Ignorance.
What we know about the ourselves is 1%, what we know that we dont know about us is 4%, what we don’t know that we don’t know about us is 95%.
There is no exact figure for this…
Truth is we are living in ignorance without knowing about it.
I remember in 2015, I was a regular lower middle class person. I had a single dream of completing the college. Do a simple job. Go to office 9 to 5. Get a good salary and sit back at home.
I did not had huge dreams and desires. but that is the year I have taken a different path from society.
I dropped.
Next year, I joined college but I got interested in online industry. Which is still completely new.
I choose the path of Entrepreneurship, my friends and family have no clue about.
After 4-5 years I have moved to a certain distance that I can’t find any trace of society here.
Every other moment is new and challenging for me.
And, every other moment I feel lost. My vision gets blurred, Mental health suffers, lose the clarity of what I wanted. All these terrible experience made me realise I really know nothing about me or my life.
If you also feel sometimes lost, dont know what to do, self doubt your capabilities, have so many questions to be asked, you are my friend a seeker.
The moment you realise you know vary little about yourself, you know vary little about the universe, you get aware about your ignorance.
That is the moment you start seeking.
You tend to stay a life long ignorant, because you know, no matter how you try, you can’t learn it all.
Fake confidence
Sometimes, society might bother you if you reach to this stage.
Society, will do certain things with such conviction that you will raise question on yourself that how these people know but I don’t ? How these people are so smart ? How they know everything about everything?
The reality is society is following a predefined path and portraying fake confidence.
The realisation
Sooner or later you will realise they know nothing. They have closed their eyes from the reality maybe they scared to be in the dark of ignorance or they don’t even know that ignorance exist.
When you realise this… you tend to listen about yourself form others before reacting to it.
When someone says something, you evaluate yourself and then respond to it.
Sometimes, stupid people give you some advice, and when you self reflect you realise that the advice is nothing but a selfish intension.
And sometimes, wise people give some advice and you realise that how that tiny advice can enhance your life. you just fill with gratitude because of the light that they have put on the darkness of your ignorance.
Ask a question!
The reason I have written so many thing before is to ask you this question..
” Do you know, you need to improve your speaking skills?“
The answer is always YES!
Because, If I am 7/10 then you could be 5/10 or 9/10. But never 10/10. There is always scope of improvement.
If you are better than me and you are willing to teach me then I would love to learn it from you. And I am ready to pay for it too.
Always remember paying has a big role in your journey of transformation.
When I was in DDIP. It was a 12 weeks program. Every week one video used to be released along with an assignment.
But, the enthusiasm that we had in the beginning, started to fed away with the weeks.
But just because I had paid money, I had a certain level of commitment towards it to complete.
When we give commitment it compels us to take action.
And every action gives you some results, You may win or lose, but you will certainly get the confidence.
I did not win
I remember, I saw a post of David JP Philips and I was a fan of him.
For my entire life I was an insecure kid but that day I gather the courage and send him a DM on instagram that Hey your post are messy and If you change these things they would look better.
I messaged and left, I was not expecting any reply from their side.
Later, when I opened my instagram what I saw was unbelievable.
There was a message to fix a meeting with his marketing manager.
So, I quickly created some post examples and made one ppt that how it can be improved.
The next day, I talked to Tasneem and it was a great conversation. Finally she said that they have already hired someone for that but they loved my presentation.
You see?
I failed!
Can’t tell you what that incident taught me. That failure taught me how close I was to get a freelancing job where there was no hope of opportunity.
That incident gave me confidence that anyone in this world I can approach. They may look big because of their status and possession, but at the end they are humans.
You must be thinking… I could approach with confidence because I knew my work.
No really!
1st March 2022, I moved to bangalore and I had no idea what to do here. How to survive here. I wanted a job and then a side income.
But, I did not wanted to do something(job) that I would not like.
So, I went to a coaching center Jspiders and asked a teacher if I could teach here.
He was in surprise that I had no prier experience, no competency, never worked in an company, how am I able to do it!
But, because of the conviction I had, he gave me one chance.
I called him in the evening and he said, ” he will aks his seniors and let me know about it”
I was not sure of that statement so, I wrote a message to him.
He said in reply, ” Come tomorrow for the first round of interview”
I went and gave the interview and it was good from my side, and he asked me to prepare one topic and come on next week to present infront of seniors.
He did not call. I messaged him again and he responded too but still I did not get the call because of some reason.
I failed here too!
This time I did not have competency either!
Honestly, I never have much success in my life yet.
Most of them are failures.
What I have Experienced
So, I dont teach, what I have not done in my life but I have transformed myself from a shy, introvert kid to an confident person.
So, if you are struggling to
- open up to people.
- start a conversation.
- Pitch your ideas.
- speak in public.
- make a video.
- overcome nervousness.
- overcome stress before speech.
- speak fluently
then I can help you out.
I remember being an insecure child in my college days. Scared to give vivas, scared to present on the stage. Infact, I was so terrified that the last project presentation I had completely denied to go.
Never lie to yourself.
Society has made us believe in perfection. Even if we mak mistake, we can’t gather courage to accept it.
You have a task, you postpone it, you procrastinate it, you give excuses, you justify.
But, the reality is you know, if you wanted it enough, you could do it.
You are never enough tired, you are never lazy, you are never coward.
Speak the truth about yourself. If there is really no time and that is out of our hand, we should not complaint about it.
But, if it is well within our control then we should not speak lie to ourselves.
Stop avoiding it.
Accept your flaws and find a way to tackle with it.
You can’t remove all the negative things you have inside yourself, None of us can. But, when you accept, you are ready to put effort.
This will happen again and again. You have to fight with yourself life long to choose what is the best for you.
It is easy to give excuses, it is easy to choose sleep over hustle, it is easy to lie to ourselves.
When you tell the truth, it will hurt but It will certainly keep you in the right direction.
I hope this has help you to change your mindset to start on the journey of Becoming a confident speaker.
Cheers,
Swapneswar Barik.