Maybe I Can® with Debbie Weiss

Ep. 144: Learning To Stand In Fear, Not Flee From It

• Debbie Weiss • Episode 144

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This week on Maybe I Can, I’m sharing one of my most humbling experiences to date. I traveled across the country for a speaking conference—only to be hit with unbearable tooth pain, crippling self-doubt, and then the nightmare scenario: I completely blanked on stage.

In that moment, I wanted to run. To get on a plane, go home, and convince myself I wasn’t cut out for speaking at all.

But I didn’t run. I stayed. I listened. I learned. And that choice shifted everything.

In this episode, I talk about:

  • What really happens when imposter syndrome takes over
  • Why failure can either end your story or become the turning point
  • How I’m using this moment to fuel growth instead of quitting

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t belong, or if failure has ever made you want to give up, I hope my story reminds you that you’re not alone, and you’re stronger than you think.

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Maybe I Can podcast. I'm your host, debbie Weiss, and thank you so much for joining me today. You know I don't even really have a title for this podcast. I'm just going to share with you my experience over the last week and give you my takeaways, and I hope, and I really do think, that somehow you can relate this to your life.

Speaker 1:

So this past week I live in New Jersey and I was traveling to outside of San Francisco for a professional speakers conference I guess that's the best way to describe it. I guess that's the best way to describe it and I was leaving on Tuesday and Sunday night into Monday I woke up in excruciating pain it was my tooth, which, like I, don't usually have these kind of problems and I wound up not being able to see my own dentist. I went to some emergency dentist and I figured they're going to say I don't know, your cap is fell off or you have a filling that's cracked and you know, boom, boom, boom, they're going to fix it. Fantastic, I'm off to San Francisco. But that's not what they said and I don't really know how to explain. And this isn't a program. I'm not a dentist and maybe you are, but maybe you're not. Long story short, I need to have my tooth extracted, a bone graft done and have an implant. And I said, okay, that's all great, they couldn't just extract my tooth that day. So what happens? Do I have to cancel my trip to San Francisco, because there is no way in this type of pain that I can go? And they said no, we're going to give you antibiotics. You're going to double up today. We'll give you Tylenol with codeine. You should be okay.

Speaker 1:

As the days go on and I thought to myself am I making a mistake here? But I'm sure I could have. I could have they have this conference a couple times a year. I could have postponed it to January when their next conference was, but there were some people that I had met online that were also going to be there. I was looking forward to seeing them in person and I thought, all right, let me just give it a go.

Speaker 1:

And the flight out was really tough. I didn't want to take any kind of pain medicine other than over-the-counter because I was renting a car when I got there. By the time I got to San Francisco, I was in such incredible pain. I could barely open my mouth to speak. If I could have physically, I would have gone up to that United counter and said get me on a plane going right back to New Jersey, because I can't do this. But physically I just couldn't get back on a plane. So I thought, all right, let me get my rental car, drive to the hotel and see how I feel in the morning and if it's no good, I'll skip the conference. I'll get on the plane. It'll be ridiculous, waste of time, but whatever. And a ride that I thought was going to take me about 40 minutes took me an hour and a half, with a lot of traffic. I was in such pain, I was crying, tears were streaming down my face. I was supposed to meet someone that night. I had to tell them I'm sorry I can't, and I took some medication, slept off and on during the night and, I'm happy to say, when I got up on Wednesday, the first day of the conference, I definitely felt better than I had the day before. So that's progress.

Speaker 1:

I was speaking at the conference on Thursday. So I thought you know, I'll go to the conference today and maybe I'll talk to the organizer and tell her that there's a possibility that I won't be able to speak and I went to the conference and I never did that. I'm listening to other people speak and, quite frankly, the other people who were getting up there and speaking many of them were phenomenal up there and speaking, many of them were phenomenal. There were two people who were professional actors and it certainly showed they had complete command of the stage and were so engaging. And as I sat there in my head I thought, oh my goodness, what am I doing? I thought, oh my goodness, what am I doing? Forget the tooth, forget the pain. All of that aside, I don't, I don't belong here. I'm not as good as these people. This is going to be so embarrassing. And you had everybody was getting up and doing a different type of format. There was basically three different types of format that you could be doing and I prepared kind of one way and then that day other people who were doing what I was going to do did something very different. So now I panicked.

