I’m a shy person. People don’t believe me when I say that – but it’s 100% true.

Shyness is the tendency to withdraw out of fear. The key word there is “tendency”. Outgoingness is about avoiding that tendency. Outgoing as I may be, my tendency towards shy behaviour is still there. Shyness is part of my psyche – and something I have to contend with every single day of my life. I have a theory about shyness – my “Shell Theory” – that with the right approach, anyone is able to break out of their shell.

For me, the last great frontier of overcoming my shyness has been public speaking. The fear of public speaking is often cited as the number one fear among adults in the U.S. – ahead of death. There was a time in my life when the thought of picking up the phone to order a pizza was enough to send me into a panic attack. Standing on a stage, speaking in front of people? Forget about it. When a situation would arise where I’d have to speak in front of people, I’d be so nervous that I’d mess up and fumble badly and I wouldn’t get my point across at all.

Today, I adore public speaking. In fact, I’m doing more and more of it all the time. So how did I break out of my shell? Well, it wasn’t easy, but if public speaking is something you wish you could do more confidently, here’s a little advice.

Knowledge is power. In 1992 when I bought my first car, I decided I wanted a standard transmission, because I’d been told standards are more fun to drive. And since I find driving kind of boring, I thought anything I could do to spice things up would be useful. The problem was, once I got behind the wheel, I couldn’t drive the stupid car to save my life! I stalled, ground, and jerked my way around town, all the while worrying that I was doing some serious damage.

My problem was, I didn’t understand HOW the clutch, gas, and stick shift worked together. I was more or less guessing at the best way to drive the car, and obviously, my guess wasn’t right. So, I called up a friend who happened to be a bit of a mechanical nerd, and asked him to sit down with me and explain, on paper, how a transmission actually worked. He did, and lo and behold, the next time I got behind the wheel, it was smooth sailing.

I took the same approach to public speaking. I knew I had some issues, so I decided to learn how to do it better. I started watching exceptional professional speakers, like Christopher Penn, Mitch Joel, and Seth Godin. I voraciously consumed TEDTalks. I wasn’t listening to the content, I was watching what they do. I was looking at flow, how they worked with visuals, mannerisms, and intonation. Some talks I watched over and over. I started to inject some of what I learned about HOW to speak into my own talks. And it started to work.

Learn by observation. Find people you admire, and study what they do. Don’t copy them exactly, but do take away the things that work. You’ll soon find that you’re able to emulate the masters fairly well. But do make sure that you’re always being yourself, and putting your own spin on things.

Get over yourself. I believe that the number one reason people are afraid to speak in public is because they care really deeply about what others think of them. They are scared to do or say something that will make them look silly. Fear of humiliation is a powerful thing, and unfortunately, most people are too afraid to do anything about it.

The only reason I am able to get up on a stage and talk these days is because I decided to stop caring so much about what other people think. Most of the things we worry about, like that people are going to make fun of us, never, EVER happen. And if it’s not likely to happen, there’s absolutely no point in worrying about it.

So, tell yourself what I tell myself when I start to get nervous about a public appearance. Suck it up, cupcake – this is what you want to do. Just go do it and, as my Dad would say, quit yer bellyachin’. You’ll find that once you stop the voices in your head from telling you all the reasons you CAN’T do it, all the reasons you CAN do it will be crystal clear.

Let go. I was fortunate to speak at the Podcasters Across Borders conference this past weekend in Ottawa. If you are a content creator, you owe it to yourself to attend in 2011 – it’s an amazing experience. I thoroughly enjoyed my time on stage, but I will confess to being just a tad more nervous than usual. I find it’s harder to present in a room full of people I know than a room full of strangers. Also, I was up second last, so I’d already had a full weekend of amazing talks to compare myself to. But, instead of letting the pressure get to me, I decided to use it. I let go of the nerves and used the residual adrenaline that my anxiety had created to add more energy to my talk. Feedback suggests that my strategy worked.

After I was done, I was spent. It was a bit comical, actually – I was more clumsy than usual, and couldn’t put a sentence together to save my life, which makes it plenty of fun when all anyone wants to do at that point is make conversation. However, I was able to find 20 minutes or so to decompress, and let go of the experience. I didn’t criticize myself for my word fumbles, or worry about the fact that I missed a few points here and there. I let it go, and didn’t concern myself with anything else other than it had been an enjoyable experience and something I wanted to do again.

Most of all, public speaking, to me, is about learning and sharing. I learn SO much in the process of preparing to teach a class or do a talk. The preparation process really helps me to piece my thoughts together, and to truly understand the subject matter. Then, it’s all about passionately sharing what I’ve learned with my audience.

