Presenting

It seems quite fitting that my last post, dipping into the cookie jar paid reference to my battles with anxieties and yet this post is all about me presenting for the first time, as I did last week at the Manchester and Leeds Data Platform User Groups. OMG I still cant believe it!!!!

Anyway.

It wasn't that long ago that I wouldn't have been able to achieve this, and not for the lack of wanting either as it's been a bit of a dream of mine for a long time. So as you can imagine I'm feeling quite elated by the whole experience! I took an awful lot from both sessions too, met some amazing people, had some great discussions about all sorts of things and also took away some great advice and feedback about presenting in general and my session too.

So for this post I thought I'd jot down some of the things I learnt about presenting and hopefully, if you're contemplating doing it some time, it might help a bit.

Nerves
My dad told me many, many times that if you don't feel nerves there's something wrong with you, you're just not human. He's not wrong, and if I'm totally honest as I headed over the M62 motorway on that Wednesday afternoon towards Manchester I couldn't help but think, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!".

I've come to not exactly embrace nerves, far from it, but I certainly accept them for what they are. If I couldn't care less about something then the chances are I wouldn't be nervous at all but when something means something, there they are. With that in mind I try not to be too concerned on trying to overcome them but instead use them to ensure I've prepared as well as I can and that I'm focused on what I'm trying to achieve, I guess it might be called "channeling the energy" if you're into that sort of thing.

TL/DR: Everyone gets nerves, so don't try to battle them and instead use them to focus/channel that energy into remembering what you're achieving.

Practice doesn't make perfect, but it makes you much better.
Things go wrong, fact. Preparation is without question key but there's always something. For the second session I forgot a key prop (chocolates) that I use to make a joke about bribery being such an evil word. I'd prepared everything, done the session (with chocolates) the night before but yet here we are.

I didn't even realise until the slide came up, talk about a "DOH" moment but then again, what could I do? So I apologised to the audience, made a mental note to not do that again (I promise), and carried on. The lesson for me was that it's impossible to prepare for every single little eventuality of "what could go wrong" so instead I focused (yeah, that again) my preparation on the good bits; I knew my slides (mostly), knew the code sections and also my lines (that's how I sort of viewed them but instead of being too rigid tried to develop a bit of flow and allow a natural conversation).

Above all, prepare best you can, don't fear the what if's and if something doesn't go to plan, don't beat yourself up, there's next time.

TL/DR: Don't waste time fearing mistakes, they happen to everyone. Relax. You know your stuff.

Self-Doubt and Imposter Syndrome
Another fact, I've never been to a session where the presenter knew everything.

It's true, but yet my old mate imposter syndrome was determined to make me question absolutely everything, even just standing up there. I went through it, seriously I did. Do you think you're some sort of expert? What happens when someone asks you a question and you don't know, what if somebody spots a mistake, what if you've got no idea what you're talking about?! You don't belong up there!!!

Oh yeah, that shit is real.

Imposter syndrome is nasty. It's as if your very own self becomes hell-bent determined to make you doubt pretty much everything that you're trying to do and it's going to come at you at every imaginable angle to try to stop you. Lovely isn't it?

Unlike nerves this is something to overcome, do not accept imposter syndrome.

I don't know or pretend to understand the psychology of it abut what I do know is that there is nothing trying to get in my way and stop me from achieving something - apart from my own self-doubt. A coach of sorts once told me that in those situations remind yourself that you have every single right to be where you are, you've done the hard yards (or metres) so look back on them and know you've earned it. [another cookie]. I love those words (thanks Mr Fisher).

Another thing that sprung to mind, and I can't remember if it was Paul Randal, Gandalf or some other wise old soul who said to remember that everyone who you look up to has been in the very same place where you are now. They might be very established speakers but at one point, they were right where you are now. I took a lot from that.

To lead off that; nerves, self-doubt, imposter syndrome, they effect absolutely everyone. The reason why you are where you are is because you've earned it, now is your time.

TL/DR: Your own self-doubt is yours, so own it, you're exactly where you deserve to be. You've done the hard bit, self-doubt doesn't know what its talking about.

Breaking the ice
The first five or so minutes is a quite a rollercoaster. I turned to humor, for Manchester I had a joke about it being my first time speaking, only that was a lie, it wasn't like I'd driven over and words started coming out of my mouth. I also have a particular slide, my "about me - part two", that shows I'm quite happy to poke fun out of myself. I quite like laughing and to date, it's always got a bit of a laugh from the audience as well.

The fun filled game EVERYONE is playing!!

For me the first few minutes are a great opportunity to give a pretty informal introduction to who you are and what your session is about. After the intro I used a bit of a quiz element (I sort of borrowed this idea from Paul Andrews Azure Icon Game), "fun facts about guillotines" to promote a bit of audience interaction. That really helped, it was very light hearted, a bit of a laugh (if you can laugh about guillotines), and it just broke the ice a little more.

TL/DR: The audience are real people. They know and appreciate what you're doing, they're there to support you so get to know them a bit.

Learn from the experience

Doing two sessions on two nights actually turned out to be a great decision, despite a lot of self-doubt telling me it was a ridiculous idea. I got a lot of feedback after night one so being able to put that into practice straight away was a big help, wish someone had said don't forget the chocolates.

I also got a lot from the questions being asked in the session and actually a couple of them I made mental notes to include the following night (cost - optimisation relationship). They were really excellent points and for me, improved the session for next time. Leeds was no different, I got asked about what query tools I use so when I next present the session, there's a slide on that (with some new bits I've learnt about recently)! 

TL/DR: Take all the learning points that you can from the experience.

