Presenting...

I had to do a presentation in front of about 30 partners today on some very complex technical accounting sctuff... first time i've been nervous for a presentation in a long time. I'm trying to think of the last time... well, I suppose the first time I had to teach a UFE class of 150 people, I was pretty darn nervous too... that was a few years ago. What a change from growing up. I never ever wanted to do presentations. I was the quiet one, who stammered and really had to fight through speaking in public. All through elementary school and high school, I absolutely dreaded oral presentations.

Thinking back, I'm really thankful that public speaking was a required course for us in university... i still hated it, but it made me really confront my fear... from doing an informative speech on being in a typhoon in taiwan, to my entertaining speech on why I could beat mike tyson... that course really helped me overcome a lot of my fears.

Realizing that it was a real weakness that I suddenly felt I could overcome, I made it a real point to try to improve... forcing myself into teaching and recruiting, meeting a ton of people, having to speak in front of small groups, big groups... it's amazing how much you can improve at something if you just admit you have a weakness and really focus on trying to improve. you make mistakes on the way for sure, but if you keep that big picture view, you'll always get better...

Yes, I still get nervous, or feel uncomfortable sometimes... but usually after that first 20 seconds or so, I'm in cruise control. As long as I know the content, I think I can speak in front of anyone now... I pretty much wing every speech/lecture/presentation I give now... which brings me back to the reason I was nervous today, which was that I really didn't feel that comfortable with the content. Presenting a topic I don't know thoroughly still rattles me a lot. I was just waiting for someone to realize that I don't know what I'm talking about... I know, easy fix, right? learn it... sigh... I think that's really my real problem now. Not presenting things... I'm ok with that... but rather, my brain has slowed down completely... finding it harder and harder to learn new things... what's the quick fix for that?