Key Takeaways from My Speaking Debut
Last Wednesday Squarespace paid for me to fly out from Tagazhout Morocco to Amsterdam to speak at Forward Festival and Self Made Summit about authentic community building.
Of course the night before my flight, I couldn’t sleep - classic Nicole. I didn’t feel nervous about my debut public speaking gigs but I suppose it was subconscious. My boyfriend drove me to the airport early in the morning and was gentle with me on the way but the security was not - apparently there was an issue with my passport since I’d entered the country in a van and was attempting to leave without it. I got it sorted but then I had a new challenge - a crammed flight. Word of caution if you ever fly Royal Air Maroc - you will be treated like anything but royalty. They will change the gate a million times and smirk at you when you ask what is going on and never turn on the A/C. The plane was FULL of coughing people and I was just thankful that I managed to grab a water at the kiosk before entering this mobile sauna.
My hotel thankfully included a taxi pickup and I laughed at the absurdity of it all. Just a few hours prior I was heading to the airport in an old Citroen and inhaling all the exhaust from the other old vehicles on the Moroccan freeway and here I was being whisked to my hotel in a new Mercedes that looked more like a spaceship. Just the day before I was using the bathroom in a hole in the ground and “showering” by boiling water and then strategically pouring it over myself while hovering over the same hole in the ground. When I got to my hotel, the first thing I did was take a proper shower, a rainfall shower with steaming temperatures.
Not feeling like going to a restaurant, I made my way to the grocery store and stocked up on all the items I hadn’t been able to indulge in since being in Morocco; prepackaged hummus, chocolate, and fresh lettuce. After gorging on my makeshift picnic in the hotel room, I immediately felt bloated and like a migraine was coming on. Was it a symptom of the processed food my body had just consumed in large quantities, a huge diversion from the fresh tagine I’d been eating daily in Morocco, or was it the fact that my period was about to start? Combine that with my lack of sleep, the horrible flight experience, and the stress looming from my upcoming speaking gigs and I had a recipe for disaster.
I managed to hold it all together and surprise myself, however. Not only did I deliver two speeches to two very different crowds, one to a room full of female entrepreneurs and another to a room full of cool designers and artists, but I managed not to get red or forget any bit of my presentation.
What were my key takeaways from the experience?
Women are awesome. I did ALL of that whilst bleeding.
I will try to avoid traveling during my winter phase if at all possible in the future - though I did it, and I did it well, my body was NOT happy. Now that I am back in Morocco, I am fighting a little illness that I know transpired as a result of not resting during my winter phase.
I actually LOVE public speaking, although I would prefer to talk about topics that invigorate me like overcoming self-doubt, tuning up your intuition, and taking leaps towards achieving self-actualization instead of website design and marketing. Regardless I am grateful to Squarespace for giving me this opportunity and for the surprising fire it ignited within me.
Do you factor in your moon phases when planning important events?
A Practical Way to Deal With Stress
The other day I had a TED talk on in the background while I was scheduling some social posts for a client. The first 13 minutes of the 14 min broadcast went the same way most TED talks do:
Witty introduction.
Establish credibility.
Present a problem (that you didn’t realize WAS a problem.)
Provide a heartfelt, somewhat vague or impractical solution.
The Talk
Kelly McGonigal, the keynote speaker, is a health psychologist who helps her patients implement practical strategies for health, happiness, and personal success. She told the audience that, for years, she had been informing her patients that stress was very dangerous. It wasn’t until she delved into the topic deeper that she found out something very surprising; it wasn’t actually the stress that was making people sick, it was the belief that the stress was making them sick, that was making them sick. Go figure.
McGonigal’s conclusion was very simple (perhaps oversimplified): change your perception of stress. When stress begins to take a physical toll on your body (increased heart rate, higher body temperature, + upset stomach) it's preparing you for the challenge ahead, not working against you. The stress hormone (which also happens to be the cuddle hormone, Oxytocin) is urging you to reach out to those you care about, and bond with them over the stressful situation.
While this talk was better than most I’ve seen, her conclusion was still a bit vague for me. How the hell was telling myself stress was helping me, going to help me? Needless to say, I was skeptical.
At 13:35, however, I changed my tune completely.
The host of the talk got on stage and asked her the following question:
So you’re saying, that you can pursue a stressful situation (such as a job), as long as you believe you can handle it?
And here is how she responded:
Chasing meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort. Go after what creates meaning in your life, and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.
BINGO. Now THAT'S the mind-blowing takeaway I was waiting for.
Living With Stress
Since arriving in Berlin, I have been living in a shared flat. In the beginning, it was great for me because it exposed me to new people from different cultures and allowed me to learn more about myself in the process. Lately, however, I have been feeling the urge to live in a more calm atmosphere. With all the various people coming and going from my current flat, it’s no surprise that it feels more like a hotel than a home. To make matters worse, a few months ago, my roommate informed us that her boyfriend would be living with us for the next four months…without asking me or my other roommate beforehand. As you can probably imagine, I was very stressed out about the situation. Longing for this idea of “comfort”, I threw myself into an apartment search (which turned out to be much more stressful than the alternative.)
Too bad this TED talk didn’t fall into my lap a few months prior, perhaps I would have saved myself a few sleepless nights.
My Takeaway
Life is often uncomfortable and stressful. While I am a firm believer that you can just buy a one-way ticket and fly away any damn time you want, eventually the lesson is going to catch up with you. But exactly what that lesson was, was a bit confusing for me. My lesson wasn’t that I had to be a martyr and stay in a messy situation because I had to learn patience, or compassion, or communication. My lesson is that I should redirect my focus on chasing meaning, instead of avoiding discomfort.
A Practical Way to Deal with Stress
1. First, define what chasing meaning means to you. Here are some things that bring (or have brought) meaning to my life:
taking care of a fluffy pup
nourishing my friendships
helping my girlfriends realize their worth
helping others find their voice, talent, or passion and then encouraging them to pursue it
empowering others, especially women and minorities
writing relatable content, sharing stories
being playful, silly, childlike so that others feel safe and comfortable to do so
2. Second, start chasing!