First off I’m not going to stand here and tell you that I am one of the best presenters out there. That would be a straight up lie, but I have bettered myself at least by tenfold.
Hi! My name is Daniel and I am one of the writers here at Rule the Room and I wanted to take a minute to share my personal battle with being a presenter and how it has affected my professional as well as personal life.
I assume my journey has been like most of you out there but with much better results at the end. Since as long as I can remember, I have had a major fear of public speaking. When I say major, I mean major! A perfect example would be me being called on to answer a question in class.
Even though I was in my seat and knew the answer to what was being asked of me, I would start to panic inside! I could hear the seats screech as students were turning their heads to hear what I had to say and although I had all the words inside my head the words just wouldn’t come out.
The funny part of it all is that I am not an introvert at all! I actually enjoy the spotlight, but when it is on my terms. There’s a big difference between being the life of the party when you’re surrounded by friends and being thrown up on stage to recite some information that you’re not passionate about.
As you can imagine this fear followed me through my childhood and well into my adulthood. College years were bad enough but when I hit the corporate world I finally learned a new level of fear! After all these were my colleagues that were now judging me…or at least that’s what I thought at the time.
In my mid 20’s something happened, I saw my professional career become stagnant. Now, a lot of you may be thinking “mid 20’s…you still have a way to go” but believe me I was going nowhere fast. While I received awesome praises from my superiors it never really led to any great advancement.
It kind of brought me back to when I was in secondary school, although I was one of the top students in my year, you would hardly be able to guess that by my performance in class. I was smart on paper but when it came to opening my mouth I came off as being not so bright.
Same thing was going on in my professional life, while I carried most of the load in my team the glory usually went to the well-spoken individual that could jump in front of the office and shine! I hope I am not coming off as bitter. I’m glad I went through what I did, it made me value the importance of being able to present. There’s more to it than conquering your fear.
It took many years but I am finally at a point where I know the ins and outs of presenting. I just wish I would have started working for Rule the Room earlier! Hahaha, I get awesome material for free. One of the courses that would have been God send would have been our Conquer Your Fear Bundle. If you’re anything like I was, you need to check that out today!
