I may be a day late and a dollar short for Un-SQL Friday #004: Speaker Lessons Learned but still felt I had something to share.

One of my favorite book series is The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind. The first of the 11 book series is called Wizards First Rule. It’s one of those oft rehashed tales of someone ordinary who turns out to be anything but. One of the things passed along was the first of a series of rules about magic. It made me think of speaking and the rules around that.

There are numerous rules (sure, you could call them guidelines or pieces of advice but we’re playing semantics here so go with it).

So here’s rule #1…

Don’t be afraid, go for it!

 

Such a simple rule. So often I read tweets from folks who talk about wanting to be able to present and wishing they could do so. There are people who really want to speak at the PASS Summit but haven’t submitted a session because of fear.

Fear of public speaking, making a mistake, things going wrong and rejection are all valid reasons why people get scared to submit their first session. It’s why folks don’t submit for their user groups or local SQLSaturday events. It’s why you may even be too nervous to present on a subject to team members at your company.

I get that, I’ve been there. You know what though? I decided I wanted to present and that ultimately I wanted to present at the Summit. To do that I had to get started. I chose my first event and submitted a session. Things went well the first time, not so well the second. I’ve had (what felt like) a complete disaster in a session and yet I’m still here, still standing and I’ve submitted to present at this years Summit. Whether or not I get chosen doesn’t matter at this point, the chief thing is that I tried (see getting over the fear of rejection).

I managed to conquer my fear, I know that you can do that same. What’s the worst that can happen?