The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Nelson Mandela

In an interesting prompt, Bloganuary asks me: “What fear have you conquered?“

I think I have a definitive answer to this one – that would be the fear of public speaking.

For the longest time, I was shit scared of getting up on stage and talking in public. I would feel my knees give away and my entire body tremble. Should I add that I was spectacularly bad at it too? Then somehow, it changed.

Looking back, I can’t pin point a particular moment when it happened, but I think it was sometime during college when I got more chances to be on stage. With every progressive appearance, I felt my fear give away to a weird confidence, sometimes even bordering on excitement. As time passed, I saw the fear reduce and the confidence grow.

As I stepped into my professional life, I found myself excited at the possibility of public speaking – especially my time at Automattic.

These days, if you ask me to get on stage, I would welcome it with both arms. Curiously enough, the fear has never left me – it is still there; but subconsciously I see it get transformed into a sense of excitement and nervous energy that prompts me to adopt an excited, energetic self, while on stage.

You would think that I would not be scared of public speaking at this point – hell no! The thought still scares me. As I mentioned, the nervous energy still overcomes me – but the trick is that I somehow discovered a way to channel it into a sense of excitement. Once I find my footing on stage, I am able to do my best out there.

So in the truest sense of the word, every time I get on stage, I conquer my fear of public speaking – once again!