Today I had to face one of my biggest fears. Public speaking.
Does it count if it's done remotely on a Teams call? I'm not entirely sure it's the same thing, but I was terrified, so I'm counting it.
Some context. We recently launched a new feature and I was heavily involved in its planning and development. It was a proud moment, a foundational piece for what comes next, and one that showed me I can hold up under pressure and tight deadlines. What I didn't anticipate was being asked to present it to the whole company. Everyone, from the CEO to the most recent junior hire.
The decision came the afternoon before the meeting. Not ideal preparation time. But somewhere underneath the panic, I noticed something: the fact that they trusted me to pull this off at short notice, for a milestone this visible, gave me a quiet boost of confidence I didn't expect.
This wasn't my first time. When I presented a feature early in my time at the company, the anxiety was something else entirely. I lost sleep. I spent days rehearsing, wrote out every line, marked up my notes with reminders about when to pause and when to click through the prototype. I prepared obsessively and still felt physically sick on the day. When it was over, I mostly just dreaded the next time.
This time was different, and the difference surprised me.
Yes, I was nervous when the call started, and in the minutes leading up to it. But the nervousness stayed contained. It was about the performance, the accent, the delivery, the usual surface-level fears. Those I can accept. What was absent this time was any anxiety about the content itself. I knew this feature inside out. The technical decisions, the reasoning behind them, the next steps we're planning to build on top of it. I could have answered almost any question thrown at me.
That foundation changed everything. I prepared in a few hours, slept fine, and felt focused rather than frantic. While waiting for my turn on the call, I worked on my breathing and reminded myself of something simple: I was in my office. Safe. Not standing in front of a room.
One more thing helped. I actually knew people this time. I wasn't a new face presenting to strangers. I'd worked with many of them, met others at company events, had real conversations. It reframed the whole thing, less like a performance, more like showing something to people I'd already earned a place alongside.
Once I started, it flowed. The same feeling as an exam at school, the moment you begin and everything you prepared just surfaces. I covered the key points, not just the technical ones but the aspects relevant to product, design, marketing, and customer support. Then I thanked everyone, asked for questions, and handed over to the next colleague.
Done.
It was well received. People told me privately and in the chat that it landed well. The anxiety drained away almost immediately, replaced by that particular kind of tiredness that comes after sustained effort, and underneath it, something that felt like pride.
Experience compounds. The first time was hard and I survived it. This time was hard and I handled it better. That's how it works. It all builds into a store of context I can draw on the next time, because there will be a next time, and it will be a little less frightening than this one.
What started as a dreadful prospect ended up being the highlight of the week.