Speaker 1:

After the conference is over on Wednesday, I go back to my room for an hour or so before I'm going to meet some people for dinner and I rework what I'm going to say and I'm trying to practice it, and either it doesn't come out so well or I had a specific amount of time and I needed to hit that number and I was way over, and then, when I took stuff out, I was way under and there are specific points that I needed to hit and there are specific points that I needed to hit. So, in other words, now that I'm recording this podcast and talking to you, that's not the case. I have no notes. I have no nothing. I am just stream of consciousness talking versus what I needed to do. There was about eight specific, almost like sentences that I needed to say and I thought you know what I made it this far. I'll do the talking. I was feeling better, but I was still very intimidated after listening to the speakers on Wednesday.

Speaker 1:

So Thursday comes, I go on right before lunchtime and I get up there and I say my first couple of lines and I'm staring out into the audience and again, I'm not stream of consciousness speaking. I have in my head oh gosh, I need to say this, and then I need to say this, and then I need to say this. Well, I said the first thing and I don't even know, maybe I said the second thing and then my mind went completely blank. I mean complete. I stood there, silent, staring out at the audience like a deer in the headlights, panicking because I was trying to recall the next sentence that I really needed to say. And this is the problem when you speak with memorization, unless you're using I was going to say cue cards or a teleprompter or something like that, but this wasn't the case. I even had slides that had little notes. If you've ever presented in any kind of PowerPoint or any slide presentation, there's a spot that you can put speaker notes. But because I had changed the whole format the night before, the speaker notes that I had in there didn't coincide with what I wanted to say, so that wasn't even helping me.

Speaker 1:

You're just floundering, let's say, and it feels like time is standing still. That's how it was. I was staring into space. One part of my brain was saying oh my God, oh my God, I can't believe this. You're not talking. What comes next? And the other part of my brain was trying to retrieve, really concentrating. You said this. Then you were going to say this what comes next? It was horrible. It was so long and I don't know what. So long equated to 30 seconds, 45 seconds. I don't know that.

Speaker 1:

Some audience members actually said take a breath. They're giving me advice as I'm standing there staring at them. Take a breath. You've got this cheering me on. And eventually I just decided screw it. I forgot what I was supposed to say. Let me just move on to the next point where I felt a little more comfortable because it was a little more storytelling. I felt like I was going to get something in there. To tell you the truth, I have not yet gone back. I don't actually know yet if I have the whole recording, but I have not yet gone back to watch. It's going to be super painful for me to do that.

Speaker 1:

And at the end of this, since it was a conference to try to be a better speaker, people in the audience then give you feedback, and so all the other speakers were raising their hands and when people gave, they did it appropriately. They would give some kind of praise and then they would say well, maybe you should try this, or a kind remark. I think only three people raised their hands, and for everyone else it was at least a dozen. And of the three people that raised their hands, they just said good recovery, like your slides said good recovery, like your slides, like the sprinkle effect, like whatever it was. It was kind of lame and that almost made me feel worse. You couldn't even find something nice to say. That's how bad it was.

Speaker 1:

And when I got off that stage, I'm telling you I wanted you got to stand up there and be professional and not look like you're upset and all the things. I would have liked to have gotten off that stage, walked out of the room and keep walking and then start running straight to my car, back to the airport and fly away as the tears were flowing down my face. But I couldn't do that. I'm a big girl, so I got to put my big girl pants on, sit in the audience and listen now to other people. And of course now I'm berating myself in my head as I'm watching other people who are getting up and doing a fantastic people. And of course now I'm berating myself in my head as I'm watching other people who are getting up and doing a fantastic job. And when we broke for lunch, my new friends, or my online friends that I now met in person, were so sweet and so supportive. But in the end, what are they going to say? I mean, it happened, it wasn't good and I wished I really did wish that I didn't have to go back there in the afternoon. But it was the right thing to do. It's the professional thing, it's the mature thing to do and I did. And you know, same kind of thing watched other people, just thought to myself. I'm literally sitting in this audience thinking I think this is the end of my speaking career. I'm not meant to do this. What was I thinking? How did I think that I could provide any value? Look at all these other people. They're doing the thing I'm done. This is literally the conversation that's going on in my head.

