“Only boldness can deliver from fear. And if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is somehow violated, and the whole future is condemned to hopeless staleness.” ― Carl Jung
Practicing something terrifying for six hours every day, no days off, wasn’t easy. I lost sleep on many nights and was often mentally and physically exhausted. But it was also a wonderful opportunity for learning and growth.
Below I describe what drove the intensity of my training, what I learned, and my takeaway from this journey.
The most impactful change I made was linking my public speaking journey to a larger, overarching goal.
For context, I’ve always found purpose in entrepreneurship. Essentially, entrepreneurship means building something and then selling it. As an introvert by nature and an engineer by profession, I naturally gravitate towards building rather than selling.
Whenever it came time to sell or present ideas, I felt friction. I would overthink, procrastinate, and end up building more instead of selling.
Over the years, I began to notice this pattern and realized that my struggle with selling wasn’t about lacking skill, rather, it was rooted in a fear of judgment and rejection.
Determined to overcome this fear, I made learning public speaking my primary focus. At that point, learning public speaking wasn’t a side quest anymore. It was the next objective on the main mission. Becoming a confident speaker meant confronting my fears, eliminating the friction in my workflow, and ultimately becoming a better entrepreneur.
In my mind, there was a new version of myself that I wanted to become. Someone who was essentially the same but also fundamentally different. To become that person, I knew I had to make changes, and change, by its nature, requires doing things differently.
Doing things differently is really uncomfortable. But that discomfort is the essence of growth. If it didn’t feel uncomfortable, it wouldn’t truly be different - it would be familiar, and familiar isn’t change. With this mindset, unfamiliarity and discomfort became the leading signals of growth. The more I leaned into these sensations, the closer I got to becoming the person I wanted to be.
I was so obsessed with my long term vision that I felt unstoppable. It was almost to the point of delusion where I would completely ignore the exhaustion and the pain because I had no doubt of the inevitable outcome that was waiting for me. With every rep I put in, I felt myself getting closer to the person I wanted to be. Handling the pressure like he would, expressing myself like he would. It wasn’t just about improving; it was about becoming that version of myself, one step at a time.
People often ask me how to do things “right” - what to focus on, what exercises to do, how to structure practice sessions, who to seek advice from etc.
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way of doing things; I simply did them. I acted without overthinking. In fact, having free time deeply bothered me. It felt like I was off track. Every second I wasn’t practicing was widening the gap between me and my goals.
Planning and overthinking assume that you can predict what’s ahead, but the truth is, you can’t. You don’t know what you don’t know. Taking action, even imperfect action, yielded far more results than overthinking.
Maintain a long term vision. Extreme action bias in the short term.
Fundamentally, I believe that public speaking is a skill, like driving a car or writing code. Like all skills, it requires time and practice to master. The problem with being afraid of doing something is that the fear drives us away from doing it, preventing us from learning how to do it.