I remember it like it was yesterday: one of my first major conferences, a room full of potential clients, and me backstage trying to steady my breathing. I had prepared — thoroughly — yet I was still as nervous as a long‑tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, as my grandmother would say. I tried mantras, deep breaths, focusing on the audience instead of myself. None of it worked. Mid‑speech, my mind simply went blank.

In my scramble to be “perfect,” I lost my train of thought and fumbled for what felt like an eternity before I finally found my way back. It was mortifying, and it rattled my confidence — but it also taught me something important.

I was reminded of that moment when I watched Alysa Liu’s gold‑medal performance at this year’s Winter Olympics. Liu retired at sixteen because she didn’t want to become, in her own words, “a sulky, overtrained arthritic with the emotional disposition of burnt toast.” During her break, she skied, hiked to Everest base camp, and studied psychology at UCLA. When she returned to skating in 2024, she came back with a new intention: to be an artist, not a medal‑chaser, as Sally Jenkins wrote in The Atlantic.

Watching her this time was pure joy. She had made mistakes, explored other parts of herself, and returned on her own terms — free.

The Olympics are a pressure cooker. Physiologically, stress tightens muscles and redirects blood flow away from your extremities, making it nearly impossible to think or move cleanly. We saw this with American figure‑skating world champion Ilia Malinin, the “Quad God,” who fell twice and scored far below his usual marks. Afterward, he said, “The pressure of the Olympics is—it’s really something different, and not a lot of people will understand that.”

I’m sure he was devastated, but I also believe this experience will serve him. As a speech coach, I remind my clients that messing up is not only inevitable — it’s useful. Every stumble teaches you what to do differently next time. That mindset is essential. Whether you call it choking, freezing, fumbling, or getting “the yips,” these moments help you understand yourself and loosen the grip of perfection.

After my own moment years ago, I realized I had psyched myself out and forgotten why I was there: to deliver a message to people who genuinely wanted to learn and feel something. Alysa Liu reminded me of that truth.