I had to give a speech on Tuesday (the day after I got back from OBX). Let me tell you, I was stressed. As I was preparing for the Women in Sports Awards Ceremony I kept thinking to myself, "Why on earth did you agree to do this? You hate speaking in front of people." You would think with the amount of times I've been in front of hundreds of people dribbling a little orange ball around, speaking to a couple hundred people for 15 minutes would be a snap. Not so much. I love to talk and inspire and try to make people see things that they don't normally see by challenging them to look at things from a different point of view. But for some reason, the second you put a mic in front of my mouth, I start to fear that my words will not be eloquent enough, or I will sound like a dumb jock to a group of people I really don't know or I will start talking and make absolutely no sense to whoever (whomever?) is listening.
I started writing the speech while I was at OBX and quickly realized why it may be a bad thing if I ever got to work from home. It is VERY hard for me to stay motivated and focused when I have things going on around me (people coming in and out of the house from the beach/pool, music playing, sun shinning... I mean really, how's a girl supposed to work?). Thankfully, one of my friends, Chuck, knew I had to work on this speech and he kept me a little more focused. He was such a help! He would listen to me blurt out ideas and brain storms of what I wanted to say and then he would come up with ways of how to organize them and or suggest ideas to give it a little flavor! He was a huge help to starting the process... THaNkS CHUCK! (this is Chuck)
I started writing the speech while I was at OBX and quickly realized why it may be a bad thing if I ever got to work from home. It is VERY hard for me to stay motivated and focused when I have things going on around me (people coming in and out of the house from the beach/pool, music playing, sun shinning... I mean really, how's a girl supposed to work?). Thankfully, one of my friends, Chuck, knew I had to work on this speech and he kept me a little more focused. He was such a help! He would listen to me blurt out ideas and brain storms of what I wanted to say and then he would come up with ways of how to organize them and or suggest ideas to give it a little flavor! He was a huge help to starting the process... THaNkS CHUCK! (this is Chuck)
I decided that I really needed to dedicate all Tuesday to finishing and going over my speech so I left OBX on Monday night instead of Tuesday morning (and boy am I glad I did that b/c I had more work to do than I realized).
I woke up Tuesday and got to work. I had hand written everything that Chuck and I had brainstormed about (he even had me outline most of my speech... thank God for organized people in my life) but I realized that my thoughts are much clearer for some reason when I'm typing. So I typed out what exactly I was going to say and then went over it outloud probably somewhere around 15 times (no exaggeration... I was nervous and when you're nervous the best thing to combat that is practice).
It was 6:00 when I left the house for the Ffx Co Govt center where the Women In Sports Awards Ceremony was taking place. This gave me 15 minutes, just enough time to go over my speech one last time, until I arrived. Finally, I was there, it was game time baby! I felt like I was going to throw up the second I walked into the building and realized just how many people were going to be attending. I had originally thought I would just speak without reading at all (being that I had gone over the speech so many times, I didn't think it would be a problem) but the little girl inside of me was panicking and decided I needed to take what I had written up with me to serve as a back up.
Mom ended up showing up in order to give me a little encouragement and support which was nice. Well, now was the time. I hear the M.C. (Coach Priester) start to talk about me and the path my life had taken. "There's no turning back now! Lord, help me...a lot!" And He did. I got through it, and unscathed at that. I may have stumbled over a few words or so and had to read a few lines of my speech from my paper, BUT from what I know, there were no boogies hanging from my nose, my skirt was not tucked into my underpants (you know how that happens sometimes after going to the bathroom? The back of it just gets caught and you don't even notice) and I think I actually got a few chuckles from the audience when telling some funny stories from my life when I played sports.
So all this to say, I still hate speaking in front of people. But, as a friend reminded me, it's so good for me b/c it stretches me and makes me depend on God to do something that I honestly am not skilled at doing. The fact that I could get through the speech is a testiment to the fact that God does not call the equipped, He equips the called! And I am so thankful for that!
oh and p.s.- Mom cried. lol.
I woke up Tuesday and got to work. I had hand written everything that Chuck and I had brainstormed about (he even had me outline most of my speech... thank God for organized people in my life) but I realized that my thoughts are much clearer for some reason when I'm typing. So I typed out what exactly I was going to say and then went over it outloud probably somewhere around 15 times (no exaggeration... I was nervous and when you're nervous the best thing to combat that is practice).
It was 6:00 when I left the house for the Ffx Co Govt center where the Women In Sports Awards Ceremony was taking place. This gave me 15 minutes, just enough time to go over my speech one last time, until I arrived. Finally, I was there, it was game time baby! I felt like I was going to throw up the second I walked into the building and realized just how many people were going to be attending. I had originally thought I would just speak without reading at all (being that I had gone over the speech so many times, I didn't think it would be a problem) but the little girl inside of me was panicking and decided I needed to take what I had written up with me to serve as a back up.
Mom ended up showing up in order to give me a little encouragement and support which was nice. Well, now was the time. I hear the M.C. (Coach Priester) start to talk about me and the path my life had taken. "There's no turning back now! Lord, help me...a lot!" And He did. I got through it, and unscathed at that. I may have stumbled over a few words or so and had to read a few lines of my speech from my paper, BUT from what I know, there were no boogies hanging from my nose, my skirt was not tucked into my underpants (you know how that happens sometimes after going to the bathroom? The back of it just gets caught and you don't even notice) and I think I actually got a few chuckles from the audience when telling some funny stories from my life when I played sports.
So all this to say, I still hate speaking in front of people. But, as a friend reminded me, it's so good for me b/c it stretches me and makes me depend on God to do something that I honestly am not skilled at doing. The fact that I could get through the speech is a testiment to the fact that God does not call the equipped, He equips the called! And I am so thankful for that!
oh and p.s.- Mom cried. lol.
5 comments:
Glad you were able to get through it. You are braver than me. I HATE being the center of attention let alone give a speech.
I'm surprised mom cried...haha
I can relate to the throwing up feeling, but at the same time it is always a growing time for me. It does seem to get easier and you realize it won't kill you...but does make you stronger. I think some of Adam's soothing words are rubbing off on me, that is totally something he would say.
-C
lol. I love Adam's sooooothing words. It makes me laugh that he's so full of wisdom now days. I wonder what sooothing words he would've given himself back in the day when he broke his arm trying to do a skate board move off the top of our van?!
You are the slacker or you just have a very boring life...I'm guessing it is the first one. Get on it!
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