Lydia Fenette

So let's say that you're a person, and I often say this because I teach a lot of people how to do public speaking, that if you're a person who's scared of public speaking and you feel like you have no confidence when you get on stage with a microphone, what is the thing that you don't want to do?

Get on stage with a microphone.

So what you should do is get up every single time you have the opportunity to stand up in front of a group of two people, in front of a group of 10 people.

You should, if you have the opportunity, take a class to make yourself try anything.

and feel that failure or feel that greatness in either side, just keep practicing.

Because again, that's where confidence comes from.

You don't get confident when you're at the top of the mountain, you get confident learning how to get there.

And once you get there, because you're up there, you've realized that you've dealt with all of these issues to get yourself to the top.

And all of that learning has allowed you to be confident and to continue being confident throughout your life.

So whatever it is that you're not confident about, if you don't feel it at all, start pushing yourself to try something that you don't think you can do.

Because honestly, I think a lot of times we'll surprise ourselves.

We have no idea what we're capable of until we've pushed ourselves outside of that comfort zone.

in small steps.

It's all about the micro steps when you're trying to do something.

So let's go back to public speaking since that was something I talked about earlier in the interview.

When it comes to public speaking, if your ultimate goal is to be able to stand in front of a room of people confidently and speak,

then take the opportunities that are smaller that don't seem quite as large and overwhelming.

If there is an opportunity, I'm a parent of three, so there are a lot of parent-teacher moments over the course of the year.

What I would say to someone who's trying to be a better public speaker is stand up and ask a question.

You have that opportunity.