Nothing is as scary as you think it is going to be - if you're anything like me, your fertile and critical imagination is always going to be worse than how things turn out in the real world. I forget this fact far too often, and the experience around talking at TEDxHobart is just another reminder of this truth.A few days after the talk I published a post about the experience The ups and downs of my TEDx Talk - Part 1. I mentioned that I would be writing another post after the video of the talk went onto YouTube, so here it is.A surprising Monday morning tweetI found out that the talk was on YouTube in a very random way - through this tweet from James Marino.
My sleepy brain was initially "oh that's nice he liked my talk" - it took a couple of seconds for the synapses to connect to, "What! featuring my talk on the blog?" A quick YouTube search later confirmed that the talk had indeed gone live - nervous excitement was the first emotion to hit me.You know how there are the things you know about yourself? Well I knew that I wanted to blast this news out to the universe, but I also knew that if I didn't do it quickly I would end up going into vulnerability mode and hesitating. So the next half hour was spent tweeting, facebooking (is that even a word), putting up a quick blog post, and emailing a lot of people directly.And then, sure enough...
The feeling of excitement started to shift about 45 minutes later. Oh, I was still excited about it, I'm still excited about it now - but the other emotions started coming thick and fast. The same dread that came after giving the talk, combined with the fear of it suddenly being out there for anyone to find.
I rode that wave of emotions far better this time than in the days after giving the talk, but it was a slightly terrifying day. Of course it was helped by all of my wonderful friends who watched it and gave me enthusiastic and supportive feedback - and getting up the nerve to watch it myself was very beneficial as well.
Then of course there was the never-ending generosity of TED speakers whose talks I used in the project. The feedback from some of the them was extremely lovely, and I can't believe so many of them watched it.
Wouldn't change a thing
I mentioned previously that I didn't know if I would watch the talk, for anyone who has never watched themselves do something like this, it is an odd feeling. We all know that our voice sounds different inside our heads than it does outside our heads - listening to your recorded voice is a strange thing. But listening to your external voice, married up with the image of you and talking about something extremely personal is a surreal experience.
I'm very glad that I watched it because I'm happy with how it came out, although I did cringe at the nervous giggle that I thought I had under better control these days.
Overall, it's an experience that I'm so glad I was able to have, and one I will always remember. I hope to share my story with other people through more public speaking, but sharing it on a TEDx stage and with that community has been something incredibly special for me. It sort of feels like it's all come full circle in a way, and that's a great feeling.
This article is © Copyright – All rights reserved by Kylie Dunn.
