The concept came from an interview in Scripting Magic 2, where an actor discusses what he calls “the moment before” — the instant before a scene begins, when an actor makes three rapid decisions that fill the first moment of the scene with energy and direction. What was I just doing? What am I doing right now? What is the first thing I want?
It is a small tool. Three questions. Maybe ten seconds of thought. But when I started using it before every performance, it solved a problem I had been struggling with for over a year: dead entrances.
The Problem of the Dead Entrance
Here is what my entrances used to look like. The emcee would introduce me. I would walk out from wherever I was waiting — the wings, the side of the room, behind a partition. I would arrive at my mark. I would smile. I would say my opening line.
And in the space between walking out and saying my opening line, there was a vacuum. A dead zone. A few seconds where I was physically present on stage but emotionally not yet performing. I was in transit. I was covering ground. I was a person walking to a position, not a performer entering a world.
The audience could feel this. Not consciously — nobody ever said “Your entrance lacked energy.” But the opening moments of my performances always felt like they needed a warmup period. The first thirty seconds were spent getting the audience tuned in, building connection, establishing presence. The first few laughs or reactions came later, once the machine was warmed up.
I thought this was normal. I thought every performer needed a warmup period. Then I watched recordings of performers I admire — people who entered a room and owned it from the first step — and I realized that the warmup period was not inevitable. It was a symptom of walking on stage without internal preparation.
The Three Questions
The moment before tool consists of three questions you answer silently, in the seconds before you step into the performance space.
First: Where am I coming from? Not literally — not “I am coming from backstage” or “I am coming from the green room.” Imaginatively. What world was I just in? What was I just doing? Was I in the middle of a conversation? Was I thinking about something fascinating? Was I walking through the crowd, watching and observing? Was I in a moment of quiet anticipation?
The answer to this question gives you energy. If you imagine that you were just in a stimulating conversation, you carry the energy of engagement. If you imagine that you just saw something remarkable, you carry the energy of wonder. If you imagine that you have been eagerly waiting for this moment all evening, you carry the energy of anticipation.
Second: What just happened? Something specific. Not “I am about to perform.” Something that creates an emotional charge. Maybe you just heard the audience laughing during the previous speaker’s remarks, and you are thinking about how alive this room is. Maybe you just received a piece of information — imagined or real — that excites you. Maybe you just noticed something about the audience that intrigues you.
This question gives you emotional specificity. Instead of walking out with a generic “performer face,” you walk out with a specific emotional state. And audiences can read emotional states. They respond to someone who is feeling something, even if they cannot identify exactly what that feeling is.
Third: What do I want? Not for the whole show. For the first moment. What is the first thing I want to achieve when I step into the light? Do I want to make eye contact with someone specific? Do I want to feel the energy of the room? Do I want to deliver my opening line in a way that surprises them? Do I want to create a moment of silence?
This question gives you direction. Instead of arriving on stage and then deciding what to do, you arrive with purpose. The purpose might be small — make eye contact with three people before you speak — but it is specific, and that specificity creates the impression of someone who knows exactly why they are here.
How I Learned to Use It
My first attempt at using the moment before tool was at a keynote in Vienna. It was a technology conference. About three hundred people. I was performing after the lunch break, which is perhaps the most challenging slot in any conference schedule. The audience had just eaten. Energy was low. Attention was scattered. Many people were still returning to their seats or checking their phones.
Standing behind the partition that served as my entrance, I asked myself the three questions.
Where am I coming from? I decided that I was coming from a walk through the conference exhibition hall, where I had been watching the demos and getting genuinely excited about the technology on display. This gave me the energy of someone who is enthusiastic and curious rather than someone who is about to deliver a performance.
What just happened? I decided that I had just overheard two attendees arguing about whether artificial intelligence could ever truly be creative. This gave me an intellectual charge — a sense of engagement with a question that mattered to this specific audience.
What do I want? I wanted to walk to the center of the stage and stand there for three full seconds before saying anything. I wanted the audience to look at me and wonder what I was thinking. I wanted to create a pocket of silence in a room that had been noisy for the past hour.
