The journey to overcome my fear of public speaking

How I went from terrified of public speaking to delivering a talk at my favourite conference.

In 2018 I was invited to speak at MicroConf Starter in Las Vegas, my “dream” speaking opportunity.

When I attended MicroConf for the first time in 2016, I had my mind blown. I learned so much from both the speakers and the attendees, and realized how little I knew about growing a software business.

The speakers were ridiculously smart and successful people who had been in the trenches and had massive value to offer.

I remember thinking that speaking on that stage would mean, wow, I’ve made it.

I had been working up the courage to submit an attendee talk (a short 12-min talk delivered by attendees between speaker sessions) when I received an invitation to speak at MicroConf Starter.

This was an opportunity that was too good to pass up, but the terror was real. I agreed to do the talk before I had time to talk myself out of it.

Fast forward through 4 months of anxiety and sleepless nights preparing for my talk…

“You obviously do a lot of speaking”

One of the attendees approached me at the after party and said something along the lines of “You obviously do a lot of speaking…” and I laughed and had to admit to him that:

1. It was my first time delivering the talk
2. This was one of my first big speaking gigs

It got me thinking about just how far I have come, and everything I had invested in myself and my personal development to get there.

It’s way too easy to watch people on stage and see the polished finished product without the full context for what it took to make happen.

How did I go from being totally terrified of public speaking to accepting an offer to speak at my favourite conference?

I spent 5 years actively pursuing the mastery of skills I knew I would need to get there.

It wasn’t easy. It took a lot of time, exploration, and practice. I want to share with you everything that has gone into the process of working through my fear of being on stage, and what it took to land my dream speaking gig.

Maybe you’ll be inspired to take a step toward the stage, even if you’re too scared, or think it’s just not possible for you.

Anxious beginnings

As a young child I used to win public speaking competitions at school. Then middle school happened and I shrunk into a tiny shell of a human. I was made fun of for being flat-chested (I was a late bloomer on so many levels), and decided that I just didn’t ever want to stand in front of a group of people.

Being in front of my peers or being the centre of attention became the thing I hated most.

I avoided walking down the aisles of buses or planes, because I hated the feeling of eyes on me. (I wouldn’t even go to the bathroom on the plane because I hated this feeling.) Yep, it was a crippling anxiety that was holding me back.

The thing I envied most about others? Unflappable confidence. I hated that I didn’t have it.

I’m just not a “speaker”

Public speaking is not a thing I ever believed was possible for me, because “I’m just not one of ‘those people.’”

You know the ones: the “naturals.” The extroverts. The people who exude self confidence, charisma, and poise. There’s “speakers” and then there’s “the rest of us,” I thought.

The fear was strong. Very strong.

And yet, I had a hunch that I was majorly holding myself back professionally by letting my fear prevent me from trying to learn this new skill.

I realized that I envied those who could stand on stage and look so natural, while delivering a great story with powerful takeaways. Despite my fear, there was obviously a longing.

What if I could be that person for someone else?
Is stage fright really a thing I can conquer?
Could I learn how to be a good story teller?
Did I really have anything of value to offer?

All the questions.

I didn’t know the answer(s), but I knew I had to try.

Speaking isn’t really just speaking

There are so many skills involved in delivering a great talk: Body language, voice, delivery, pacing, content, story-telling, working the stage, assembling a slide deck, etc.

As a business owner, I have worked on some of these skills in different ways, all of which have helped me in building a signature talk.

Here are some of the specific things that I believe have helped me in the journey:

Running Tiny Workshops

I ran my first “build your website” workshops from my shared office space in Toronto, with a small group of 8 people. I had never done any formal teaching, but I brought along some friends who needed help getting their websites up and running, and charged a low price. It was a really positive experience.

+1 Experience teaching in a small group

Live Webinars + Podcasts

Since 2014 I’ve done podcast interviews for anyone who asks.

True story: I burst into tears immediately after one of my first interviews.

It was an interview with a pretty big name in the online marketing space, and I had so much nervous energy I crashed immediately afterward.

During the interview I felt myself fumbling over my words and blurted out “I’m sorry, I’m so nervous!” and thought I’d botched it. He was cool as a cucumber and brushed it off, saying there was no reason to be and he was very interested in my story, and we just continued talking. Of course they simply edited that out, and the interview itself was fine. I was blown away by his professionalism and compassion.

I felt SO silly about having been so nervous, and refused to let my fear get the best of me.

I tend to do a podcast interview 1–3x monthly, so inevitably, they get better and better each time as I hone my message, get practice communicating it, and figure out what really matters to me. THESE ARE STILL NERVE WRACKING. It’s not like these are easy, but I refuse to be held back by perfectionism or fear.

The point is, interviewing well is a skill that you can work on. It’s not something you’re simply good or bad at.

• +1 Podcast Interviews and Webinars give you practice honing your message, speaking to many listeners, and building your authority & trust.

Small Conferences

✦ Gather North
In 2015 I was invited to speak at Gather North, a small conference (~35–40 people) for Women of the Web. The organizers had seen one of my blog posts, and wondered if I might build on it to create a talk. They didn’t know I hadn’t done any formal speaking before… but they seemed to trust in my capacity to do it (I’m guessing podcast interviews were part of this trust building).

This is when I panicked and hired a speech coach because I had no idea how to prepare for a “real” talk.

I purchased a small digital coaching program from Michelle Mazur that included 2 coaching calls to help me narrow in on my core message, find my supporting points, and organize my story structurally. Both her training resource library and coaching helped me understand speech basics, and feel like I had a strong direction.

