And now for something completely different…

Jay-Z’s achille’s heel may be loveeeee but mine happens to be speaking in public. I can’t even rationalize why it is I get so worked up about doing public speaking events. In fact, I can sit and rationalize why it makes no sense for me to be so terrified of the process but that doesn’t seem to shake my nerves in any way. There is the option to just avoid speaking in public all together but one of the greatest ways to build up your brand and generate new contacts is to do presentations at events geared toward your customer base. So on comes Maker Faire.

Maker Faire is a science and DIY fair put on by Make magazine and held in San Mateo, California with an attendance this year of around 60,000 attendees. On the giant fairgrounds, everywhere you look something amazing grabs your attention whether it is a computer rendering it’s own art or a self flying robot…

To give you a little background on my experience in public speaking, the largest presentation I have ever given was about 25 people in high school for five torturing minutes of stutters and awkward pauses. Not to mention I threw up the morning of my presentation because the nerves got my stomach so twisted. I had managed to avoid giving a talk of any kind for the entire life of my photography career…until Maker Faire.

When I want to learn a new trade I tend to dive in rather than gently step into the field. This has yielded both positive (very helpful learning new photo techniques) and negative (losing 25 golf balls every time I tee up for 18 holes…think Tin Cup) consequences for me in the past but like it or not it’s my nature….and when I try to fight it things generally turn out worse from my experience. So when Maker Faire asked me to give an hour long talk (along with head chef of MC Maxime Bilet) to a couple hundred people on center stage, I gave the “of course!” immediately…like I said, I tend to just dive in…

The room starting to fill up 10 minutes before the presentation

During the prep stages of compiling the presentation I was feeling very relaxed…which raised a question. Have I possibly gotten over my fear of public speaking through becoming comfortable with other related skills? There is a very long list of things I have become comfortable with that previously had been a sweat inducing, blood pressure spiking event. The list includes but is not limited to:

Being in the presence/talking with new people (especially the ladies!)
Talking on the phone (ya, it’s a weird one)
Speaking out during meetings
Voicing my opinions with strangers
etc etc etc

A few days before the presentation the symptoms began to show up…spiking blood pressure, the bg’s (bubble guts), loss of appetite. It immediately occurred to me that all the previous fears I had gotten over weren’t ones that I avoided for 10 years but instead ones I have had plenty of exposure to over the years. Gulp… The reaction was here to stay for Maker Faire but at least there was hope that through some experience and repetition there should be no reason I shouldn’t get over this fear as well…and what better time to start than now. Fast forward two days to the morning of the talk…

The nerves get a bit excruciating for the lead up to the presentation. I begin by waking up around 8:00 am and proceed to pace around for about an hour going over what I’m going to say in my head. Follow that with pulling a Jim Kelly (Hall of Fame NFL quarterback who famously threw up before every big game) and let go of some of the water I had been drinking while pacing. Unfazed, I drank a few more cups of water and we were off to the fairgrounds. Little did I know, that the nerves would also somehow move the water through my system extremely quickly… So we are driving down 101 and I’m already getting the urge to urinate. Coming to the exit I find that we are not the only ones going to the fairgrounds…as the exit is backed up and moving around 2 mph. I tried for about 10 minutes to hold it when the pressure became too much. I exited the car and had to make an early public appearance on highway 101 in front of plenty of Maker Faire attendees, but at least I didn’t need to do any speaking. Adding to the amusement, the second I start traffic begins moving a bit faster and I watch my ride drive off in the distance as I give a show to about 20 cars full of Makers in my bright aqua plaid shirt which I will be a)wearing all day b)more importantly wearing on stage. I still wonder if anyone who drove by was at the talk :p. Oddly enough; I don’t mind this kind of exposure, I was laughing out loud as I sprinted back to the car after my performance.

Like I said bright shirt!

With all of that out of the way I made the conscious decision to not eat or drink anything before going on stage. Aside from that, I didn’t do much prep the day of the presentation because whenever I began to start reciting lines from the presentation I would get a wave of anxiety. I felt it was best for me to just try and relax, telling myself to remember to speak clearly and not rush through my parts. So I’m still feeling fairly calm as we begin to set-up the stage. Until we begin having AV trouble… we wanted to run our powerpoint in presenter view so Max could read some of his notes on stage. While it worked on the test set-up, it actually didn’t want to work during the real life set-up so we spent the better 5 silent minutes, with the exception of the two attempted introductions when things were starting to work out and a couple of heckles from the crowd, trying to set up the presentation.

and we're off

Presentation begins and you know what….goes decent enough considering the build up for failure. I could go into massive critical detail into the failures and occasional successes of the actual presentation but the quality of the presenting isn’t really the point. The point is; despite my body and mind fighting me the whole way…telling me not to get up on that stage, I got up on the stage anyways. Because I wanted to, and I hate the fact that it instills such a strong fear in me for no logical reason. When told I can’t do something I tend to take a “watch me, you m’f'r” stance. I guess that reigns true even when being told by myself. The only way to get past irrational fears is to face them and not let your natural disposition get in the way doing what you want or are capable of. I’m not over the fear as of yet, but the first step is hopefully the hardest.

“Quitting is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” ~ Unknown