How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life(14)
TAKE A LOOK AROUND. Are you in the middle of the ocean? Did your ship just sink? If you’re unsure, please check your iCal to determine if you recently boarded the Titanic. If yes, please try harder to fit two people on that floating door because I promise you it’s possible. At the very least, you could take turns so no one has to die. If your answer is no, you’re not on the Titanic, then why are you acting as if you need to survive life right now? If you’re able to read this book, chances are you have been blessed with the tools necessary within and around you to not just survive life but conquer it.
Earlier in my life I didn’t know the difference between surviving and conquering. I didn’t think it mattered how I completed a task, as long as I achieved what I needed to achieve. It wasn’t until I went on my first tour that I learned what a difference it can make not just to do something to get by but to do something to make a statement. My tour consisted of thirty-one shows in twenty-six cities across the world, and as you can imagine, it was exhausting, both mentally and physically. The first few shows were in India, truly across the planet, in a different time zone with different food and an extremely different climate to adjust to. These were all additional challenges to the already difficult task of putting on a good show. Our tour started with six back-to-back shows in different cities within India, each requiring a plane ride to get to. When you begin a tour under these conditions you can’t help but enter survival mode immediately. As a result, for the first eight or so shows of my tour, I acted like a character on The Walking Dead. Before going onstage I would say to myself, “Okay, just get through this show, Lilly. You can survive this.” I’d walk onstage, the crowd would cheer, I would go through the motions very carefully and play it safe, and then two hours later I’d walk offstage feeling great about surviving another run.
This went on for the first few shows until, before my ninth show, I tried something new. I was feeling myself that day and I could hear the crowd going wild well before the show was scheduled to start. I don’t know if it was because of the extra sleep I might have gotten the night before or if I’d eaten some particularly delicious french fries that day, but a voice inside me said, “You know what? Don’t just go out there and go through the motions. Go out there and absolutely kill it.” I promised myself that I would deliver my jokes better than ever before, nail my choreography with complete confidence, and put on the most charismatic show of my life. I wouldn’t simply check this show off my list; I would go out there and change lives. I riled myself up, chugged some water, made a pinky promise to myself, and ran out onto the stage. The energy was explosive as I jumped with excitement during parts of my choreography, something I’ve never done before. My dancers noticed and their excitement and energy increased tenfold as well. I added another layer of flair and fun to my jokes. I made my faces a little sillier, moved my body a little goofier, and held my pauses a little longer. When I made my motivational speech toward the end of the show, I didn’t just recite the lines but truly felt each word I was saying with intense emotion.
Two hours later I finished the show, and as our tradition called for, my dancers received me at the side of the stage with open arms. Even though the show was over, I could sense a new type of excitement from them because they felt the new energy I had brought that evening. The crowd’s reaction was bigger than it had been at any of our previous shows, and we all felt it in our veins. Of course, I was twice as exhausted, but I was also twice as proud, and I’d had twice as much fun than ever before. From then on, my pre-show pep talk wasn’t about survival—it was about conquering. At each show I would move energetically around the stage, laugh at my own jokes, and connect with people. At the beginning of each show I would think of new ways to do it bigger and better. Sometimes I would add a line to my script or change something up just to give my dancers some shock and excitement onstage.
Learning how to conquer my show took hard work. Taking my show to the next level meant knowing my choreography better than ever before, being absolutely fluent with my stand-up material, and fine-tuning my ability to improv for a specific audience and culture. All that meant more rehearsal, more creativity, and more sacrifices when it came to leisure activities. It meant not celebrating after a show in order to get extra sleep. It meant overcoming nerves and fear to make sure confidence and passion were the only things I felt before I stepped onto that stage.
Having said all that, life can be really tough sometimes. Maybe you’re forced to enter survival mode because you have financial problems. Maybe you’re limited by your physical or mental health. It’s hard to think about conquering life when you’re trying to overcome an illness and struggling to pay the bills. Realistically, we all have to go into survival mode sometimes because our life circumstances demand it. And that’s okay. But too often I feel we stay in this mindset instead of taking control of our life and enjoying it. There is a switch within all of us that we can flick from SURVIVE to CONQUER. Even though we need to survive sometimes, we shouldn’t get too comfortable in our life jackets.
Don’t just try to pass your classes; try to ace them. Don’t just aim to pay your bills; save enough to travel. I don’t want you to write a script just to see a movie get made; I want you to win an Oscar. That’s the difference between settling like a survivor and conquering like a Bawse.