The little devil on my shoulder had a field day this week.

Conferences don't bring out the best in me. In fact, they often bring out the worst.

The worst of my ADHD triggers. The worst of my imposter syndrome. The worst of my insecurities.?

I personally think that it's because conferences are full of really confident people who are great at promoting themselves.

You can see them effortlessly gliding from person to person, laughing, charming and adding value to every conversation. It's a skill that I like to think that I have, but that I don't really have in any appreciable amount.

Woe is me, I know.

I prefer to speak at conferences. Not because I'm paid for it. But because I don't really need to be fully part of the conference like an attendee has to be.

An attendee is there to learn and connect.

A speaker is mostly there to teach and... well... go home afterwards.

Which all says a lot about how I feel about conferences. I need to deal with that.

But this past week in Cairns at the Tropical Innovation Festival I sat and listened to some great stories from really smart, qualified people in my industry.?

And a little demon on my left shoulder started whispering in my ear for the first time in a while... "Everyone here is smarter than you and you are a nobody."

Sigh. Oh Hello there. It's you again.

I learned a lot, but did nothing.

I sat in and took notes at about twenty different sessions. And there was a lot to learn. From how to validate ideas about new startups to how not to treat members of your audience as your ego servants. But what I perhaps learned most this week was how far I still have to go.?

I socially shut down this week.

Of some 1500 people at this conference, I had a one-to-one conversation with about five people over four days.

To be honest, that's quite a feat for any conference attendee. I'm almost impressed with how successfully I was able to avoid people in a setting where people were friendly, approachable and utterly delightful.

But I wasn't any of those things.

Sure, I was nice when spoken to, and not completely socially inept when around groups of people, but I didn't actively seek out connections or conversation.

I felt really small as an attendee. And I'm not used to feeling like that - and it messed with my head. And I think I know why this happened.

Preparation is everything when it comes to business.

I was excited to head to this conference. It was in a beautiful place that I both am familiar with and enjoy. There were several people people there that I know. I had every reason to enjoy the experience.

And I did enjoy the learning, but a conference isn't just about learning. It's about connecting and networking. And I had no interest in networking. At all.

The organisers had arranged so many great experiences and opportunities to connect, celebrate and network and I attended none of those things. I actively did everything I could to avoid them. When asked if I was going to one of those events, I'd make some excuse about needing to get some work done - which was true, but not every single time.

In my defence, I didn't prepare myself for networking and connection. I prepared myself for learning and absorbing. And this is where I, perhaps, fell down. I know what conferences are for, yet I only prepared myself for half of the experience.

Mentally, we are all in different places. You may struggle with public speaking, but for me, it's effortless. You might have no trouble at all walking into a room of strangers and introducing yourself, I struggle with it.

Someone who struggles with public speaking can learn that skill. You plan, your practice and you prepare for it. For social situations like the ones I avoided this week, you can do much the same. Practice your introduction, plan ahead for who you want to meet and why. Prepare yourself for the psychological strain it will put you under so that you're ready for it and have strategies to deal with what comes up for you.

And in my busy-ness lately, I had slipped up on preparing myself - so when I landed in town, I reverted to my "worked from home for eight years" state where I seemed to lose all my social skills and tried to become a hermit amongst 1500 people.

You are the way you are, but that's not the way you have to be.

I could easily lean back on my ADHD and various anxieties, crawl up into a ball of emotion and refuse to leave me house. God knows, there are certainly days where I would rather do that.

But I have a moderating factor in my life. I do work that I absolutely love. And almost every morning I wake up with a level of excitement to do that work. So the really dark days are rare.

But it certainly hasn't always been that way. It took a lot of work and fair bit of time to retrain myself out of the habits I built from working from home for 8 years.

I know that every single case of anxiety is different from the other. And that nothing really gets solved by pulling a stiff upper lip and soldiering on. But there is some value in understanding that change does happen. And that they way you are right now isn't the way you always have to be.

You can be terrified of public speaking today and be speaking regularly in public in 12 months time.

You can be useless at writing social media posts now, but be pumping out seven a week in a couple of hours within weeks.

Remember that none of us could walk at one stage in our lives. Or talk. Or play piano. Or do differential equations. Or make coffee. Or send an email.

We learned all these things along the way. Over time. And with plenty of practice until we got it right - and in many cases, it became second nature.

So, there's always something we have to work on. Even for those of us who think we have big smart brains and a newsletter.

That's all for this weekend. Just one short read about knowing that we always have more to do on our journey through life.

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See you again next week.

Cheers,

Dante

P.S. Here's a few free ways I can lend a hand if you need some help.

On June 25 I'll be hosting a free 1-hour online class to help you write better content using AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. It will show you a way to use AI that you haven't seen before. Book your spot here.

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