I won’t lie, I barely slept the 2 nights before. It was physically and emotionally exhausting, and I questioned whether this made sense for me to pursue because it just took so much out of me. It helped that the women in the audience were amazing people, and I got a chance to chat and make friends with them in the day before my talk. These folks are STILL good friends, 5 years later.

• +1 Speech Coach
• +1 Speaking to attendees before you do your talk

✦ Starting Point Student Entrepreneurship Conference
In 2016 I was invited to speak at the SPSU conference in Nova Scotia. They asked for 2 presentations, and I adapted one of my presentations from a virtual conference to this audience.

It was a lot of work to create two presentations, and I wouldn’t do this again! One presentation at a time. I also felt like I really didn’t know the audience very well and what their needs were, so it was stressful to create content for this audience without more context. I might have asked the organizers more questions looking back.

The talks were given in small university classrooms with 30–40 people.

I barely slept the 2 nights before in anticipation. The stress was unnecessarily high for this one.

• - 1 Preparing more than one talk
• - 1 Not being intimately familiar with your audience’s needs/experience

Virtual Conferences

I’ve been invited to do a number of virtual conferences for a number of different audiences, and in a number of different formats. Some were pre-recorded, some had slide presentations, some were interview-style, and some had live audience Q+A.

It’s important to try out a few different formats to figure out what’s comfortable for you. I much prefer when they’re led by someone who I can see, and I get to interact with the audience.

• +1 Virtual Events help you get practice being in front of an audience, sharing your expertise, without being in front of a sea of faces
• pro tip: Don’t agree to do virtual events that don’t make sense for your business or message. I wasted a ton of time agreeing to be a guest for events that didn’t really make sense (the audience attendees were never going to be potential customers or super fans, and it just wasn’t an obvious “heck yes” connection).
• I have also turned down events when I received really poor or awkward questions that I knew wouldn’t allow me to shine.

Panels

Panels can be a great way to practice being on stage without being the center of attention. I accepted any offers to be on a panel, even though my legs and voice would shake. I never waited for it to feel comfortable, because I knew that would never come.

Oddballs

• Personal therapy. I had a chance to talk through some of my stage fright and hangups around “being seen.” This was immensely helpful work.
• 100 Day Challenge. I made a video every day for 100 days. This was seriously painful and uncomfortable, and definitely made the idea of talking about my ideas less intimidating.
• The East Van Pillow Fight Club. Yes, I actually joined a pillow fight league in Vancouver. I saw them fight at a talent show, and I thought it was one of the coolest and funniest things I’d ever seen. I had to come up with a persona and a wrestling-style intro, and had to fight another woman in a match up at a bar where patrons could bet on winners, with proceeds going to a rape relief shelter. Marie Slamtoinette won her first match, btw.

• Acting Classes (Meisner Technique). Ok, nothing could possibly compare to this experience. This was definitely one of the most personally challenging and rewarding things I’ve EVER done. EVER. This was seriously a life-changing experience for me on so many levels, beyond “speaking experience.”
  I started by signing up for the Supernaturally Shy Intro to Acting, and I was terrified. By the second class we had to spontaneous sing a few verses of a song on stage and I thought I could feel my internal organs shutting down. “Oh so this is what death feels like?”
  This class stretched me so far beyond my comfort zone I couldn’t even see it anymore. I did these classes weekly for a year, and I am forever changed, and so grateful to my teacher. This was personal development on steroids.
  (A topic for another post…)

Books

The following books have been really helpful in my own learning journey:

• Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller
• Public Speaking by Lara Hogan
• Steal the Show by Michael Port

Courses

Creative Live has some really great courses around storytelling and public speaking. These in particular have been helpful:

• Power Your Podcast with Storytelling by Alex Blumberg
• Heroic Public Speaking
• Master The Art of Teaching by Michael Port

Shine Bootcamp

I had the privilege of being in the pilot group of Shine Bootcamp, an immersive 3-day incubator for womxn in technology, marketing and startup environments who want to share their stories, become respected thought leaders in their industries and, ultimately, secure large-scale professional speaking gigs. This experience was life-changing, and any woman who wants to get into public speaking NEEDS to do this bootcamp!

Speakers and coaches included Joanna Wiebe, Oli Gardner, and Michael Aagard.

The best part about the bootcamp was getting a recording of your talk in order to submit for future speaking opportunities.

Personal Coaching

• Michael Aagard. After my incredible experience with Shine bootcamp, I hired Michael Aagard for some personal coaching in preparation for my talk. These was invaluable! It was so helpful to get an outside perspective on what makes for a strong angle/story, and talking my concepts out loud was incredibly helpful.
  Michael really helped me think through the different elements from Content, Concept, Idea, Structure, and Introduction/Conclusion.
• Tanya Geisler. Tanya is a masterful coach who specializes in the imposter complex. My work with her years earlier was invaluable. This work was what helped me realize that I had some deeper work to do in therapy to get to the root of some very deep fear that was holding me back.

Getting to MicroConf

While I hired a speaking coach to help me get ready for the big talk, I realized that there had truly been a mountain of learning, preparation, practice, and people that have gone into making this personal life achievement happen.

The entirety of my professional career has been an exercise in learning to get more comfortable in the discomfort of being seen.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that speaking is not something you can achieve because you’re “not a natural.”

If I can do it, anyone can do it.

I even wore my cardigan inside-out while on stage. And I laughed about while answering questions after my talk.

And I didn’t die.