Call meJeffrey

I wrote this mostly on a flight from San Francisco to Denver, heading back home after speaking on a panel about “Mature Social Networks” with Heather Champ, Director of Community for Flickr, at the User Generated Content Expo (UGCX) in San Jose, California. After I got off stage, someone complimented me on how natural I seemed talking to a group, and how they wished they had the same confidence. While I took the polite route and said I appreciated the compliment and thanked them for coming, I wish I would have said something different.

This is my fourth conference season that I’m heading into, routinely making the first part of the year the busiest as far as balancing time between actual work and being present at conferences. After four years, I’m just now getting comfortable with the idea of standing up in front of people and speaking my mind. It’s bizarre to me that I receive praise after I speak because mostly I just feel like I babble, curse too much, and over-tangent myself into forgetting what I was originally talking about. Some of you may be naturals at public speaking – congratulations, you’re abnormal. For the rest of us, speaking takes nerve-wracking practice in order to avoid making a total ass of ourselves in front of our peers and contemporaries.

On zero-to-ten scale rating my speaking ability where “zero” is my first time speaking, and “ten” is Jason Fried, I’d put myself comfortably at a “six.” It’s taken four years and a lot of embarrassing myself to begin to feel comfortable – and I’m still pretty nervous to speak by myself (though I’m hoping to get over that by accepting some solo speeches for later this year). I’ve only spoken by myself once and I almost passed out in the middle of a 30 minute talk – anyone present at FOWD 2008 in NYC can confirm this (the fun begins around 00:09:30).

Pro-tip: Drink water, talk slowly, eat before-hand, and remember to breathe. Trust me on this one.

So, how why did I even get into this whole speaking racket to begin with? As Threadless grew and started getting more attention as a company, we learned an interesting and unexpected lesson: if you build it, they will come – with questions. Perhaps they teach you this in business school, or maybe those smarter than me would have assumed it and taken courses public speaking to prepare.

We had no idea invitations to speak would start rolling in. We were a group of dudes having fun and building a business safe within the confines of our tiny office – without an audience. It began by being invited to talk locally – be on a small panel, talk to a class. As our company grew, so did the expectation that we’d get up in front of larger and larger audiences to speak about the company, the community, and our ideas and experiences in regard to putting it all together.

There exists the expectation that if you’re a founder, executive or pretty much anyone in the spotlight that you’ll be able to represent your company on a stage of some sort. I’ve come to understand that it’s not an unreasonable expectation. When you’ve achieved a bit of success, people want to hear about it. In order to maintain a healthy community of movers-and-shakers, these stories need to be told. They remind us that that success isn’t something you’re born with (even if you’re born with opportunity), but it’s a result of hard work, immense focus, and an ongoing ambitious wager with yourself that says “I bet I’m going to get more out of this than I put in.”

There’s a saying that probably makes every teacher I know cringe that goes “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” It’s one of those immature jabs aimed at the throat of your middle-school art teacher if you want to see his forehead turn bright red under his hair plugs. The saying has popped back into my brain lately, not for what it says – but for what it doesn’t say. The irony is that the unspoken part is the truer statement: “those who can (and therefore do), also teach – only usually in some form of public speaking”. Panels, lectures, keynotes, fireside chats, interviews – you name it.

The question is: are you able to teach?

The answer is yes. Even if you think it’s no, it’s still yes. What I’ve learned in the past 4 years is that the moral of the story is far more important than how well the story is told. Don’t get me wrong, being a sucky speaker is no fun for anyone (including the speaker), but sucking is temporary. Speaking is like everything else – the more you do it, the better you become.

I’m not a great speaker, but I’m getting better. I at least appear natural. I wish I could go back and talk to the dude who paid me the compliment after the panel in San Jose. Instead of simply thanking him, I’d like to have said: don’t deny people the inspiration from your story by being too concerned about how well you can tell it.