I will be speaking on two panels at Blog World Expo in a few days, and I am absolutely wrought with fear. I did plays in front of hundreds as a child, was always the main speaker for group presentations in class, sung in grade school at a provincial competition and earned silver, organized a session at Moosecamp in Vancouver, and have done many videos and podcasts both live and recorded, so you wouldn’t think that speaking in front of a group of my peers about the things I have learned over the last three years would scare me, but it does.

I guess the biggest thing for me versus the things I have done over the last three years that are public is that I couldn’t immediately see the reactions of those taking in what I had to say, and so if they didn’t like it, I didn’t find out until afterwards, thus allowing me to remain confident.

Thankfully, I am on a panel, and so I will have others that I can rely on for the hard questions, but I feel that I don’t have anything amazing to bring to the table. I don’t make ridiculous amounts of money while talking about the food I ate for dinner, I haven’t published a book, nor have I built up the attention of a million subscribers.

As I write this, I am sure most of you are thinking that I will do fine, and I am pretty sure I will too, as the worst thing that can happen is someone decides to point at me and go “boo”, but I wanted to remind all of you reading, thinking that you can’t do what I do because I have something “special” that I am not special, but instead passionate, and fortunate.

If you want to make working online, in whatever capacity, your full time career, there are so many ways to get there. If you want to build your personal brand up to the level where you are asked to speak at events, there are so many opportunities to do that, so don’t be shy, instead, be passionate as passion is infectious and no fear of anything should stop you form sharing what you most enjoy.

Originally posted on September 14, 2008 @ 7:15 am