2 Lessons from my Speaking Competition
This past weekend had been massive for me! Back in June, I entered a speaking competition with Speaker Slam. Since I won, I got a chance to be in the finals, where I competed against 13 other people, which happened this past Saturday!
There were so many lessons I learned from it, and I'll share 2 with you!
First and foremost, I am super proud of my accomplishments.
Even though I didn't win, I already won!
I won the moment I saw what my son got out of it.
My son is 6 yo, he got a chance to see other people go onto the stage to speak, and he was ABLE TO TELL ME EXACTLY what he liked during the event, it brought tears to my eyes. I worked so hard these past 5 years, and I saw the result!
While growing up, I wished that someone could show me more possibilities!
I wished I had someone to show me what they did to build a successful business. I wished I could shadow someone, to see how they interact with others, hear what questions they ask, how they present themselves, JUST SHOW ME HOW!
And because of my work, my son got a chance to see me speak on stage, and he got a chance to watch other people speak, for a 6 yo... And that was one of my wishes, to show my son what's possible, to show my son new possibilities.
I cried happy tears when I realized that.
Second, I learned to let go of expectations.
2 weeks prior to the speaking competition, one of my coach friend asked me, what if everything you do won't amount to anything?
No matter how hard you work, you won't make anymore money, you won't get anymore clients.
??It took me a long time to process this one.
If you're not understanding this, it took me a while to wrap my mind around it too.
Here's how he put it:
If you lose your earbuds (earphones), it sucks, but you can replace them.
If you lose your glasses, it sucks more, but you can still replace them.
but if you lose your fingers, no matter how hard you try, they won't grow back... right?
So you can be depressed, you can be mad, and at some point, you'd be like, okay, this is reality, I've had enough of this, what do I want to do now?
So in my situation, if I'm not going to get anymore money, or clients, and I'm at this spot I'm in forever, then what do I REALLY WANT to do, for me?
At first, it created a lot of despair within me...
Because for a very long time, I didn't want to be where I am.
I had to spend some time to go into my subconscious mind, to see that I'd been trapped in a "layer" where I called the Limbo. And I was so dissatisfied with it that I'd been trying to get out! I've had this feeling since I was a teenager. So some days, I'd be walking, some days running, some days crawling... but no matter what it was, I was just trying to get out! And when I finally become aware of this, I made myself slow down... and then stop. When I finally stop, I ended up dropping to to my knees and cried for 15 min.
That was my extremely strong tendency to chase what's outside.
The beautiful thing was, once I stopped crying, I was able to look at this Limbo, and see the landscape changing. It turned from a scene from a zombie movie (where it was all deserted and run down), to a vibrant, fun, beautiful city.
I am happy where I am.
This helped me gear up for the speaking competition. Because all I wanted was to go in, have a lot of fun, and believing that my voice is worthy to be heard.
I am very proud and satisfied where I am standing. It is totally amazing!
Anyway, once I have the video to my speaking, I'll definitely share more with you!
PS
How have things been with you?
In my email above, I shared how I was able to stop myself from chasing after the external things.
We have a tendency to keep looking outside, maybe we compare ourselves to others, or we may keep looking at our shortcomings.
Have you ever find yourself feeling upset about where you are in life because of all these external comparison?
I hope that you're able to take a moment for yourself to celebrate you. See all that you've accomplished, all that you have in your life. I celebrate you!
Here's a video of my accountability partners and I dancing to celebrate me speaking on stage!! Because we're just 3 crazy ladies! LOL
