Public Speaking
If you want to become a kind of person that ___(fill in the blank)___, but feel so far from it, I’m right there with you. I feel called to be a person that does motivational speaking or teaching of some kind and traveling the world to share something, but I have 3 big problems.:
1. I really don’t like to fly (and I live in on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean so it’s the way to travel and get anywhere around the world).
2. I don’t know what I am an expert on and what I can teach.
3. I’m not super good at public speaking.
Bwahaha so that’s where I’m at. A vision for the future and a far ways to get there. And because this blog is about finding peace, one thing at a time, I thought I’d share how I’m finding peace in figuring out this process, starting with one experience today.
I was invited this morning to share my story and do my first book talk of this year. Everyone thinks I’m outgoing and have no problem with public speaking, but the truth is, every time before I speak, I get anxious the night before that I might oversleep. I worry that I may forget something or arrive late the day of. I get carried away when I arrive wanting to connect with everyone that I forget the logistical stuff like parking validation, selling books, or drinking water. And always, always, I have some kind of wardrobe malfunction like wearing two different shoes, shirt on backwards, cardigan inside out, etc. :P Today, I realized I got a little fuller since the last time I wore a professional dress and didn’t try on my clothes prior. I could zip it up, but couldn’t bend down!
And then you add on the pandemic and social distancing for almost two years and doing online meetings and not much in-person and that throws in a whole new challenge. I realized, I completely forgot again how to walk into a room where everyone knows each other except for you and how to start conversations with people who have accomplished so much more than you.
Plus add on the ongoing pandemic and I wonder to myself anxiously are we waving from afar, quick fist bumping, or hugging it out and start watching others to take a cue? And when speaking, I must now do a hybrid style of making eye contact with everyone in the room, and the set up camera that is recording and streaming me to everyone watching simultaneously online.
That was me this morning. And even though I was welcomed so warmly, honored as the guest speaker, and truthfully enjoyed my time sharing our story once I got up to speak, it was also my first time creating and displaying a slideshow in goodness knows how long for a large room of folks in-person to see.
And as I spoke and presented, what I saw was their eyes squinting up at my screen. I had forgotten that as I created this slideshow from my computer just inches in front of my face, it would look entirely different as it was projected in a room with folks sitting many feet back. It reminded me of how much I had yet to improve. I needed to stop throwing so many pictures and words on a slide. Even though I thought I really simplified it big time from my busy brain to slides (and I did), it was still perhaps too much.
Following my talk, I always invite live Q&A because I learn a lot from others’ questions and when I am thrown out of my comfort zone. So, I did this today and the questions reminded me that I still had a lot to practice that wasn’t emphasized enough or wasn’t even covered at all and I totally missed it!
And as I returned to sit down beside such successful and seasoned folks who travel the world and are invited to speak at conferences to hundreds of people, their grace reminded me that they were once in my shoes. That I am still learning and growing and this is how life goes.
We are never perfect, but always progressing. We are never set, but always striving. We are never enough when we try to do things alone, but together, we can accomplish a lot. We are never completely proud of everything we do, but our creator is proud of us and that we took a step of faith. And that’s what matters. We went where we felt led, even if we didn’t always feel great about it. We prepared all we could before and we’re willing to prepare again after to do even better, at the next opportunity.
Keep going friends. I type this reminder to myself as well because when we all look back on our journeys, we all started somewhere to get to where we are today.
One talk at a time.
And each time matters.
I got one more book talk done and can find peace in knowing that we are moving forward. We can only continue to move forward towards that vision, if we are willing to keep getting up, keep zipping up, and keep focusing on the kind of person God calls us to be.
