Woman Up! by Aimee Cohen

Author:Aimee Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Published: 2014-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

Guilty Confession

As much as I would like to think that the opinions of other don’t matter, the reality is that they do. I have an intense aversion to judgment and criticism just like everyone else. Publishing this book for all to read (including professional book reviewers and critical bloggers) has been a tremendous test in bravery and vulnerability for me.

I am actually guilty of committing this sin multiple times throughout my career. For example, I have been a public speaker delivering presentations for years—and I love it. It’s one of my favorite activities and I feel very confident about my ability to deliver a message and connect with an audience. I have also been fortunate to have received a lot of positive praise and feedback.

Early on, there was a woman I admired who was a paid, national, keynote speaker. At the time, these were all the goals I was trying to achieve in my career…especially the “paid” part. In my mind, she was a speaking “goddess” and was clearly doing everything right. I was in awe of this woman and greatly admired everything she had done.

One day we happened to be speaking at the same event, but on different topics. I was delivering a career-related presentation and she spoke about technology and social media. After the event, I approached her like an adoring fan and confessed my deep admiration for all that she had accomplished.

She was gracious and appreciative and offered to give me some advice. Of course I was dying to hear what she had to say. My intention was to be a sponge and soak up every ounce of wisdom she was willing to share. She began by complimenting me on my content, industry expertise, organization of the information, and energetic and entertaining delivery style. However, she suggested I incorporate more personal stories into my presentations to make the content more relatable if I wanted to take my public speaking career to the “next level”.

Of course all I heard was, “You’re a horrible speaker and there are major elements lacking in your presentations. You’ll never make it in this business!” I completely ignored all the nice things she said and only focused on the one piece of constructive feedback she was kind enough to offer. I was devastated and seriously questioned whether I should ever speak another word in public again.

After I calmed down, I took an honest inventory of my public speaking skills and thought about her advice. I really enjoyed listening to other speakers when they told stories, so maybe it was a technique I could use to make my presentations even better.

“You don’t become what you want, you become what you believe.”

—Oprah Winfrey

I had an emotional and defensive reaction to her feedback and could have easily discounted her advice and continued on with my same old presentation style. It also could have rocked my confidence to the point where I retired from public speaking forever. Fortunately, I had enough sense to not allow either of those options to come to fruition.

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