Hero Series: Beating the fear of Public Speaking, with Felicia Slattery

Last week I started a series where I'm putting the spotlight on some of my heroes: These are people that have inspired and helped me and I can't wait to introduce them to you. To continue the series today, we're going to talk about one of the biggest fears in the world: The fear of public speaking! Listen To The Podcast: We’re going after it with a long-time friend and a long-time hero, Felicia Slattery. Felicia is a award-winning professional speaker. She's works one-on-one with experts, entrepreneurs, CEOs, celebrities…  to help them to connect with people on a human level from the stage and from online, as well as, build relationships that last. Right from the start of my business, Felicia welcomed me as a peer and helped set me up for success.  She is someone you can listen to and count on. She’s the real deal. Whether you want to be a professional speaker or just be more effective in any speaking scenario, Felicia Slattery will share GREAT strategies that you can apply that will enable you to DREAM THINK DO. Felicia, welcome to "Dream.Think.Do." Wow. Thanks, Mitch. I'm so excited to be here. It's a long time coming. I want to back up. You're one of my heroes. I literally, I mean that. I think I've shared this story with you, but if not, you were the Emcee at one of the first events that I got to speak at as a professional speaker. Do you remember that years and years ago? It was like 400 years ago. I do remember that. It was fantastic. Yeah. Well, I don’t know if I’ve told you this story before, but my business was just getting started. We'd gone through some setbacks at the time as well. I remember checking in at the hotel hoping that no one from the conference was going to be there because I was a little worried about my credit card clearing! I was there. I was passionate about the message I was going to give it. It was a Big Dream Gathering, kind of at the first time we were ever really doing it in a conference setting. But there was that imposter syndrome thing creeping up on me, all of those fears, all those doubts of should I really be here? Should people really listen to me? Do I belong here? As you Emceed, you just controlled the room. Right from the start, you welcomed me as a peer. You set me up for so much success. You warmed that audience up. They were on the edge of their seats. We had a great time. Then the next day, you got up and you actually spoke about my talk and said, "Guys, listen. He's going places. You should listen to him.”  I'm getting a little misty as I tell this, but that message mattered to me so much. It spoke to my heart and that gave me juice for years to come. I just so appreciated how took control of the room. You cared about us. You set me up for success, but those comments you said the next day. It went deep in my heart. You're a long time hero of mine. Aw, you just gave me chills. I'm so happy. Honestly, that's one of the things that as a speaker, we just never know who we're impacting with our words. I had no way of knowing. I don't think you came up to me right afterwards. I don't know that you told me that then, but I'll tell you - Just hearing years later, for you to remember some seemingly just normal thing that I would say at an event because I'm boosting up the speakers. That's part of my job, but also, I don't say anything that I don't also believe. Of course, I meant every word, but it was like I barely would even remember saying that. But I do remember your presentation? Yes, because you were amazing. Thank you. I just want to tell you DREAM THINK DO-ers, this is a person you can listen to. You can probably already tell, she does an incredible job in front of an audience, speaks to thousands of people. She’s the real deal. I say all of that because I just want to jump right into her wisdom here. We're going to go after this. I know you work with all sorts of different types of folks.