Enjoy it
Yes I had nerves, yes I suffered greatly with imposter syndrome, yes I was absolutely dreading it.

At the same time I rehearsed, I had an approach in mind, used some bits and pieces to gradually get into delivering the presentation. I didn't aim for perfection, I really didn't need the pressure. Some minor things went wrong, I forgot a couple of bits but hey, these things happen, mental note, carry on.

TL/DR: We get the best rewards when we go out of our comfort zone and "DO IT".

I'm no expert, full stop, but I learnt stacks from what was an absolutely brilliant experience. Am I glad I did it? Too right I am and now I'm focusing on the next step! Is that a scary prospect? Too right. Is that, or any element of self-doubt going to stop me?

Hell no.

Dipping into the cookie jar.

This post going to be a bit of a personal story, in this case very little to do with SQL Server but when I read the topic of this months T-SQL Tuesday I felt very compelled to write something. Over the last week or so I've reviewed and rewritten quite a lot of it, the first drafts were way too lengthy (yup, even more than this!). This is the final version that I am writing out, and I'm sticking to it!

10 years ago I suffered my first anxiety attack.

I was in a meeting at work at the time; became very dizzy, nauseous, numb and had horrific stomach and chest pains. I remember trying to control my breathing which became very panicked and I had an overriding feeling that at any second I was going to black out. I didn't, I managed to leave the meeting but walked into the door frame as the dizziness became quite severe. I don't remember much else from that day.

I know a short time later, maybe the next day, at the doctors I was told it was an anxiety attack, which was a bit of a relief at the time as I was convinced it something "serious" - at the time I was sure I was having cardiac issues and hadn't even contemplated, or been aware of anxiety. Despite the tablets that I was given (which I didn't take for long) and being told to take some time off (I went back almost straight away) I pretty much filed it away and carried on, until the next attack happened.

This occurred on the downwards escalator in a local department store, same symptoms but I remember panicking much earlier. Same again, I don't remember much else apart from booking in again at the GP's.

The next couple of months were extremely difficult. I was given medication that made me feel ill, referred to counselling sessions that on the whole I viewed as being quite upsetting and each day became progressively more of a struggle to get through than the last. The attacks came and went, sometimes very mild, sometimes not, but they were there and all the time I was surrounded by feelings of weakness, guilt, denial perhaps and if I am honest, some degree of shame too.

I don't know when the tipping point arrived or indeed what originally sparked it, in truth it was more of a progressive process but what I can write about was a train of thought that I slowly began to realise more and more. This is one of my "dipping into the cookie jar" moments.

You see whilst anxiety had left me feeling like I was a weak person and although the days felt like a struggle here I was day after day fighting it, albeit without fully realising but it's true, every day I was getting up and doing what I needed to do to get through it. Inner strength I came to understand isn't something that we know is there, at least not until we really need it and even then we might not fully realise it.

But realise it I had, I started to draw on it and bit by bit I began to see and understand the things that I needed to change. This newly found "clarity" is what actually inspired the name of this blog; it took some time but now I had accepted where I was, I understood that is was perfectly okay to not be okay but I also knew where I wanted to be and how I was going to get there.

A big part of that process was drawing upon that strength to have the courage to speak to others, those close to me. To use the cookie jar analogy; I needed help to open it, perhaps I needed to have the top loosened for me, and I certainly needed help to reach those cookies that were at the very bottom of the jar, but that's what we did.

Some significant changes were indeed made, there were many ups and downs for sure but over time things got much better. I became used to stepping out of my comfort zone because at times it was the only way, sometimes needing that a gentle nudge of encouragement and offer of support. It always humbles me to witness how supportive people are when it's just in their very nature, every day you'll see people helping others with their challenges. And I always say to people not to trivialise the challenges they're going through; whether its seemingly big or seemingly small a challenge is exactly that, a challenge.

Over the years I've faced many things, not least when exactly a month ago today when my Dad passed away. But through everything I've learnt that all of us, we really are a lot stronger than what we know. Sometimes we need to draw upon both positive and negative experiences but there's always that inner strength that lies within us. Sometimes we have to reach out; sometimes for the help, sometimes to help somebody else but between us, we really can get through anything.

Thank you for reading

Speaking in March

Most people who know me know of my love of talking and also my love of working with SQL Server. Next month I'm combining the two as I'm readying myself for speaking at a couple of local-ish user groups in March (meetup links further down) with the rather awesomely named session, "Guillotines, Sat-Nav and the Query Optimiser"

Intrigued..? You should be!

The magnificent two date world tour kicks off with the Manchester Data Platform User Group on Wednesday the 13th of March and the next night we head back to sunny Yorkshire for the Leeds Data Platform User Group meeting on the 14th. I say "we", just to clarify there's no tour bus or anything, it's just me travelling back and forth on the M62 whilst listening to and shouting at TalkSport presenters.

Anyway, this will be the first time I've spoken at a SQL event or meeting so naturally it's a pretty scary prospect but at the same time I genuinely can't wait. It's been an aspiration of mine for quite a while so actually getting round to doing it feels like quite an achievement, or at least it's getting there.

So if you'd like to know a little bit more about guillotines (who doesn't?!), query optimisation and you like pizza then why not head over? If you've never been to a user group meeting before then here's an ideal opportunity to see what they're all about. It's very easy for me to list the reasons why you should (nice people, guillotines & pizza) but seeing for yourself is without question the best way so go ahead and get yourself signed up.

I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone there, huge thanks to the organisers of these meetings, I hope you know how genuinely appreciative everyone is for these events and see you all soon!

Here's the links:
Manchester Data Platform User Group, Wednesday 13th March.
Leeds Data Platform User Group, Thursday 14th March.