#187: I Did the Thing (And I Left Out a Paragraph, and I'm Telling You About It)

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Well, hello there. Welcome back to Your Favorite You.

I'm so glad you're here today because today I get to tell you about something I actually did. Not something I'm planning, not something I'm simply thinking about, something I did. I gave a TEDx talk.

Okay, let's back up because the story doesn't start on a stage. It starts well over a year ago with an idea that I kept turning over in my head and really not doing anything about. It's one of those things where you have that thought that won't leave you alone.

It just keeps tapping you on the shoulder and saying, hey, hey, remember me? And you keep saying, yes, yes, I'll get to you. And then you don't. That was me and this TEDx idea for over a year. And then in November of last year, 2025, I was at the Physician Coaching Summit, which I highly recommend for all of my fellow physician coaches.

And there I met Cesar Cervantes. Cesar is a TEDx speaking coach, and he's the best. I don't know if it was the timing or the energy in the room or the fact that the universe simply got tired of waiting for me to stop overthinking, but I was one of the first ones to sit down with him for a consult and I told him my idea.

He loved it. He was genuinely excited. Now, he gets excited about a lot of things, but he seemed even more excited than usual. And something about being met with that kind of enthusiasm by someone who knows what the fuck they're doing actually cracked something open for me.

Now, you know me, and hopefully by now, you know that I believe in getting excellent support in all the areas of life. And this was no different. Cesar and his team helped me prep my application and they helped me write my two-minute pitch video.

We applied to multiple TEDx venues, which by we, I mean they. And then in February, I was accepted to speak at TEDx UTD at the University of Texas at Dallas. And then the real work began. So the talk is called What a Funeral Home Taught Me About Living.

I grew up in a funeral home. For those of you who didn't know that, I'll let you sit with that for a second. It is exactly as formative as it sounds and something I had genuinely wanted to say about what that experience taught me about being alive, about not sleepwalking through your life, about making choices that are actually yours.

And here's the thing that I shared on a previous episode that I want to revisit today. I genuinely doubted my ability to memorize a 10-minute talk. Not a little doubt. Real significant, who the fuck do you think you are doubt?

10 minutes doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that TEDx talks are word for word. Every sentence matters, the pacing matters. You don't get to just riff and find your way back. You have to know it backward and forward and forward and backward.

And I wasn't sure I could do that. What I'm proud of, there are many things, but one of the things I'm proud of is that I didn't let that doubt make the decision for me. I worked with Cesar through Zoom coaching calls on delivery, pacing, presence.

I took all the feedback. I was very coachable. I took every note. I didn't get too precious about it. I really wanted to be good at this. And being good at this required being coachable. And I was. I also met multiple times with the UTD students organizing the event.

Two incredible pre-med women who gave me their input and their honest reactions. And here's what got me. Talking to them was like talking to earlier versions of myself. Bright, driven, already carrying so much.

And they told me that my message was something they and their friends needed to hear. If I had let doubt win a year ago, those women would have never heard it. So sit with that for just a second. I flew into Dallas a few days early because I was not about to let a canceled flight take me out after all of this preparation.

I treated myself to a massage and a facial the day before, not as a luxury, although it was luxurious, as a necessity, as an act of love toward the woman who was about to walk onto that stage. The morning of the talk, I had the right amount of nerves.

The boys both called me, and they're like, how are you doing, Mom? Like, I think I'm the right amount of nervous. Not the paralyzing kind, but the kind that means that this mattered to me. The kind that meant I was alive and I was paying attention.

My phone was lighting up with messages from friends and family. And I want to say that mattered more than I expected it to. Being seen and cheered for through a screen before something big, don't underestimate that.

And then I walked out onto the stage. I want to tell you about the people in that room because this is the part that makes me emotional even now. Two of my clients came to see the talk. Jen and her husband Jim drove several hours from their hometown in Texas to be there.

Several hours, you guys. Colleen flew in from Columbus. She landed a few hours before my talk and flew back out the next morning. She crossed a time zone for me. And Cesar, my coach, drove up from Houston to be in the room.

When I looked out and saw their faces, something in me settled. The nerves didn't disappear, but they shifted. They became something closer to gratitude, that I was held and I could feel it. The actual talk itself felt out of body, like I was in it and watching it at the same time.

Like something I had been carrying for a long time was finally being set down in a room full of people who might actually need it. And I'm going to keep it really real with you because that's what I do here at Melissa Parsons Coaching and certainly on this podcast.

Things did not go perfectly. At one point, I said, you know, which is one of my tells, my little flag that I've lost the thread for half a second. I heard it come out of my mouth and I knew. And I can't wait to see the replay of the talk because toward the end of the talk, I realized that I skipped an entire paragraph, a whole paragraph, just gone, left on the stage somewhere I hadn't been yet.

