by Christian O’Connell

Some years ago, I went to Blue Derby in Tasmania with my mate Adam. One-hundred kilometres of world-class mountain-bike trails through rainforests for three days.

We were going for the riding, stunning nature and beers in the evening around a fire. We had no idea that we would be doing hours of intense and beautiful biking on the equivalent of a ski-slopes black run.

I also didn’t expect life lessons in the mud.

Early on, the instructors told me to stop being so rigid on the bike or I’d be fighting it, making everything harder. Enjoy the ride – stop being so controlling, it’s more dangerous.

I was scared. We were speeding through world-class courses and I had no idea how to handle the speeding chaos of rocks, tree stumps, sudden 30-foot drops down sheer cliff faces.

On the first day, me and my mate, the oldest in the group by a decade or more, were held back to work on our ‘core skills’. We felt like the kids who had to repeat the year. A child instructor taught us how to brake. Our egos!

I was getting philosophy lessons from muddy 19- and 21-year-old guides. I loved every second.

The lesson that stuck? I kept stumbling in the early runs, slamming on brakes to avoid rocks and stumps. Bike buddha Finn whispered, ‘Stop looking down. Look where you want to go and trust that your body knows how to get you there. Flowing all the way, soft grip, enjoy the ride’.

Stop looking down. Stop steering so hard. Trust that you know how to get there.

On the last day, all eight of us were cycling through an icy Tasmanian river along a very thin ledge.

‘Momentum is the focus here,’ was the yelled instruction.

I tensed up as my wheel got close to the guy in front of me. And suddenly, while I sat on my mountain bike, I toppled over sideways into an ice-cold Tasmanian river.

Still sitting on the bike. Fully submerged.

All I could hear was laughter.

As I freed myself from the titanic wreckage of the mountain bike, Finn helped me out. A 21-year-old boy rescuing a middle-aged man, soaking wet, shivering, ego dripping.

He just looked at me and said, ‘Your body is smarter than you’.

‘That isn’t hard,’ I gurgled.

Then he asked, ‘Do you grip your radio show as tight as you grip this bike?’

I said, ‘No’.

He said, ‘Then ungrip. Enjoy the ride, it’s easier and safer’.

Pretty good, hey? Mountain biking guru. If that’s a thing, Finn was it.

The Four Es

Several years ago, I found myself trying to devise a framework to reconnect with my radio show.

If you’re fortunate enough to find work that brings you joy and meaning, your relationship with it is like any other relationship. It undergoes seasons – summers of flourishing, springs of growth, autumns of transition, and winters of barrenness.

I was in the winter phase.

To reignite the warmth, I did what I always do when I’m lost: I quieted down and listened.

One day, I started to sketch a compass with four Es:

Energise. That came easily. Breakfast radio is about energy – energise the audience, energise myself, energise my words. Good intention. It made sense.

Exaggerate. I love telling stories; I’ve spent my life doing it. Years ago, some professor of storytelling told me that people expect exaggeration in stories – they enjoy it more knowing it’s exaggerated. That’s been my life. It drives my wife and family nuts when they hear me tell a story on air that’s not quite what happened. ‘He’s exaggerated that,’ they say. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s the job. I’m a professional exaggerator’. So, if my daughter’s room is a bit messy, on air it’s a squalid pit where even rats wouldn’t go. If my wife is powerful in our relationship, she’s more powerful than Darth Vader – Darth Vader would fear her.

Entertain. You might think, how bad was your radio show that you needed reminding to entertain? But sometimes you do need reminding. Making five shows a week, three hours a day, it can become routine. Reminding yourself to entertain adds attention to my stories and hosting.

Energise. Exaggerate. Entertain.

Then I wrote down a fourth word:

Enjoy. And something interesting happened.

I stared at that word and my inner critic, you know, that lovely voice in your head, said that’s wrong …

Some bullying manager part of me didn’t think I was entitled to enjoy my own radio show. As if suffering meant working hard enough. As if exhaustion was proof of value.

What nobody told you

Think about every piece of advice you’ve ever been given about speaking, presenting, communicating, connecting. What did it teach you?

Prepare. Practise. Plan what you’re going to say. Control your nerves. Manage the room. Read your audience. Be professional. Be polished. Be appropriate. Get. It. Right.

Nobody – not once – said, ‘Oh, remember to enjoy yourself’.

And that’s the whole problem.

Because enjoyment is the signal that you’ve arrived. It’s the moment you stop performing and start being present. Enjoyment flips the whole table. It says, ‘Connection comes alive when you come alive’.

Edited extract from Unscript: The radical act of being yourself by Christian O’Connell (Wiley, $34.95), available 29 July at all leading retailers.

Christian O’Connell is an award-winning British radio broadcaster, television host, and comedian who currently hosts The Christian O’Connell Show breakfast program on Melbourne’s Gold 104.3, broadcasting nationally across Australia. He is famous for achieving number-one ratings in both the UK and Australia.