Speaker 1:

And then I was reminded a few stories that Anthony Trucks, who is the person who is running this conference he's a former NFL player really interesting personal stories, no-transcript. And every time that he faced adversity he could have easily said forget it, I'm not good enough, I don't have the resources, I'm not strong enough, I'm not fast enough, I'm not smart enough. But instead he would look at the problem and say okay, here's what I need to get better at. What am I going to do to make that happen? And he's reinvented himself so many times from childhood and I thought you know what? What is it that separates the men from the boys? Because that's where I was. I have two choices. Because that's where I was. I have two choices. I can look at this and say this isn't for you and put my tail between my legs and crawl away. Or I can say you know what, good for you.

Speaker 1:

You got out there when you weren't feeling well. You kept going. You stayed in the room and learned from what you saw. This is what you aspire to be, how you aspire to be better. Now it's up to me to figure out how I'm going to do that. What am I going to do to become a better speaker? And look, it could have really just been a one-off that day and I am really being too hard on myself and I do believe that. But that does not mean that there's not room for improvement. There's always room for improvement, regardless of what we're talking about, whether it's a hobby, whether it's something professional, whether it's parenting, like we all can use to improve. And if every time we quote-unquote failed, if we let that stop us, we're never going to move forward in our lives.

Speaker 1:

And it was like a crossroads. I realized I've got to be brave and on the plane back home, I started journaling and writing about everything that had happened and saying what am I going to do from here, what can I do? And began to list things and ideas and things that I can do to help me get better. I'm not giving up. I have no reason to give up. I know that I've been successful at this, and just because I had a moment doesn't mean I should pack my bags and go home. Yes, there are people who are so much better than I am. Of course there are. That doesn't mean that I can't improve and I can't aspire to one day be at their level. I can.

Speaker 1:

Hey, the name of this podcast is Maybe I Can, and I have to remind myself of that. I, too, have to remind myself of that because for the majority of my life, my knee-jerk reaction has always been, or had always been I can't do that or oh gosh, I can't do this. And what I've learned is I can do it, maybe I can do it, I can certainly try, and if it's something that I enjoy, if it's something that I feel called to do, you know, I started doing it in the first place for a reason. That reason has not gone away. So, instead of letting this deter me. I am going to let this spur me on. Is that the right way to say it? And so maybe you're not a speaker, maybe none of those things matter. What matters is is that all of us fail, all of us suffer with imposter syndrome or I'm not good enough, or what was I thinking? And it's really what we do after that, what we do after we fail, what we do after we mentally berate ourselves when do we go from there? And I hope, when you find yourself in that place, you will join me in telling ourselves maybe I can, or, yes, I know I can, I know I can and I know you can too. Listen one of the things as I sit here and I've said this before and I am just looking at a screen, not knowing who's out there listening In the last few weeks, I've gotten amazing emails from listeners that make me feel so good and remind me why I do this right, because we're all in this life together and when we share our personal experiences with one another, and when we share our personal experiences with one another, it's helpful and encouraging and it helps to know that we're not alone.

Speaker 1:

We're all going through this game of life together, all the bumps and the peaks and the valleys. So I'd love it if you would shoot me an email at debbie at debbiereweisscom, or a DM on Instagram, debbierweiss, and share with me or even if it's not about the podcast, share with me your stories of when you hit that moment, that moment of failure, where you felt like you can't do this. But yet you turned things around and now not only are you doing it, you're succeeding at it. I'd love to hear your stories and I would love to share them with my audience next time to help us all be inspired. So go out there, make it a great week inspired. So go out there, make it a great week. And I am telling you not even maybe I can, I know you can. We all can Talk to you next week.

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Debbie Weiss

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