Authenticity as a Speaker | @caroline-cavanagh | The Anxiety Alchemist

25 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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Caroline Cavanagh shares how anxiety once kept her from university, but she transformed that fear into strength and now speaks to thousands. She argues that vulnerability on stage creates connection, and that if she can overcome a fear bigger than death, so can you.

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Something that is really important to me as a speaker is being authentically me, because by being authentically me, it helps the people that look at me and go, actually, that's happened to me too, or I can relate to her, even if it's, if it's a man. We all have anxiety. We've all not pursued opportunities that were there because of mental health for whatever reason. Held us back. So I'm very open and honest on stage. I will talk about catastrophes that have happened in my life, things that have gone wrong, when I've been on my knees and not known how to get up. But I have got up and I am now standing in front of hundreds, often thousands of people. And ironically, being public— being a public speaker is the highest fear that anyone has, more so than dying, which always amazes me. So from being someone that didn't— wasn't able to go to university because of anxiety, to now be able to enjoy doing something that most people absolutely dread, I believe makes me more relatable, because if I can do it, so can they.