Episode 683 - Moments

This week on Monday Morning Mojo, Phil delves into the power of preparation and seizing opportunities. Through captivating stories, including the unforgettable inauguration performance by Carrie Underwood and the heroic actions of Sully Sullenberger, Phil illustrates how confidence and experience are built through practice and perseverance. He challenges listeners to embrace public speaking and other growth opportunities, emphasizing that moments of greatness come to those who are ready. Tune in to discover how you can prepare for and capture your defining moments.

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Carrie Underwood Performance

Transcript

Top performers in every field surround themselves with those who inspire them, who seek to build them up, and who push them to reach beyond their current limits. I'm Phil Buchanan, Executive Chairman of Cannon Financial Institute. I designed Monday Morning Mojo to provide you with a weekly spark, a push, and motivational insight to live your best life.

Thanks for joining. Good Monday morning, it's Phil here with episode 683 of Monday Morning Mojo. Imagine it's late January, early February of 1983. On a small farm in Oklahoma, Stephen, a paper mill operator, and his wife Carol, an elementary school teacher, are expecting their third child. Well, on March 10th of 1983, they welcomed their third daughter into their family.

The baby girl proved to have a penchant for talent shows. She loved playing in fields, climbing trees, and she enjoyed singing. Her love of singing led to the church choir circuit. Every time she sang, every time she performed, she added a bit of experience and with it, a bit of confidence, confidence and experience go hand in hand, the more we do something, the more we understand how to to do it.

Of course, this in turn gives us the confidence to push further and to develop our skills. I routinely challenged professionals to engage more in public speaking, either keynotes, teaching a course, making presentation, serving on panels, etcetera. Now, what I often hear back is I hate public speaking, or I get so nervous in front of people.

Well, these are emotional feelings, and these feelings can be overcome with a bit of study, with a bit of preparation, and with a lot of practice and repetition. You know, one never knows when a moment or an opportunity will present itself. But, when those opportunities, when those moments come. We want to be ready.

Sully Sullenberger. Well, you remember that name. Well, he learned to fly piston aircraft, single engine aircraft, in his teens. After his appointment to the Air Force Academy, he was selected as a year one cadet for a glider program. Now, gliders are aircraft without engines. They simply float and glide on the airwaves.

Well, evidently, Sullenberger was fairly proficient, because by the end of his freshman year, he had become an instructor. We know a lot of the rest of the story. He went on to fly jets in the Air Force, and then flew jets as his professional with commercial aircraft. But it was his deep understanding of aeronautics, and specifically of gliders, that allowed him to rise to the moment, and to land U.

S. Air 1549 on the Hudson in New York on January 15, 2009. And for all 155 people on board, including a very close friend of mine, to survive. Repetition and experience prepared Sullenberger for the moment. Let's go back to that young lady in Oklahoma. It turns out she was not only artistically talented, but academically she was stellar as well.

She graduated salutatorian of her high school class in 2001. She went on to college initially to study broadcast journalism, but she did not complete her degree until 2006. Somewhat surprising, but actually not when you know the rest of the story for this was due to another series of moments that presented themselves to her for which she was obviously well prepared that young lady from Oklahoma found a lot of success in her life.

As a professional woman today, she employs numerous staff to ensure that every time a new moment occurs, all of the I's will be dotted, all the T's will be crossed, little will be left to chance, and her engagements should be one of a flawless nature. Yet, because of all of these other moments, because of all of the learnings and all of the confidence that was gained through the experiences that she'd had over the course of her life, on January 20th, 2025, Carrie Underwood wowed the world when she was forced to sing America the Beautiful acapella.

Now, this was due to technical difficulties that did not allow the supporting music to play. Now, if you did not get a chance to see the performance or even if you did, I really would encourage you to go to YouTube and to watch the PBS clip. I think it's about 3 minutes and 24 seconds long. It shows the awkwardness of the moment when Carrie Underwood is ready to sing.

They try to make the music play and it won't play. And people start looking around. People are nervous. What's going to happen? Finally, Underwood looks at the technician and says with a confident smile, I'll just sing it. She then leans into the microphone and says to the entire audience gathered, You know the words.

Help me out here. Then Carrie Underwood seizes the moment in a spine tingling rendition of America the Beautiful. It reminded me of Whitney Houston's performance of the Star Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl. I just knew in both instances that I was witnessing something that I would see replayed for years to come.

Houston's rendition of the Star Spangled Banner is still considered today the number one Star Spangled Banner performance at a Super Bowl. And I would say perhaps even of all time. We will see how history treats Underwood's performance of America the Beautiful. You know, moments do come for everyone.

Now some of those moments are obviously larger than others. However, when those moments come for us, we act, we react, or perform in those moments, not based upon talent alone. But our performance in those moments is based on the trials and errors that we've gone through in our life, of the failings and the fixings, the testings and the learnings.

Moments are seized by those who've done the hard work, who've prepared. Who've trained and who have continued to grow more moments are coming for all of us in 2025 and beyond. I want to challenge each of you to do the work, do the work today, do the work tonight, do the work this week, this month, this quarter, this year, do the work that will allow you to capture.

Your moments. Monday Morning Mojo is a production of Cannon Financial Institute. Executive producer of Monday Morning Mojo is Sarah Jones. Editing and mixing is done by Danny Brewer. Production management is done by McCall Chamberlain. Until next time, I'm Phil Buchanan reminding you to be a force for good.

Have a great week and thanks for being part of the Mojo community.