Young Successful Entrepreneur

There was a VC to my left, a VC to my right, and an audience full of Anderson MBA students. Every person in the room was older than I was, had more experience, and had more schooling. I could feel my heart thumping against my chest right before the speaker panel started. I started feeling that same feeling that I’ve dreaded for so many years. You know the feeling. It’s that nerve-wrecking, stomach twisting, palm-sweating feeling that makes your voice tremble when you speak and makes you look like a total loser in front of the people you are speaking to.

I was asked to be a speaker at the Entrepreneur Association Conference at UCLA Anderson by my good friend Paul who is a 1st year at the school.

[I want to bring up website design really quick (since this is a marketing & PR blog). If you click on the link above, you'll notice a very unique website. It scrolls to the right, is done in pure flash I believe, and is in full black and white with some color jpegs. The advantage is that it plays to the theme of innovation; however, I feel that there are more drawbacks and disadvantages to the site than there are advantages.
First of all, since the site is done in Flash, one cannot copy/paste anything from the site nor can one Ctrl+F and search for certain words throughout the site. The black and white makes it look sad and depressing. If you have every seen the Anderson culture, you'll notice that it is fun, vibrant, and alive. The website does not play to the brand of the school.]

So was I nervous? Yes. Every speaker gets nervous no matter how good they are.

“There are two types of speakers. Those that get nervous, and those that lie.”

Did I do well? Yes. I feel that I was able to hold my ground and offer some great insight on the entrepreneurial side of things. Which leads me to the point of my post: if you have not fully prepared for your speech, if everyone in the room has more experience than you, if the other panelists are people who are absolute experts in the industry that you are in, and if the audience members can easily think that they are better than you, how can you make yourself seem impressive so that everyone in the room respects you and sees you as an expert in your field (or at least on par with everyone else)?

The key to everything in life is confidence.

You will be able to accomplish 99% of the challenges in your life successfully if you have the confidence to do it.  Fear comes from uncertainty; confidence comes from preparation and the belief in yourself that you can do anything.  When it comes to public speaking, there are two ways to gain absolute confidence:

1. Practice, practice, and practice like a madman so you absolutely know the material
2. Keep putting yourself in public speaking situations so that it becomes as natural as breathing

I used to be a nervous wreck when it came to public speaking so I did #2 from above.  I constantly put myself in public speaking situation by starting Bruin Consulting, establishing the UCLA Case Competition, starting a consulting firm, and leading the business development and marketing side for Future Delivery.  Whatever your fear may be, if you put yourself in a situation where you have to constantly face your fears, then you will eventually overcome them.

By the way, I just say Fist of Fury on TV.  Bruce Lee is so damn amazing!!!