And I know the moment that I see the actual replay, I will see the moment that I glitched out. Everyone who was there, Cesar, Jen, Colleen, Jim, the students, told me they had absolutely no idea. Zero.

They didn't notice anything was missing. And I believe them. Logically, I believe them. But I'm still disappointed. And I want to talk about that because I think that this is actually the most important part of the whole episode.

In the past, the prior me, the me I'm actively working to grow beyond, would have rushed past the disappointment. I would have let the pride and the relief and the it went well flood in and wash the disappointment away before the disappointed part of me even had a chance to be heard.

Because feeling disappointed after something you've worked hard on and that went pretty well feels ungrateful, right? It feels like you're not appreciating what you have. But here's what I've learned.

Your parts don't need to compete with each other. Your disappointed part and your proud part can exist in the same body at the same time. One doesn't need to cancel the other out. So after the talk, after I had a lovely dinner with my friends, I spent some time with my disappointed part.

I told her that her disappointment made complete sense. That we worked incredibly hard on every word of that talk. And she had every right to grieve the paragraph that didn't make it out. I didn't rush her.

I didn't tell her to cheer up. I let her be disappointed. I allowed her to have tears. And then, only then, I invited my proud part to come forward. And my proud part, you guys, she is really, really proud.

Proud of saying out loud over a year ago, after I saw my friend Kelly Casperson do this, that I wanted to do this. Proud of finding Cesar and letting myself be coached and not trying to figure it out all alone.

Proud of applying to multiple venues and not treating one rejection as a verdict on the idea. There were many rejections. Let me just say that. Not letting any of those rejections be a verdict on the idea.

Proud of taking every note, every piece of feedback without getting defensive about it. Proud of showing up for those pre-med students at UTD and for anyone who will watch this talk on YouTube in a few weeks.

Because when it goes live, it's going to live there forever. That's not nothing. That's actually everything. And proud of something that happened after the talk that I want to close with. Several people came up to me, complete strangers, and said that they heard themselves in my story.

That is the whole thing. That is the entire reason I do any of this. If I can help even one person feel less alone on this giant rock hurtling through space, then my work here is done. So here's what I want to leave you with today.

Two things, actually. First, what is the idea that's been tapping you on the shoulder for over a year? What's the thing that you keep saying you'll get to and then you don't? I'm not asking you to do it tomorrow.

I'm asking you to stop pretending it isn't there. And second, when something big happens, whether it goes beautifully or imperfectly or both at the same time, are you making space for all of your parts to respond?

Or are you only allowing the ones that feel socially acceptable? Your disappointed part deserves to be heard. So does your proud part. So does your scared part and your relieved part and the part of you that can't believe that you actually did the thing.

They all get a seat at the table. That's the work, folks, and it is so, so worth it. Thanks so much for listening today. If this resonated with you, share it with someone in your life who has an idea that won't leave her alone.

And of course, if you want to do the work of figuring out what your parts are actually trying to tell you, your parts that are trying to help you become your favorite you, please reach out to me. I would love to hear from you.

Okay, everybody. Have a great week. I'll see you next time.

Before you go, I want to tell you about something special that I'm doing that I know you're going to love. On Thursday, April 30th at 7 p.m. Eastern, I am going to be hosting a free workshop called Why Smart Women Stay Stuck and the One Shift That Sets You Free. 

If you've been listening to this podcast, you know that I work with amazing, accomplished women who have achieved everything that they thought they wanted, but are still feeling stuck in one way or another. 

This workshop is for you if you're tired of overthinking every decision, if you're exhausted from seeking everyone else's approval, or if you know you're capable of more, but you don't even know what the hell more even looks like. 

I'm going to share the one shift that changes everything, which is how to move from external authority to your own internal authority. And I'll tell you, of course, exactly what that looks like and how to make it happen in your own life. 

Here's what makes this even better. Just for signing up for the workshop, you'll be getting a 25 question assessment called, Am I Giving My Power Away? This assessment helps you identify exactly where you've been handing your authority over to others. 

And if you show up live and engage with me during the workshop, you'll be getting two additional bonuses. My permission slips for smart women, which is a collection of 10 beautifully written permission slips that you can save to your phone for daily reminders that you don't need anyone else's permission to want what you want. 

Plus, you'll be getting my five-minute internal authority check-in. It's an audio to help point you back to your own intuition. The women who come to these workshops tell me that they get massive clarity just from the hour we spend together. 

Some say it really helps them make sense of why they're doing what they've been doing. And it's completely free. Go to melissaparsonscoaching.com forward slash workshop to save your spot. Again, that's melissaparsonscoaching.com forward slash workshop. 

Thursday, April 30th at 7 p.m. Eastern. Stop trying to think your way out of being stuck and start trusting yourself instead. I'll see you there.