As someone who looks back on a childhood and early adult years as painfully shy, lacking self-confidence in any part of my life, it's hard to see how I got from there to here.  Here, in this case, is enjoying performing.  Not just any kind of performing: I can only "play" myself.

It's an odd situation to be in, and I'm not clear on how I got here.  But I do love to be in front of an audience, giving my presentation, knowing that I'm connecting.  I'm teaching them things they need and want to know, and I'm entertaining them.  Reassuring them.  Making them understand that what I know, they can know.  What I am offering is how to acquire a skill, not how to admire the talent and artistry of others. 

Like many situations I am in, this "audience" was composed of a wide range of intellectual, education and life experiences and capacity.   To reach the least educated and not bore the most educated is always my specialty.   And I did it.  I talked about how to "play" the policy game.   And they "got it".

Compared to so many things I do, getting up and giving the monologue is easy.  I don't need to manage anyone to make it happen.  I don't have to rely on anyone else to develop my material.  I know this stuff.  And I know how to deliver it.  And while it's never been a disaster (that I recall, though my memory can be selective), yesterday's presentation was a particularly good one.   Heck, I even got a standing ovation!

People ask me how I got so comfortable doing this.  I think part of it is just experience: I had to do it as part of my job for five years, and I never really stopped.  Another part is that I talk to people in any audience -- any audience -- just the way I talk to people around my dining room table, if they ask about this stuff.  Cabinet ministers, program delivery people, poor people, activist leaders with a disability -- they're all the same, in terms of deserving good answers to their questions about how this stuff all works.

Deserving good answers is especially true when they're paying you to be there. To offer them your experience and wisdom so they don't have to make all the mistakes I did on my way to becoming an "expert".  And when they applaud, too.. well, life doesn't get much better than that!

Next entry

Archives