Share Your Experience Loudly and Often

From the outside, it may seem like the person on the stage has something special that inherently makes them suited to speaking. They don't. The most interesting technical talks, blogs, and videos are from the people who have found their voice through lots of practice. Their first several attempts were definitely not perfect. (Don't believe me? Check out Post Malone's early work.)

When I encourage people to share their experience via writing or talking, their response usually implies I'm more naturally suited to speaking and writing then they are. I'm not.

I barely passed my university public speaking course. Even while I was a yoga teacher, the only time I wasn't stressed about speaking in front of people was during meditation, when everyone's eyes are closed. When I first started giving technical demos, I would be shaking and sweating the whole time. I have a lot of research writing experience, but technical writing and blogging in general are very different. Before I started a tech blog during bootcamp, I had been blogging for years and generated no views. I continue to be pleasantly surprised so many people have found my blogs helpful.

It's because people find my experience helpful and a healthy dose of peer pressure from friends and colleagues that I kept trying. My demos got better. I learned what feedback to take and what feedback to let go. I started experimenting with my writing and publishing before I felt it was perfect. I gave my first technical talk in 2022. In 2023, I spoke at a in-person conference for the first time. In 2024, I've given four talks. I'm already scheduled to give five more. Slowly, I'm getting less panicked and less focused on all the little mistakes the audience didn't even notice.

It's not just me. All of the technical speakers I've talked to are not 100% confident or perfect. Most of them have shared that they are still very nervous before giving a talk. Many have shared stories of panic attacks on stage. Most are relieved to hear the audience was actually interested in their talk. The technical bloggers and video-makers are usually just happy they managed to publish something decent recently, whether or not it got views.

It's also not just about us individually. When you share your experience, you can help someone else out who is struggling with the problem you just solved, show developers with less experience that there is more than one way to approach a problem, and help someone feel less alone.