When the emcee called my name, I walked out carrying all of this. Not performing it — carrying it. I was not acting out “excited and curious.” I had simply filled myself with a specific emotional state, and it came through in my posture, my pace, my facial expression.
I walked to center stage. I stood there. I looked at the audience. Three seconds of silence. Then I said, “I just heard someone in the exhibition hall say that technology cannot surprise us anymore. I am here to disagree.”
The room focused. The phones went down. The show started — not from the first line, but from the first step.
The Difference Between This and Just Walking Out
The difference is internal, not external. From the outside, a performer who has done the moment before work and a performer who has not might look nearly identical. Both walk out. Both arrive at their mark. Both begin speaking.
But the internal difference creates a subtle external difference that audiences perceive even if they cannot articulate it. It is the difference between a person walking into a room and a person arriving. Arrival implies purpose. Walking implies transit. The moment before tool converts your entrance from transit to arrival.
I tested this by performing the same opening at two similar corporate events — one where I did the moment before work and one where I did not. The performances were recorded. When I watched them back to back, the difference was visible. In the version without the preparation, my entrance was neutral. Competent but neutral. In the version with the preparation, there was something in my face, something in my pace, something in the way I planted my feet at center stage, that said: I am here for a reason.
I could not tell you exactly what that something was. But the audience could feel it. The reactions came faster. The attention locked in sooner. The warmup period evaporated.
Adapting to Different Venues
One of the useful properties of the moment before tool is that it adapts naturally to different performance contexts. The three questions generate different answers for different venues, different audiences, and different emotional states.
At a corporate gala in Graz, where the mood was celebratory and the audience was in formal attire and high spirits, my answers were: I am coming from a conversation with an old friend at the bar. What just happened is that I realized I am genuinely excited to share something with this room. What I want first is to smile at someone in the front row.
At a leadership conference in Innsbruck, where the audience was serious, analytical, and slightly skeptical, my answers were: I am coming from backstage, where I have been reviewing my notes and thinking about something specific I want to say to this group. What just happened is that I heard the previous speaker mention the word “impossible,” and it triggered something in me. What I want first is to ask a question.
At a private event in Vienna, where the audience was small — about forty people in a salon-style room — my answers were: I am coming from the other end of the room, where I was listening to the host’s introduction. What just happened is that I noticed someone in the audience who looks genuinely curious. What I want first is to walk toward that person and acknowledge their curiosity before I speak.
Each set of answers produced a different entrance energy. Each entrance felt calibrated to the specific room and the specific audience. Not because I was performing a different character each time, but because I was arriving from a different emotional place each time.
The Conductor’s Analogy
In the Scripting Magic 2 interview, McCabe mentions that his friend Stu, a conductor, talks about “the beat before the music.” The downbeat of the baton is not where the music begins. The music begins in the breath before the downbeat — the moment of silence where the conductor gathers the orchestra’s attention, sets the tempo internally, and then releases it.
This analogy resonated with me deeply. The performance does not begin when you speak. It begins in the breath before you speak. And that breath needs to contain something. Not emptiness. Not anxiety. Not the mental checklist of what comes first. It needs to contain the emotional energy that will drive the first moment.
The three questions fill that breath. They give the pre-performance silence a texture, a charge, a direction. Without them, the silence is empty. With them, the silence is loaded.
Building the Habit
I now practice the moment before as a ritual. It takes less than fifteen seconds. I do it standing in whatever waiting area is available — backstage, behind a partition, at the edge of the room. I close my eyes. I answer the three questions. I let the answers create a specific emotional state. Then I open my eyes and walk into the light.
The habit has become automatic enough that I no longer have to consciously generate the answers. They come to me. The emotional state settles in. The first step feels purposeful rather than mechanical.
And here is the thing that continues to surprise me: the energy I create in that pre-entrance moment does not just affect the first few seconds. It affects the first few minutes. The emotional charge persists. The internal direction continues to guide my performance until the first big audience interaction takes over and the show acquires its own momentum.
The moment before is small. It takes almost no time. It requires no additional preparation or equipment. It is invisible to the audience. And it is, by a wide margin, the single most impactful adjustment I have made to my performance process.
Three questions. Ten seconds. A different entrance every time. And a start that feels like an arrival instead of a commute.