Feel the fear and do it anyway!
It's easy to stay in our comfort zone, but that isn't where real life happens.
This week was a week of stepping out of our comfort zones. My sister, and co-founder of Booksmith Academy, Jen, and I were asked to talk at York Literature Festival, as part of their student showcase. The event was hosted at York St John University in their beautiful new Creative Centre. I can’t believe I graduated from St John’s 25 years ago, it was wonderful to be back there. It was a fabulous event, and we both loved listening to the students reading their poetry and prose to the audience of friends, family, lecturers and general public.
Time to talk
Over the years I have done a lot of public speaking, and although I still get nervous talking in front of big audiences, I know that it is something I can do. Jen, on the other hand has been a self proclaimed desk monkey for the last 25 years. She avoids presenting at all costs, but, although she had the option of allowing me to take the lead, do the talk and represent the company, she knew that she wanted to talk. She is my hero because she regularly looks at things that scare her and makes the decision to push herself right out of her comfort zone.
What’s more, she was incredible. You can see from the photo above, she looks relaxed, she delivered her content with charisma and style and captivated the audience. We had incredible feedback from everyone and by the time the event finished we were both buzzing with that knowledge that we had done something big and brave.
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