Looking for entrepreneurial stories

Few days ago, during a conference for entrepreneurs, I decided to ask few of them to share a little bit of their entrepreneurial stories in front of a camera.

I thought it would be easy for entrepreneurs to talk about their stories during three to five minutes. But in fact, I discovered that was not the case.

The main reason I got from people reluctant to speak in front of a camera was that they did not feel comfortable presenting something. For instance, I got responses such as “I am not a good speaker” and “She has a new business but will be too shy to talk to you” or “I can give you the contact of another person I know because he is used to giving presentations.”

Marketing yourself

I did not push further with them because I understood their reaction; after all, I had experienced similar reactions in the past.

In my case, I also think it is due to a difference of culture between Europe and the U.S. In general, an American professional seems to feel more comfortable marketing himself and his business than a European person typically does.

Several years ago during a company dinner I attended, one manager who had experience working with American companies decided to entertain and motivate the teams. He asked everybody to stand up around the tables and take each other’s hands in order to make a circle around each table. Then we had to raise the hands several times while loudly saying the name of the company. Everybody did it, but we found that a little bit ridiculous even though I think his goal was reached in that it gave people a little bit of a boost and provided a bit more dynamism until the end of the night.

Overcoming your fear

To come back to my initial comment about having your shyness and fear block you from talking about your passion, ask yourself: Who will you convince if you don’t feel comfortable sharing your experience?

Not everybody is a natural speaker, and having English as your second language can also be another difficulty. But we can always get help to improve ourselves. A tip that works for me: when the job needs to be done, I focus on the result and think about my worries later.

When I was a kid, during an English class we read a text that said, “You can not have fear if you don’t have imagination.” Sometimes you can overcome your fear if you don’t focus so much on the potential bad scenarios—which will even not happen in most of the cases!