Tonight I found myself in a situation were I was so nervous I couldn’t hear anything but the quickening beat of my heart. My voice was cracking as I spoke and everything I wanted to say completely left my head.
They was no external pressure on me to take part, I was inspired by the people I was with and wanted to take another step in the personal growth I am going through.
Did it go well? Honestly no, it went terribly. I don’t think I finished a single thought, I mixed up things I wanted to speak about, and forgot to say anything I really wanted to. Afterwards my right leg was shaking uncontrollably, I just wanted to leave and hide away.
I was only talking quietly for 30 seconds in front of two people, both who I know well but I was terrified. The reason: I was completely outside of my comfort zone.
During the summer I was lucky enough to take part in TechStars in Boulder with 9 other companies - it was life changing in many ways but one of the most important lessons I learnt during those 89 days, was the need to venture outside my comfort zone. Something I was forced to do on an almost daily basis.
In the first week David Cohen asked us write down the one thing we suck at the most and want to change. For me it that was easy: Networking! The thought of being in a room full of people I didn’t know and then having to go over and introduce myself to them, scared the life out of me.
That same night was Meet the Mentors Night, the calendar description said:
“This is an event you don’t want to miss, as its your first exposure to most of the TechStars mentors! […] The atmosphere will be relaxed and fun”
Relaxed and fun couldn’t be further from the words I would have used to describe what was going to happen. How I wished I could sneak out the bunker, I tried my best to hide by talking to people I knew but Holland (one of the Techstars team) found me and told me “you said you suck at this, go get better!” and literally pushed toward one of the mentors.
Did it go well? Honestly no, it went terribly. - But it was the first step. It was exciting and challenging, and I wanted to do it again. Over summer I learned to love networking and the personal growth I went through was enormous, I met great people and my company grew because of it.
That summer, constantly stepping out of my comfort zone taught me new skills and led to me experiencing great things. The same was true tonight once again I stepped out my zone and took a beating but now I am on the ladder and next time I will enjoy it.
I think it was a great mentor of mine during techstars, but it could have just been Micah, who told us that when you do something and think this would make a good blog then you should write about it, so I thought I would take a shot.
