The Worst Thing

Public speaking is consistently ranked as one of the top fears among humans. And, if you’re human, I’m guessing you know why. Standing alone in front of a crowd and clearly articulating an idea is desirable by exactly no one. Even the people who look all cool, calm, and collected on stage are faking it. No one likes that type of vulnerability. They just can’t.

Today I gave my first solo presentation as a professional in front of an auditorium of my colleagues. As if that wasn’t bad enough, my presentation was based solely on an original idea crafted and constructed by myself. Basically, I was presenting a very personal idea that hadn’t been shared with anyone prior to the presentation.

I’ve been a nervous nelly my whole life. Even in some of my bolder moments (high school theater, college speech class), I was shaking in my boots. I’ve learned to keep my nerves under control in smaller group settings, like pitch meetings or critique sessions, but just thinking about large group settings makes my heart race.

As a naturally anxious person, the thought of getting in front of a crowd was literally keeping me awake at night. I kept telling myself that I didn’t have to do it. After all, it wasn't exactly required that I get up there on my own. I could have backed out or jumped shipped and presented with a small group instead.

But I didn’t. And I am so ecstatic that I didn’t I could bust into a happy dance. To be clear, just because I followed through with the presentation doesn’t mean that it went well. In fact, I’m fairly certain it went horribly. I was awkwardly speaking in to and out of the mic (yes, a mic), couldn’t navigate through the Keynote to save my life (pro tip, have someone else do the click throughs), backtracked and then jumped forward without warning, and surely left out a lot of information that better articulated what was on the slides.

I don’t actually know how horrible it went, because, if I’m being honest, I don’t remember a thing. I remember that my nerves didn’t subside until I was sitting back in the audience where I felt I belonged in the first place. But I did it. And I know it seems silly, because people do similar things on the daily without losing sleep. I’m not one of those people. But maybe I’m a teeny bit closer to becoming a bit more like them.

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts recently, and the discussion of one episode (I can’t remember which one otherwise I’d cite it here) was focused on various fears creative entrepreneurs face. A life coach was speaking, and she mentioned that she often asks her clients, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?"

People normally reply with things like: “I could totally bomb; I could make a fool of myself; I could lose money;“ etc. And while those are all valid fears, she summed it up perfectly when she said something along these lines:

The worst thing that could happen is that you live the rest of your life never having tried.

That one thought changed everything for me. So what if I give this presentation and it’s an epic fail. Sure, making a fool of myself would suck, but missing an opportunity to let a little piece of me shine? That’s the epic fail.

So I did it. And, no, it wasn’t pleasant or enjoyable or well done. But it was worth it. It was so very worth it.