Escape Your Comfort Zone, Jump on Stage
What I learned from speaking at 10+ conferences
December is a great time to zoom out from the day-to-day and reflect on the year gone by. As a performance marketer, I work in a very fast-paced industry and am constantly learning. A year ago, I decided to put myself out there, get on stage and share these learnings and experiences with the rest of the community — even if English is not my native language, even if I had at the time a small network in Berlin, even if I had no idea if people would be interested. Despite all that, I know that I had valuable things to say and I was ready for this challenge. One person in particular, Florina Muntenescu, a close friend and amazing speaker, inspired and motivated me, especially with her article “You do have something to say”.
You’re a developer, you’re writing code and learning new things every day. Share it! Share your experience, your problems and solutions... Most of all, get out of your bubble, be open to new opportunities and empower other developers to become better.
How it all started
It all started when I approached Pan during a mobile growth meetup organised by his company. I asked him why they didn’t have more women on stage. He smiled and told me that he was actually looking for more women to share their experiences, but found no volunteers. Without any doubt I told him “Well, here I am”. A couple of weeks later I was on my first panel, scared, excited and proud. In Italy I was used to giving lectures in universities and also at conferences. However, this was a completely different new environment and audience. I was starting from zero, all over again. Guess what? The panel was great, I felt really comfortable on stage and super excited to see people interacting and asking questions. After this panel I proposed myself to conferences, asking advice from other amazing speakers and building a network in the app industry.
Since then, I’ve spoken at 10+ marketing conferences across Europe, about lots of topics close to my heart; growth hacking, UA, attribution and (my first love) data. I would love to say that it was all easy, but it wasn’t.
Why am I doing this again?
You need guts and perseverance to put yourself on a stage and outside of your comfort zone. Most of the time, right before getting onstage, I was thinking “Why am I doing this again?”
Truth is, I did it because I had something to say and I chose to take the time and claim the opportunity to do it. And people reacted overwhelmingly positively. I’ve made countless new connections and friends and by sharing my work, I’ve received so many great insights in return. And I’m really grateful for that. I don’t want to list of all of you, but if you are reading this article and you are one of these person, THANK YOU!
Get out of your comfort zone, now
The thing is that, if you want to grow and learn, you need to drag yourself out of the comfort zone. If you are lucky, you will be surrounded by outstanding people that will push you to the limit and gently kick your ass. But you are the only one that can actually do something about it, the only obstacle to your own success.
I hope that 2018 will bring me new challenges, new uncomfortable moments that will make me grow as a person and a marketer. And I hope this article will inspire some of you to push out of your comfort zone as well, even if you are scared as f***. It’s ok to be.
If this article inspires you but you don’t know where to start, reach out to me on Twitter or Linkedin, I’ll do my best to give you some advice!
