Back in October of 2014, I met with the organizers of TEDxUF, the largest TEDx conference in the southeast, about an idea for a talk. Over the past six years, salsa dancing has completely changed my life and I wanted to share my experiences on stage. The organizers loved the idea and so did I, so I got the green light for A Brave New Salsa Dancing World.
Flash forward a month, and I've made no real progress on my talk. I had a rough outline but there were lots of holes in the story and, most importantly, I had no ending. Driving in the car, I was thinking of how to end this talk. Could it be with a dance, something motivational, funny?
Then, I got a text. It was from my girlfriend (who I first met at a salsa social) and it read "Love you, muah". BAMMM! It hit me like a train. I knew exactly how I was going to end this talk. I was going to propose to my girlfriend on stage. It both excited and terrified me at the same time.
I spent the next 4 months living a double life. On one side, I worked with my girlfriend to build up the talk that she thought I was going to give, which included her dancing on stage. And on the other side, I worked on the talk I was actually going to give. The whole facade came close to crumbling down on numerous occasions: almost sending her the wrong draft of the talk for review or saying lines seemingly out of order to her as we practiced together.
Then the day finally came. I don't know which made me more nervous, giving a complete TED talk from memory (c'mon, powerpoint is for amateurs) or getting down on one knee to ask the love of my life to marry me. Probably a little of both.
Once I began my talk, all of the nerves that had built up over the past 5 months, the planning, writing, editing, re-editing, re-re-editing....it all just melted away. I was in the zone, hitting on every point in my Memory Palace.
But as I neared the conclusion of my talk, something dawned on me. I was about to propose in front of 1500 people! You can see the exact moment where this realization occurs, right after we finish dancing for our second time. I sound quite winded from the dancing. Lies...all lies. I dance salsa all the time, so 30 seconds of dancing is not going to put a dent in me. Me sucking wind is entirely due to forgetting to breathe for a moment as I let my girlfriend head back off stage. I suddenly realize that I have 4 more lines before the backstage organizers will re-introduce her into the talk (push her back on stage).
As I delivered those last few lines, it felt exactly like going skydiving. When you head up in that plane, the instructor