Kelly Pickler, Part II

During last week’s "Become the Star You Are" TeleClinic, we talked about Kelly Pickler, one of the contestants on "American Idol," and how she survived after totally screwing up while singing the song "Bewitched." While some people at the TeleClinic had never watched American Idol, a fact I find hard to believe, we all had some insight into what it was about Kelly that made her impervious to being eliminated.

Kelly’s disaster AND how she handled it was an amazing example of how being real, vulnerable and totally honest is so much more magnetic and winning than just performing something perfectly. Audiences are hungry for someone who’s not hiding behind the need to appear greater than they are, someone who will just say, "Hey, this is me, and I really goofed up."

(If you want to check out the recording of this TeleClinic, just register here).

But this last week, Kelly did get voted off after another really poor performance. It made me wonder if her first disaster had gotten to her, that she wasn’t able to shake it off as well as I thought she might.

Nonetheless, she’s still got her straightforward spunk, as Daniel Feinberg of Zap2it.com reports here:

"Well, 30 million, 40 million are watching, and they see your performance," she (Kelly) notes. "They see that you’ve messed up, and the judges know that, and I knew that I did. And what was I going to do? Lie, and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t mess up’ and blame it on things? I think that when you’re just honest about it that it’s better rather than to try to make excuses for why you didn’t have a good performance. I messed up the words in some of them. I’ve messed up the songs, and I’ve been off-key and pitchy, and you just admit it."

As my friend Sherle put it so beautifully, "She did it without shame…she could just acknowledge it (her mistakes) without making herself a bad person because of it. It was just a moment."

So often when we feel we have really messed up or made a mistake, we take it so personally. We start defining ourselves by that one moment. We go from, "Oops, I made a boo-boo!" to "Gee, I’m really not any good at this. I’m must really stink."

No. It was just a moment. It was just an unplanned little snafu. We all have them. Just acknowledge it and say, "Okay, what’s next!"

Tags: American Idol Singer Performing Kelly Pickler Singing