Speaking On Stage With NO VOICE 😮‍💨

So I just finished up my ichat, my talk today. As you can see, it's going to be an interesting talk. I have no voice after doing Disney here for the past four days with my family. We've all got some kind of cold drinking, plenty of tea and honey. It is about 8:30 right now and I don't go on stage until 2:30. I think planning to come back here to the hotel room, kind of rest as much as you can with a five and a six year old in the room, practice my speech a couple times and try to find some more honey and tea.

So last week I got to speak on stage in Disney World. I was a speaker at Marketer's Heart. This is actually the second time that I got to speak at Marketer's Heart. But last year was obviously virtual and this was the first time I was back on stage in person since 2019. I actually started a speaking career in 2018. I had a couple more speaking opportunities in 2019 and I was going full throttle with my speaking career in 2020. And then we all know what happened. But let's get Back to the 1 last week at Coronado Springs Disney Hotel Resort. Let me just tell you, if you can only go to one conference, it has got to be a conference hosted by Julie and Kathy of Funnel Gorgeous. Because they know how to host an event. Not just like a cool event with cool topics, but to compile a room full of people that a you, you feel comfortable being around. Almost like you're in a giant room with a couple hundred friends, but also a group of people that are there to support you, willing to walk up to you and talk to you and not expect anything in return. They're just looking for connection. Julie and Kathy bring the best people to their conferences and I didn't even mention the swag that they bring to their conferences as well. I maybe not wisely made the decision to go to Marketer's Heart three days early so my family and I could do Disney. Never did, never done Disney before. I went to Disney when I was 17 with a field hockey tournament. My husband has never been there and so I figured, well, this is a good time to tack this all on. Leading up to this particular trip, I obviously launched Video Strategy Academy. If you've been following me. We closed the doors for VSA 3.0 and within 24 hours we're leaving to the hotel to fly to Disney. So that probably wasn't the best decision. We all had colds. My body was exhausted from the launch by the Time we landed in Florida on Sunday morning, I had no voice. My ear had clogged and shut when we landed, and we were all coughing like crazy. We survived. And I actually spoke on the second day of the conference, the third speaker after lunch. That's a tough slot, am I right? I personally knew I was ready. I felt confident. I had spent January creating the talk for this particular event. I had practiced it with my speeching coach, Jessica. She also allowed me to present it in her speaking strategy academy that I'm a part of. And not only do I get feedback from her during this live practice, but I also got feedback from my peers as well. And that opportunity was honestly changed the ball game for me because not only did I know it was good, and I had confidence going up on that stage in front of 300 people knowing it was good, but I had practiced it already. I had figured out where the little pieces had all fit, and I was excited to get up on stage and give this presentation. I did go through my slides the night before. I had skipped the morning presentations. I went to mic check, and I skipped the morning presentations just to, like, try to get some type of energy, try to get my voice. I spent the morning with, you know, the eye patches on and doing my hair and my makeup just to feel good while there were children running around in the hotel. But again, I knew once I got on stage, I would be good. Because the hardest part of speaking for me is that first couple of minutes on stage, like my intro to my talk. I love talking about YouTube. I know YouTube like the back of my hand. It is my bread and butter. My hardest part is, well, obviously being hard on myself as well, Making it perfect as possible, but also making sure I'm pulling you in. I'm making you buy into this concept I'm about to sell you. And so that first part is always the hardest. But after I introduce who I am, I'm like, boom, into it. My talk was all about the four ways you can use YouTube in your marketing strategies. So I broke it down. You know how you could use it on Instagram and your email and a couple other places just for marketers, heart conference people. And being up there, as painful as an introvert as I am, I just feel like I'm where I should be. I am making eye contact with people. I am seeing head nods, and it's just keeping me going, and it's getting me amped up. Fun fact about the dress I wore, I bought it at the beginning of 2020 for all the speaking engagements I had booked. And I literally took the tag off of it right before I put it on to speak that day. And an bonus of speaking on stage to my people. Because the people that show up at Marketers Heart, the friends that I know from Marketers Heart, are my people. I was making money on stage because I had convinced them. I had showed them how YouTube was actually possible and how it could possibly change the way they're creating content and save them time. They were buying my products while I was standing on stage talking to them. And I'm going to tell you, the hardest part about the entire conference isn't speaking on stage. For me, it's literally walking in to that room because like I said, I'm a painful introvert and it is so hard for me to like walk up into a conversation, fit myself into conversation. I kind of just hide in the corner. It was just such a great experience. It made me realize again that I need to get up on stage. It also provided the confidence in myself again. It reignited that confidence that I do know what I'm talking about, that I am good at what I do. And I can't thank Julie and Kathy enough for the opportunity to speak at Marketer's Heart. I already bought my ticket for next year. I don't know if I'm speaking there or not, but next year is going to be in New Orleans and I bought my ticket. I am going next February. So if you want to join me next February at honestly, the only conference you ever really need to go to, I'm going to leave a link to the Marketer's heart conference for 2023 and the description box and maybe we can hang out and meet in real life next year. I'd love to know, have you ever thought about speaking? Or are you or do you do speaking? I love to know. And what questions do you have about conferences or speaking that we're kind of getting into that groove now where in person events are actually possible. I'm looking forward to doing more of these types of things. Are you.