fear.

I remember performing at countless dance and piano recitals as a young girl.  Brings back so many vivid memories of my days as a growning young woman in St. Louis.   I pretty skilled at both if I do say so myself (ok, not so much in the dance arena), but extremely shy when it came to the actual performance days.  

How shy?  Surely it couldn't have been THAT bad.  "You're an attorney now", they say.  "Don't you get paid to talk in front of people every day?  Judges? Other attorneys?  Clients?"  "But you're so well spoken", they say.  How can you not be comfortable speaking and performing in front of others when you're so good at it?  Can't explain exactly how I fell into this line of work initially (the dance and piano I can easily blame on my mother).  I was always the dancer quickly shuffling to the back row under those blazing bright lights at the Kiel Opera House each June when it was my group's time to perform to Stevie Wonder.  Those sparkly stretchy costumes with the fancy feather headpieces and all of that makeup were sooooooo grand.  So who was this painfully shy girl? The girl that snuck her music book on stage when it was her time to perform her piano solo of "Moonlight Sonata" in front of EVERYONE?  Yep.  That would also be me. 

What's the lesson?  Know what you do well, and never be afraid to show it.  When people compliment you, say "thank you."  That's it.  No "thanks but," "well if I weren't so......," fill in the blank.  Bask in the glory that you are, and keep forcing yourself out of your own shadow.  You may just be pleasantly surprised to learn that no one was really judging you and waiting for you to screw up after all; they were fully occupied with worry that they might someday fall on their faces too.