Why I Tell Myself I'm the Baddest MF in the World Before I Walk On Stage

There is a moment right before I walk on stage that nobody in the audience ever sees.

The music is playing. Someone is reading my introduction. I can hear my name through the speakers, and I am standing offstage in the dark waiting for my cue.

I have eleven seconds.

And every single time, I say the same thing to myself:

I'm the baddest MF in the world.

I clean it up for the blog. I don't clean it up backstage. I say the whole word. Usually out loud. For me, that matters.

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Some people have told me I should be more humble before I walk on stage. Take a breath. Calm down. Remind yourself it's not about you.

I agree it's not about me.

But getting small, questioning myself, or performing humility is not going to help the people sitting in that room. They didn't show up to watch me work through my nerves. They came because they expect something that will help them think differently, communicate differently, lead differently, or perform differently.

For the next hour, that room is my responsibility.

So in those eleven seconds, I'm not trying to become humble. I'm getting ready to own the room.

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Something is already happening in your head

Your mind doesn't go quiet just because you're standing backstage.

Something is going to be running through it. The only question is whether you choose it, or let your fear choose it for you.

Leave that space open and your mind will start asking questions:

What if the audience is cold? What if I forget something? What if the opening doesn't land? What if they only booked me because the person they really wanted wasn't available?

That's not humility. That's fear trying to sound reasonable.

And once those questions start, your attention goes to the worst possible place. You begin monitoring your voice, your hands, your slides, your timing, every expression on every face. Instead of serving the room, you start looking to the room for reassurance.

My statement interrupts that pattern before it starts. It closes the question. I'm not standing backstage wondering if I belong there. I've already decided.

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Set your state at the identity level

There are useful things you could say to yourself before a big presentation.

Remember to slow down. That's about behavior.
I know this material. That's about ability.
I believe this can help people. That's about purpose.

All of those have value. But I want to set my state at a higher level. I want to decide who I am when I walk through that door.

I'm the baddest MF in the world.

That's identity.

When I set it at the identity level, I don't have to consciously manage everything underneath it. I don't have to remind myself how to stand, how loud to speak, where to look, or what to do when a joke doesn't land. I've already prepared those things. In that final moment, I don't need more instructions. I need to step fully into the person who can deliver them.

That's also why I don't cram backstage. The final minute before a presentation is not the time to audit your own material. You will always find something to fix. And if you walk out carrying every doubt you just uncovered, the audience pays for it.

The work should already be done. The final eleven seconds are about state.

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Why these exact words

There's a difference between I'm going to be great and I am great.

"Going to be" means not yet. "Becoming" means not yet. "I hope" means maybe. "I'll try" leaves the door open.

Right before I walk on stage, I don't need a goal. I need a decision. Not after the first story lands. Not once the room warms up. Now. That's why the sentence is in the present tense.

I've tried cleaner statements.

I am prepared. I am confident. I've got this.

Nothing wrong with them. They just don't do anything to me. They sound like something printed on a motivational card in a hotel conference room. The statement I use changes how I stand. It changes my breathing. It changes the way I walk through the door. Its only job is to move me into the right state. For me, the uncensored version does that.

Your words may be completely different. The question isn't whether your statement sounds professional. The question is whether it changes something in you.

Does it move your body? Does it change your breathing? Does it stop the internal debate?

There's one more reason a modest statement doesn't work, and it took me a long time to understand it. A reasonable claim can be checked, and anything you can check, some part of you will check. Am I really prepared? Compared to who? What about that presentation in Phoenix? The sentence I use can't be examined that way. There's no scoreboard for it. Nobody can argue it, including me. It goes right past the part of my mind that wants to debate, which is the entire point.

One more thing: I've been doing this for thirty years. Same words. Same moment. Same physical position, waiting for the introduction to end. At first, the words created the state. After enough repetition, they became connected to the state. Now the sentence works like a switch.

This is why people should stop constantly changing their routines. They come up with something, use it twice, decide they need something more powerful, rewrite it, find another quote, try a new breathing exercise, and never use anything long enough for it to become automatic.

A routine doesn't become powerful because it's clever. It becomes powerful because it's repeated.

Find what works. Keep using it. Eventually you won't have to create the state from scratch. Your routine will access it for you.

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The audience feels your state before it understands your content

People make decisions about you before you teach them anything.

They watch how you walk onto the stage. They notice whether you're comfortable. They hear your first few words. They feel your energy before they evaluate your content.

If you walk out uncertain, the room can start feeling uncertain. They may not know why. They'll blame the topic, the early start, the seating, the fact that they didn't want to attend another session.

And you spend the next fifteen minutes trying to repair with content what your state communicated in the first thirty seconds.

It also works the other direction. Walk out grounded, and the room settles. People pay attention. They become more willing to follow you.

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Confidence and arrogance are not the same thing

When I say I'm the baddest MF in the world, I'm not saying anyone in the room is beneath me.

The statement is private. It's about responsibility.

What it actually means: of all the people who could be standing here right now, I am the one willing to take ownership of what happens in this room for the next hour. I'm willing to lead it, adjust it, tell the truth in it, and cut material I love if it stops serving the audience.

