Page 42 - Free Yourself From

Taking Action for Knowing and Being Yourself 25

and patterns of behaviors. It takes persistence, more than a little will,
and some well-timed help from other people around you.
I will never forget an event that fundamentally reshaped my inner
belief system. I was introverted and shy all the way through my
teenage years. Presenting in front of the class or speaking to an
assembly was like having my wisdom teeth pulled out. I forced myself
to show up and do it, but it was painful. I always had these fears
that I would not be prepared, would flub up, people would be bored,
and felt that I didn’t deserve that level of attention on me.
As I progressed in my career, I became good at avoiding speak-
ing obligations as much as I could, until close to 15 years ago when
I was asked to speak about leadership to a large audience of com-
munity leaders at a major conference in Washington, D.C. By that
point, I’d spent 10 years cultivating an expertise on leadership and
promoting myself, indeed building my business on that expertise.
Nevertheless, I drove alone to the conference, anguishing about
my talk, my knees shaking. I called Maureen, one of my business
partners, and shared with her how anxious I was. She said, “Becky,
I don’t get it. They picked you because you are the expert in this
area. In fact, you know more about this topic than they do and they
are paying you a good fee to come out and talk. That should be
enough for you to believe that they are coming to the conference
out of respect for you and a desire to hear your perspective and
firsthand knowledge based on your years of practice developing
leaders.”
I listened and it struck me that I never thought that way about
myself, but if my partner Maureen did, then others just might feel the
same way.
Hearing my business partner share her strong beliefs about me
helped me to gain a greater level of inner confidence and belief about
myself. I managed to present that morning and felt more comfortable