'm paraphrasing.

I don't remember what he said, but we'll go with stuff down there.

You need to teach it that you can get low and that death doesn't equate to horrible consequences.

Because right now, your body's desperately trying to protect you from what it thinks is the problem.

And the way that, you know, that was framed made perfect sense to me.

I'm like, okay, the reps make sense, right?

A little at a time makes sense.

It's like showing a child that the water in the pool is okay.

Little at a time.

You walk up, you put your toe in.

You walk up, you put your foot in.

Or, you know, whatever metaphor you want to use.

So where am I taking all this?

Well, as I sit there and I think about it,

Isn't that what speaking in front of an audience was for me?

It's like getting a little less nervous and a little more comfortable every time I did it.

Teaching myself that I don't need to stay up all night the night before or, you know, sweat backstage.