Arrogance needs other people to agree. Confidence doesn't.

Arrogance walks into the room looking for proof of superiority. Confidence walks into the room ready to contribute.

Once I stop needing the room's approval, I can focus completely on the people in front of me. That's the entire point.

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You have to earn the right to say it

The sentence only works because of the work that happened before I arrived.

The years of studying. The preparation. The rewrites. The rehearsals. The presentations that went well and the ones that didn't. The stories I tested in small rooms before I used them in large ones. The feedback I didn't always enjoy hearing. The material I cut because it served me more than the audience.

Confidence without preparation isn't confidence. It's a bluff. And an audience figures that out fast.

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Where humility actually belongs

I understand what people mean when they say to be humble. But we sometimes confuse humility with shrinking.

Humility doesn't mean walking onto a stage unsure of whether you belong there. It doesn't mean opening with a self-deprecating comment so nobody thinks you're too confident. The audience didn't come to watch you negotiate your right to teach them.

Real humility is putting the outcome above your ego. It's being willing to cut material because the audience doesn't need it. It's saying "I don't know, but I'll find out" instead of pretending. It's listening to feedback from a meeting planner without getting defensive.

You can be completely certain of your ability and still remain open to learning. In fact, real confidence makes that easier. When you're secure in who you are, you don't need to defend every slide, sentence, or decision.

Be humble about the work. Stay coachable. Keep improving. But don't confuse humility with making yourself smaller than the responsibility you accepted.

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How you know confidence has turned into ego

Confidence becomes a problem when you can't put it down.

A few warning signs.

You need someone else to be worse than you. If you need the speaker before you to fail so you can feel good about your own set, that's comparison, not confidence. And comparison collapses the moment the other person is excellent.

You carry the stage persona after you leave the stage. You become impatient with the AV crew. You get defensive when the meeting planner asks you to adjust something. You dismiss feedback because the person giving it "doesn't understand what you do."

You stop editing yourself. You protect material that isn't helping the audience. You stop listening. You stop improving.

Before I walk on stage, I pick up the state I need. When I walk off, I put it down. Then I go back to being someone who still has more to learn.

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You don't need a stage to use this

Most people reading this aren't walking onto a conference stage every week. But you still have moments when your state determines what happens next.

For a real estate agent, it's the walk from the car to the front door before a listing consultation. Those are your eleven seconds.

And your mind can fill them quickly.

They already interviewed another agent. Their neighbor's son just got his license. What if they think my commission is too high? What if I don't get it?

Watch what happens when an agent carries those questions through the front door. They talk too fast. They explain credentials nobody asked about. They start negotiating their commission before the seller has mentioned it.

That's what uncertainty does. It directs your attention toward protecting yourself instead of understanding the client.

The answer isn't memorizing a hundred more behaviors to manage. You can't consciously track all of them while having a real conversation.

Set your state at the top.

For an agent, the statement might be: I am the right person to list this house.

That doesn't mean every seller must hire you. It doesn't mean the other agents are incompetent. It means you're walking in ready to take responsibility for guiding that family through one of the largest financial decisions they may ever make.

You're not there hoping they like you. You're there to understand what they need, tell them the truth, and determine whether you're the right fit to help them.

Sellers don't experience grounded certainty as arrogance. They experience it as safety. They're asking themselves whether you can carry the weight they're considering handing you. They begin answering that question before you open your presentation.

The buyer consultation works the same way, with a different question in the room. In the first few minutes, that buyer is deciding whether you're someone who unlocks doors or a professional whose advice they're going to follow. Your state settles that long before your process does. An agent hoping to be liked will show them anything they ask to see. An agent who is grounded will tell them the truth about the house on the corner.

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The same rule still applies: earn it

You can't stand outside a listing appointment telling yourself you're the right agent if you haven't prepared.

If you don't know the market, haven't reviewed the property, can't explain the data, and haven't practiced your presentation out loud, that's not confidence. It's pretending. And a prepared seller who has already met with two other agents will figure that out quickly.

The reps are the price of the sentence.

Practice real conversations out loud. Not just reading scripts: say the words, hear yourself deliver them, respond when the other person doesn't follow the script you prepared for.

Preparation creates the right to be confident. Then, before you walk through the door, decide who you're going to be. Say the sentence. Stop thinking about whether you're going to get the listing. Walk inside and focus on the people sitting across from you.

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The real purpose of the statement

I don't tell myself I'm the baddest MF in the world because I want to spend the next hour thinking about how great I am.

I say it because I want to stop thinking about myself completely.

I don't want to monitor whether the room approves of me. I don't want one person with crossed arms controlling my state. I don't want to waste the audience's time managing my own nerves.

The statement closes the internal conversation. It allows me to walk out and become useful.

Getting small before an important moment doesn't serve anyone. Not you, not the audience, not the seller, not the buyer, not the team you're leading.

You're allowed to walk into the room believing you are the most prepared, capable, and useful person who could be standing there for those people at that moment.

If you accepted the responsibility, you should be prepared to own it.

Find the words that move you. Say them in the present tense. Say them with enough energy that your body believes you. Repeat them until they become a switch.

Then walk into the room and serve people as though proving yourself never crossed your mind.

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