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Overcoming my fear of public speaking
I'm flying high above southern France, the sun fresh in the sky and clouds hugging close to the ground below.
This afternoon I am speaking about CSS Systems to a waiting audience in Basel, Switzerland.
Two weeks ago I gave my first proper talk at BarCamp London 5. To experienced speakers this will sound strange but I was petrified to stand up and express opinions in front of possibly the friendliest audience there is, a group of about 25 supportive and interested friends.
I have possibly the most common phobia out there: the fear of public speaking. I had accepted it and come to terms with being the one who helps on the sidelines.
At BarCamps I would organise lightning talks, show and tells and IE6 debugging games, which was a great way of conforming to the required participatory nature of BarCamp without risking what I feared would be professional suicide.
Some of you will know that my partner Simon Willison is a very experienced and excitable speaker, so I am quite accustomed to the speaker circuit without being directly part of it and in fact most of my friends are experienced speakers as well.
It's not that I don't have anything to say, nor do I mind talking one to one or occasionally socially in small groups. I am excitable and opinionated. I am even OK on stage introducing speakers for things like Oxford Geek Nights. It's all the expectant faces staring back at you and the fear that I'm going to waste several minutes to an hour of their lives. I didn't have the conviction of my opinions: what if I was wrong?
I used to clam up. Once I was even told by someone that they were worried I had stopped breathing.
In January of this year I started working for Clearleft. There is a strong culture of community involvement, writing and speaking at conferences. Writing articles and community involvement were fine for me, but naturally I felt the implicit pressure to start actually speaking and not just organising games and lightning talks.
We had a speaking coach run a day's training for us which did really help but without having that put in to practice the fear was still there.
At BarCamp London — despite pressing a button on the remote that turned off the projector — everything went well and after I posted the slides, I was taken aback by the positive response to the content.
I firmly believe that if you are afraid of something, that's more reason to do it. What good is going through life only doing things you find easy? It's the only way you can really learn about yourself. Test your limits and don't give up.
The reaction to the content spurred me on to agree to this conference in Switzerland but the desire to face the fear and overcome it was the overpowering factor. It doesn't mean I'm not scared, but I can only do my best.
So go, do something that you are afraid of and you will be surprised at yourself.
Update: The talk in Switzerland went well. I was initially very scared, but got in to the swing of things and had some good feedback at the end. It was definitely worth doing.
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