I’ve always said “A salesman has about one good hour of sales a day-like a chicken lays one egg a day.”

The hour a persons talents tie together — when they shine.

Sometimes a whole day revolves around procrastinating to get to that one hour. Actually as I think about it maybe it’s not really procrastination but preparation.

A person prepares for that hour so that it all pulls together like a cook who spends the day chopping and blending. Frying and baking until finally it all comes together into a pot of soup or salad or something.

I spoke to a friend yesterday. She’s a writer and she sounded pretty down. “What’s the matter?” I ask.

“I have to write a chapter.” She sounds like someone just dragged her across a minefield.

“I’ve spent four and a half hours thinking about how I’m going to sit down and write”

Three hours later I speak with her again. She sounds like she’s floating across the skyline in a multicolored baloon. “I finished” she says as if it’s the last chapter she’ll ever write.

There are so many things in life that have to be done in that “right hour.” My mother-in-law a”h had a most oft-repeated sentence: “in a mazaldige shu.” It took me about ten years to figure out what a “mazaldige shu” meant. A lucky shoe I always thought. That’s good too. But what she was saying was “in a lucky hour.”

Usually the thing that means the most to us is the thing we end up dancing around the whole day trying to put off. Because it’s the scariest. Because it means or we believe that it is the thing that defines us. We did it good we’re good. We did it not good we’re not good.

I know someone who spent the whole day almost getting dressed. They put that shirt on no good. That sweater too big too white too blue. Appearance was so important they got stuck there.

The best way I’ve found to jump into that hour though I’ve spent many a good day putting off certain things is to say: Hey — so what if it’s not good? So what if the salesman doesn’t make that sale? What will happen if the story’s embarrassing?

A French woman who lives down the street frantically calls. “My daughter’s hysterical. She has an exam in English and she doesn’t understand a word of the material.”

“Okay” I say. “Send her over.”

I have no idea if I can help her with three days to go but I say “Lets try.”

The girl’s about eleven and she looks petrified. We open the workbook to the pages the exam will be based on. I notice the material is for fifteen year olds … at least.

“Wow” I slip. “This is advanced.”

I myself get nervous.

I go into my calm-down routine with the girl which I usually say alone to myself when challenges present themselves.

“Okay.” I take a deep breath and smile to camouflage my own apprehension wondering how in the world this little girl is going to understand a story with sentences like — I’m not exaggerating — “the pink sock is next to the red scarf under the dirty carpet.”

Before we dive in I ask the girl “What’s the worst thing that can happen if we don’t know something?”

She shrugs her shoulders and just stands there with her big brown eyes staring at me searching for the answer to my own question.

I don’t want to completely unbrainwash her of all the fear of exams instilled over the years. I’m sure her mother would not be thrilled about that. All the years spent training. And competition has its benefits when it’s against oneself.

I see she’s paralyzed from fear. I try to detonate a small fuse so she can start. “If you try your hardest … and you still don’t know something — what will happen to you?” She doesn’t answer.

I offer options.“Will your teacher not like you?”

She doesn’t know.

“Will the girls in the class not like you?”

She doesn’t know.

“But all the girls know it.” she blurts out.

“All?” I ask. “All the girls know all this?”

She shakes her head “no.”

“Who knows all this?” I point to the page filled with English.

“Chava and Shani.”

“Who else?”

“That’s it”

“Do Chava and Shani speak English at home?” I ask.

“Chava yes. Shani no.”

“Does Shani have a private tutor?”

She shakes her head “no.”

“Does Chava?”

She nods her head “yes.”

“So now you do too.” She smiles for the first time.

We open the book and start.

The first part is vocabulary. She knows most of it. A few words she’s stuck on but we quickly fix that. The next part’s the story.

At first she thinks she knows nothing but after a few tries we see she knows 75 percent. Over the next three days we fill in the holes together.

I see a lot of myself in that little girl.

The fears of what if I don’t do it good or good enough.

Better not to start.

What am I afraid of? I have to ask myself.

Someone might not like me if I’m not perfect — or good enough?

What will happen to me?

I won’t pass the test. I won’t get the job. My child won’t get the shidduch.

No. What’s meant to be is meant to be as long as we try — whatever that means to each of us. And what’s supposed to be ours will be ours. “In a good hour.”