šļø Issue #1: On Speaking in front of Strangers
How I conquered my fear of sharing my thoughts and knowledge in front of an audience
Hello there!
And welcome to the first issue of my newsletter! My name is Kax and during the day I work as a Product Manager in a company that does marketplaces worldwide. After work, I coach other Product Managers.
In this newsletter, I will be sharing my war stories (aka my own learnings) in Product Management, Career Development, Personal Improvement, and other things keep me up at night (or at least used to) š
If you have topics that youād like me to cover, or questions that youād like to get an opinion on - just reply to this email, or send me a message.
Alright here we go!
On to the Reading!
This post was originally written in December 2019 and published on Medium.
At the end of 2018, I made a promise to myself, after much urging from my former manager slash coach, Anna Cosic, that 2019 would be the year I conquer my fear of speaking in front of strangers.
Iām not exactly afraid of being on stage or being in front of a crowd. On the contrary, I enjoy it immensely. I did theatre when I was younger and I have unrealized pop-star dreams. So whenever you put me on stage (or just in the front of a meeting room) with a microphone, Iām pretty much in my element.
But I was afraid to speak in front of strangers because I was afraid to talk about⦠well things. My own opinions. My own learnings. Things that have to come from my own brain and heart.
I was afraid that whatever it is that comes out of my mouth will be so ridiculous that I would just be wasting peopleās time (or worse money). You would think that somebody who has no qualms singing Bon Joviās Living on a Prayer in front of a crowd would have no problems with ridiculous things coming out of their mouth.
But I was in the middle of trying to figure out whatās next for my career. So I needed to try new things. Take bolder steps.
And speaking in front of people about Product Management (among other things) seemed bold enough to me. So I did.
And now, itās December 2019. One year later. And Iāve accomplished the following:
ā
Spoke in front of a crowd to pitch for a community I was building
ā
Spoke in meetupsĀ about Product Management in both Barcelona and Lisbon (woohoo internationaaaaaaaalll)
ā
Started teaching a course about Product Management
ā
Did my first ever international conference in Lisbon
ā
Started a group with friends where we are giving workshops to other women to help them grow in their careers
Not bad, eh? So what changed? A lot! Especially the things I let run through my head.

Public Speaking is not an American Idol Audition
If I look at it from a different angle ā Iām absolutely not afraid of airing out my thoughts and feelings in public as long as itās on (virtual) paper. It didnāt matter so much to me who could potentially be reading my thoughts about living in Barcelona, or how stressful being a Product Manager can sometimes be. They could be my manager, the mayor of Barcelona, or the person who invented the role Product Manager, and I still wouldnāt mind. I was from the generation who wore our hearts on our sleeves on LiveJournal after all.
If I wasnāt afraid of putting my brain dump out there for potentially thousands of people to read and then judge, why was I afraid of speaking in front of a crowd thatās barely even 100?
My problem was, I saw public speaking as an American Idol audition; that if I wasnāt āgood enoughā, I would be judged harshly and thatād be the end of my career. Except I had 0 idea what good enough meant. So I assumed.
š¤¦āāļø I assumed that good enough meant that I knew everything there was to know about a certain topic.
š¤¦āāļø And that what I was sharing needed to echo what was being said by every thought leader imaginable.
š¤¦āāļø I assumed that I had to tick off all the boxes in the heads of every single person in the room.
Of course, with those as my criteria of āgood enoughā ā every time I spoke in front of people felt like getting a no, even from Paula Abdul who sees a butterfly emerging from a cocoon from every š single š audition.
So I redefined my āgood enoughā.

The secret to my courage is beer
To be āgood enoughā is not the purpose
Fresh from one of my post-speaking crisis, my manager asked me, āWhat do you want to get out of doing all these?ā
Good question.
Speaking in front of strangers, talking about the things Iāve been through when it comes to Product Management or growing in my career ā why in the world would I voluntarily do that? Especially when being judged is what Iām most afraid of in the world.
Well ā I wanted to share with other people what Iāve learned over the years.
When I started Product Management, I had no idea what being a Product Manager really meant. It wasnāt until I moved to Barcelona 4 years ago did I really learn how to be one. And not without tears, frustration, and a whole lot of embarrassment. Up to now, Iām still learning.
Long story short, it caused a lot of ruckus on my leveling at work, problems with my non-promotion, among many others.
Imagine the impact all of that had on my confidence.
So thatās why I started teaching, presenting, sharing ā what have you.
I didnāt want more people to fumble around like I did. I figured, if by sharing everything I know, things other people have taught me too, thereād be at least one more person out there who would go to work the following day a tad bit more confident about themselves and what they do than they were the day before.
AndĀ THATĀ is what I wanted to get out of doing all these.
Which brings me to my last point.
Personal Perspective >>> Expertise
I used to be so afraid of being judged as not good enough by other people. Not good enough to share what I know. Or what I know is not good enough to be shared.
Until a trainer in a workshop I went to said that we didnāt need to have PHDs to be allowed to stand in front of people and share our stories. And how our own perspectives, our own personal experiences, are so much stronger than repeating theories other people have written. Because they were ours. š¤Æ
And holy moly expletives I shouldnāt publish goes in this sentence.
It made a lot of sense. And if I were sharing MY story. MY experience ā then everything I would be talking about ISĀ good enough.
Which meant that:
šāāļø It didnāt matter if I didnāt know the topic from all its possible angles well enough write a book about it.
šāāļø It didnāt matter if I wasnāt echoing what the thought leaders of the world were saying. (Which is great because I didnāt agree with half of them š)
š And it absolutely didnāt matter if I wasnāt ticking off all the checkboxes in the heads of everybody who was in front of me
And it all goes back full circle to WHY Iām doing all of these in the first place.
I wanted to help people feel better about how they were doing their jobs and feel more confident about how theyāre progressing in their careers. And my way of doing that was to share what I have learned ā throughout my own journey and my own mistakes.
Of course my story will not echo any thought leaderās opinion. Of course it will not tick off all of the boxes in peopleās heads. Because itās not supposed to in the first place. Because itās personal. And thatās the beauty of it.
And besides, you know what ā I do have an expertise. In my topic. Because I lived it. And itās high time I own that.

And always looking to our Lady Beyonce for inspiration
What doesnāt kill you makes you stronger
I wish I could tell you that my confidence reached Master level after all that realization. That I just nailed every speaking opportunity since then. That I never had to battle impostor syndrome ever again.
Nope. At least not completely.
I still see every speaking or teaching opportunity as an American Idol audition.
EXCEPT.
Except this time Iāve stopped seeing every single person looking at me as Simon Cowells just waiting for me to bomb. I started seeing myself as Kelly Clarkson instead (because letās face it, sheās the only one who had a career that mattered out of all the season winners) just one song away from becoming a legend in Pop Music.
More importantly,Ā I started focusing on WHY Iāve chosen to stand in front of a lot of peopleĀ to speak in the first place. I will never get a 100% agreement on what I have to say and thatās ok. But if thereās at least one person in that audience who will walk out of the room after Iāve spoken, thinking theyāve learned something that will help them tackle their own worries ā then Iām going to stand a little taller and sign up for the next opportunity to do it all over again.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. š¤
p.s.
I also practiced a lot, took presentation courses, and volunteered as tribute as much as I can to learn how to speak better. šŖ
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