Someday, somewhere, you may find yourself in this position: upside down, backwards and underwater. I have been there many times.

In whitewater kayaking, most of us have heard of the Eskimo roll. It’s a technique kayakers learn and perform to right ourselves after the boat has turned over. We learn it and practice it in the pond or the pool, and even practice it in the calm waters of the river. When we are not practicing it, and we really do go over, and then really need to use the roll to save ourselves, it’s called a combat roll.

I remember, as a student, coming back from one of my first outings on the river. Some of the other students were still practicing in the pond. I raised my arms in triumph and shouted, “I did my first combat roll!” My instructor said three words of advice that have saved me as many times as actually doing the roll has. He said, “Don’t get cocky!

He didn’t mean, don’t be confident. He meant, don’t get complacent.

Complacency can get you into a lot of trouble, whether you are kayaking on a class-1 river, or telling to an audience of ten. Complacency cuts off your awareness of what’s around you; the room, the audience, the event producer, other tellers. You may miss something and then have to produce a quick recovery.

It’s always good to learn as many techniques as you can to stay on track with your story and your audience. Know what you need to do to recover. Like when you have left out a bit of important information. You never say, "Oops...I forgot to tell you..." Instead, you can use the (practiced) phrase:

Now, you should know that Tom was over ten feet tall, and that’s the reason everyone looked up to him.

Just as important as knowing and practicing little recovery techniques and tricks, is not getting complacent. Complacency is what tripped me up in my last performance and got me into some trouble. Oh, I recovered, but if I had been paying more attention, I probably wouldn't have gotten myself into trouble in the first place (see my post from last week about Recovery).

Storytellers, heed the words of the kayak instructor: Don't get cocky!
 

You may also want to read Point Positively, a previous tip using a another kayaking metaphor.