What more could a girl ask for?

The following message is brought to you by Shameless Self Promotion. If you’re interested in learning more about the kinds of things I speak about, or maybe even booking me for a gig, feel free to check out my speaking page.

[photo credit: Suzanne Ure on Flickr]

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My business partner and I negotiated late into the night last night and we’ve come to a very critical decision. It wasn’t easy to do, but we know it’s the right thing for us.

We’re totally getting some ShamWows.

The first step. I have a terrible addiction to media. All kinds of media. Yes, even ShamWow commercials. Now, you may be thinking “Suze. The ShamWow commercial is advertising, not media. You, of all people, should know this.”

Yup, you’re right, it’s an ad. But the ShamWow commercial that we all know and love is 2 minutes long. By today’s short and sweet YouTube standards, it’s a flippin’ documentary. And, it’s because of my obsessive consumption of media that I even know about the super absorbency power and the 2 for 1 deal if I call within the next 20 minutes, anyway.

ShamWows aside, I’ve consumed more media this week than I think I’ve consumed in 6 months. Today, I’m thinking about why that is, and how new media is changing the game at a pace that we can’t even fathom.

That’s news to me. Like everyone else, I was glued to my media on Tuesday as the inauguration of the U.S.’s 44th President took place. I even put it on during my Web Media class, using the Associated Press’ Ustream feed. It was remarkably appropriate timing, as we not only watched the proceedings via the Web, but we followed along with the millions of streams of conversations people were having online.

When I watch world events taking place, I am not typically one to get sucked into the emotion of it. I am a complete and utter TV Geek, so what I’m watching is how the news outlets are weaving the stories. I watch what camera angles are used (yes, I was counting how many cameras they had on Capitol Hill!). I think about how they set up the gig, where the production trucks were, and how the journalists prepped. I look at the graphic elements, and think about how they help the story.

This time around, I was also completely fascinated with the new layer of media that appeared on top of the traditional coverage. The addition of the Facebook feed on the CNN Live web site actually gave me butterflies. The steady stream of iReports intrigued me. The way that the whitehouse.gov site flipped over the SECOND Obama was sworn in amazed me. Convergence is here, my friends. And it’s here in a big way.

Hey! I know that expert! Mainstream media always has a steady flow of experts on their roster to drop by and talk about marketing, technology, media trends and whatnot. Usually these people are called in from universities or huge marketing agencies or giant corporations. Well, times are most certainly changing. These days it seems, the experts that are being called in are the same guys I hang out with at Podcamps, and the same guys that come to speak to my college classes. Just this week, I watched with glee as CC Chapman interviewed on CNN Live about the impact of social media on coverage of the inauguration. I then listened intently as both Mitch Joel and Andy Kaplan-Myrth talked technology on CBC’s Spark.

Mainstream media is catching on to the fact that the true experts are the ones that are out here, living, working, breathing this new media space. And that is a VERY good thing.

Conversation is king. Perhaps the most fascinating thing to me about all of this media/new media convergence is that the foundation of it all is the conversation. It’s worldwide, and it’s going on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I am riveted as I watch how people react to the things that are happening in the world today. Remember what I said above, about how I’m not one to get sucked in? That’s getting more and more difficult, and it’s BECAUSE of the conversation.

Even from up here in Canada, I  can’t help but get caught up in my American friends’ hope for the future and sense that big changes are coming. I look around me and I see emotional responses coming from my fellow Canadians, as they fully embrace a leader that isn’t even our own. These strong emotional reactions are only heightened by the fact that all of these conversations are going on. It’s community to community, person to person. It’s a chain reaction, and everybody is now part of it.

Media is no longer passive. It’s active. It’s now. And it’s changing the world’s perception of major events at lightning speed.

Final Word. Being the media junkie that I am, I could go on all day and night about this stuff. I get so excited about it that my mind races with all of the possibilities that exist. If Marshall McLuhan were alive today I think he’d be giving us the big ol’ “I told you so!” right about now. The medium IS the message.  This new medium called the World Wide Web is affecting our planet in a society-altering way. And it’s going to continue to affect us in ways we haven’t even imagined yet.

Oh.

One more thing.

Want proof that I’m truly a media junkie? The bulk of this post was tapped out on my little iPhone keyboard at 2:30am, lying in bed in a dark room. Why? Because I woke up out of a dead sleep with this stuff swimming around in my head.

It’s entirely possible I’m going to need an intervention soon.

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