Finding Your Voice Before You Feel Ready: Lessons in Confidence and Self-Efficacy
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How did Mickey’s teenage bass‑fishing career spark her passion for public speaking?
Imagine being a teenage girl trying to make it into professional bass fishing world. Then later becoming a college executive. Then Walking away from it all at 40 to rebuild your career from scratch. Today's conversation is about finding your voice before you feel ready. And my confidence might actually be the wrong word. Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, the podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results. Communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor, turn communication coach, and I'm thrilled to guide you on a journey to becoming a powerful communicator. Today's guest is doctor Mickey Fitch Collins.
Mickey is a leadership facilitator and speaker who helps organizations turn human skills like communication Empathy and resilience. And the practical everyday impact. With a background spanning higher education. Ed tech and corporate learning, she brings both research and real world experience to the conversation. Make his messages are clear. Public speaking is about storytelling. Is about relationships. Mickey, welcome to speaking with confidence.
Thank you so much for having me, Tim. I'm so excited to be here today.
Oh, it's this is gonna be fun. You wanna one of the things I tell people is stop trying to be interesting and start being interested. The issue is You are very interesting. You have one of the most interesting stories. And let's let's start with bass fishing. I think you were twelve years old when you got into professional bass fishing.
Fourte fourteen, yeah. Fourteen, fifteen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Still very young.
Walk us through that. How did that happen?
Yeah, so it's it is a very interesting story um because uh none of it was intentional. Um I grew up in the uh suburbs of Chicago. Um, not an area that you would think, oh yeah, bass fishing for sure, right? Because most of the time people think bass fishing, they think like Texas or Alabama, Florida, you know, South Carolina, whatever it is, right? Nice warm areas, year long growing seasons for fish. Nope. I grew up in the Chicago. Chicago area and I have always loved fishing. Um, in fact, my parents, I I uh grew up, I had a small little farm pond, like a water retention pond sort of thing that was uh behind our house. And my parents jokingly said As soon as you were old enough that we could figure that you weren't gonna fall in and drown, we allowed you to go back to that pond.
And you were back there all the time, right? And and we had, I mean, it was just, I don't know, probably a half acre pond, but um, you know, neighbors uh uh put uh, you know, uh little catfish in there and you know, bluegills and whatnot. And so I was fishing from, you know, the time of being kind of a a a toddler and really got into fishing stuff and and started to I you know I would go to all those expo shows, you know, during the winter months. Fishermen, you know, open water fishermen need something to do during the winter months. And that's when you have all those expo shows. Go buy your new boats and all this sort of stuff. And um, you know, I got connected with some folks there that kind of started recognizing, hey, this kid, you know, she really likes fishing and she's yeah, let's have her do these little seminars for getting other kids involved in fishing, right?
Because that's always You know, we always need to get more kids involved. We always need to get more girls involved.
Right.
And so that was the start of it was I was doing stuff with like local parks and recs departments and wow. And I got the attention of uh some regional newspapers, um, one of which being the Chicago News Tribune, which is not obviously regional. That has a pretty big footprint. Kind of big. Um, and some article, yeah, some articles were written about me as this kind of teenage fishing phenom. And I got approached by several companies that said, Hey, uh, you know, do you wanna do this a little bit more seriously? And um, you know, I
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Mickey’s teenage bass‑fishing career spark her passion for public speaking?
0:09–9:31
2
What’s the difference between confidence and self‑efficacy, and why does it matter for speakers?
9:31–18:33
3
What are the four research‑backed building blocks of self‑efficacy that listeners can start using today?
18:33–27:01
4
How can practicing with simple feedback loops (mirror work, peer review, physiological cues) boost poise on stage?
27:01–34:51
5
Why is storytelling the key to authentic influence, and how does vulnerability strengthen relationships?
34:51–42:31
6
Why does every role become a ‘sales’ role, and how can you influence without feeling like a salesperson?
42:31–51:04
7
What lessons did Mickey learn from leaving a senior academic position and rebuilding her career?
51:04–1:00:04
8
How do confidence and competence act as a dynamic duo for career growth and public speaking success?
1:00:04–1:10:25
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Speaking With Confidence
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Unlocking the Four Communication Styles to Lead Any Team With Confidence
Unlocking Powerful Communication in the Age of Virtual Presentations
Talk Like You’re Right, Listen Like You’re Wrong: The Key to True Connection
Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Confident Communication
The Three-Second Move That Boosts Confidence and Calms Any Conversation