A few days ago I took part in WordSesh and was able to talk about one of my favorite topics – Why You Should or Shouldn't Use Premium Plugins. Aside from the general awesomeness of 24 hours of WordPress presentations there was another aspect that I really enjoyed – just talking.

Not in a bla bla bla way where I'm wasting people's time (at least I hope I wasn't wasting people's time) but talking without interruption to prove a point. To effectively communicate a whole thought. I wasn't worried about people coming in late, people interrupting with questions, or people asking me to hold up so they can take a picture of the slide.

Just Press Publish

This very much reminds me of the Blogging for Benjamin contest that Daniel Espinoza set up earlier this month. The point of the contest is not to create the absolute perfect piece of writing but to develop the habit of daily writing. To that extent Daniel is always saying “just press the publish button”.

Yes, the writing probably isn't perfect, and yes, there might even be a typo (gasp!)! But nothing will ever be perfect and people are usually too worried about what other people may think and don't end up publishing anything at all. As the idiom goes – you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Just Talk

WordSesh felt very similar to me. I had an opportunity to speak and I took it. I knew that with a very short notice (just 2 days!) that I probably wouldn't produce the most amazing presentation but I wanted to try. So I took the shot – I wrote up a presentation about some lessons that I've learned over the past couple years and I presented it.

It certainly was a weird experience since I couldn't see the audience at all. It felt like talking to my self in a big empty auditorium. That meant that I couldn't get any reactions and adjust. I had to know what I was talking about and just keep going regardless of what the audience was actually thinking. I'm sure it wasn't anywhere close to perfect; I was probably talking fast, stumbling over words, and forgetting entire slides worth of content, but it was a really good experience over all.

I learned even more about my topic, I connected with a few attendees, and I took yet another step to getting over one of my fears which is speaking in public. Every opportunity I take is an opportunity to succeed and I'm happy with that. Are you taking all the shots you can?

Photo Credit: Chris Smith/Out of Chicago via Compfight cc