The Skills by Mishal Husain

Author:Mishal Husain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2018-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

Keeping Sharp

Fright can transform into petrol

Judi Dench

Back in the real, physical world, there is a question that I used to regularly be asked which had the capacity to tie me up in knots every single time. It was a simple enough enquiry and a courteous one: did I enjoy presenting Today? I struggled to answer because for the first few years I appeared on the programme, I could not bring myself to associate the word ‘enjoy’ with it. From the tight knot in my stomach the night before a shift, as I worried about and tried to anticipate what I would find on my desk at four the next morning, to the pressure of getting to grips with a large amount of information in a short time, the overall picture felt very far from enjoyment.

Gradually, the experience shifted, becoming closer to anticipation than fear. I seemed to have more ability to channel my nerves and was able to ride the ups and downs of the programme with greater equanimity. Then, one day, when asked the same question about whether I was enjoying it, I was able to answer in the affirmative – not every moment of every day on air, and certainly not when things go wrong, but for the most part, yes.

Two things made the difference. The first was the simple process of familiarity: the more times I did the job, the more I learned and the more comfortable I felt. Practice did not – and should not – make perfect, if such a state even exists, but it did aid performance. It’s easy to look back now and think that that degree of greater comfort would always have come, but in my early days in a highly scrutinised role, it did not feel that way. And if I had only been assigned to the programme for a time-limited period, I might never have got to the point at which I felt more at ease. I might have left thinking that the apprehension I felt meant I was unsuited to it or not up to the challenge. And while the importance of practice in sport and music is widely recognised, we often seem to look at performance in other areas and imagine that individuals had that ability from the get-go.

In reality, they will have learned from each task, project, patient, flight, challenge, or – in my industry – broadcast. They will have put in the hours, including in the disciplines which may at first glance appear to hinge on artistic brilliance. The composer John Williams, who has scored more than a hundred films in fifty years in the business, says most people have ‘romantic notions’ about the process of creativity: ‘Any working composer or painter or sculptor will tell you that inspiration comes at the eighth hour of labour, rather than as a bolt out of the blue.’1 And while practice in itself is no guarantee of success, the writer and former sportsman Matthew Syed says it has a

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