[00:00:00] you're leaning into that grey zone, you're right on the threshold.
And every part of you wants to retreat. And what do you do when you find yourself there? Do you lean in a little further? Do you lean into that tension until it just pops? Or do you retreat and go back?
Two weeks ago tomorrow, I gave a TEDx talk and checked something off of my bucket list. It was an amazing experience. Let's talk about it.
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January 10th. I spoke at TEDx Grandview Heights here in Vancouver. And what an incredible experience. I first found out that I was accepted to give this talk at the end of November. I think it was the [00:01:00] end of November sometime in November. And what happened over the next couple months was It was incredible.
I don't even know if I have the words yet to describe it, but let's, let's try. I do a lot of public speaking. I'm very comfortable speaking on stage in front of people. I don't get nervous. I don't get stage fright. I get excited when it comes to speak. And I. Never thought of myself as ever becoming a public speaker.
Some of you know this story. Some of you might not know this story yet. But when I was growing up, when I was little, I was so shy. I was so quiet. I never spoke in front of other people. And my parents nicknamed me Mouse. Because I was so shy and so quiet, my parents had friends who had never heard me speak before, and they would ask my parents if I spoke at all, because they wouldn't hear me.
If we were over at a friend's house or with other family [00:02:00] members and I needed something, I would whisper it. In either my mom or my dad's ear or my sister's ear, I would not speak in front of people. In school, I would not ask questions. I wouldn't raise my hand to volunteer an answer. And if the teacher called on me, I'd be able to squeak the words out.
It's not like I was, um, completely silent, but I would be terrified. My heart would be pounding. The blood would rush into my face. I would, I had, tons of anxiety. In fact, at the time, they just said that I was shy. But looking back, I realized that I had a very severe anxiety disorder as a kid. So I didn't know how to use my voice and often people ask me, Why?
Why were you so quiet? Why were you so shy? Why were you so afraid to speak? Did something happen? Nothing happened. I had parents who loved me and supported me. I had a supportive family. Um, nothing happened to make me quiet. I just came into the world this [00:03:00] way.
So I was just the shy, quiet girl and every parent teacher conference, my teachers said the same thing. Terry is great to have in class, but she needs to learn to speak up more. I wonder if any of those teachers now know that I speak for a living. Probably not. I don't know if any of them would know who I am anymore, or would remember me after all these many, many years.
But that would be something, wouldn't it? If they found out that this shy little mousy girl who was terrified to speak, like, grew up to be a professional speaker and podcaster and hypnotherapist, and basically my entire career, my whole world revolves around speaking and using my voice. That's kind of something.
Anyway, I digress. So they would say, Terry needs to learn how to speak up more in class, which I had no idea how to do that. I mean, has anyone ever told you before that you have to be exactly who you're not? How did that work for you? No one could tell me how [00:04:00] to do it. They just said I had to do it. And I just stayed this shy, quiet, mousy little thing.
And then in the third grade, something really amazing happened. I was given the solo line in the Christmas concert. Now, looking back, I think that was probably by design to get me to go on stage and say something to get me out of my shell, and it worked. It worked on stage. So I was given the solo line, and it was the punchline of a joke in one of our Christmas songs.
And I just remember. Stepping up to the mic, into the spotlight, and delivering my line. And they laughed. The entire gymnasium, full of parents and students and family and teachers, they laughed because my words made them laugh. I did something that elicited a response in them, and I did it with my voice.
[00:05:00] That was a life changing moment, and it happened in the third grade. I think I was six. And from that moment on, I knew I just wanted to be on stage. I found power on stage. I found, I found my voice on stage. And so after that point, all I wanted to do was to become a professional actor. And I did. I was in every concert after that.
I was in the school plays. I, in junior high, I got into drama and I was in the drama club and I was in every single production. And I had good roles too. Oops, I just bumped my desk if you heard that. Uh, then in high school, I went to a performing arts high school where my day was full of arts classes. I mean, we had to take the regular classes too, but I got to take acting, directing classes, theater studies.
Dance, musical theater, and then perform in these [00:06:00] incredible productions at school. And outside of school, I was taking acting classes. And then I went on to become a professional actor, and I went and studied theater professionally. And still though, in my private life, offstage, I was still this anxious, quiet, shy kid.
I remember in theater school, one of my teachers said to me, he said, Terry, I do not understand you. When you go on stage, it's like a light turns on and you come to life. And the moment you walk off stage, you disappear. And that's exactly how it was. I think I found, I found my voice on stage because on stage, I didn't have to use my words.
They weren't my words. There was a script to follow and someone told me where to stand and they told me how to do it and I just had to pretend and fill in the blanks in between and I was really good at that. I had [00:07:00] such a great imagination. I still think I have a great imagination. But I didn't have to think of the words and I got to practice them over and over and over so that when I got in front of an audience, I felt confident.
I felt sure of myself. I knew exactly what to do, and I loved it. But offstage, I had such incredible anxiety, and I would disappear in a room full of people. I would be invisible. And this started to become a problem later in life, as I became a business owner, and being invisible wasn't going to cut it anymore.
Now, I know this is a whole long story, but we're getting back to the TED Talk. Just hang, hang in here with me. Just brave through this with me. So It took me a long time before I really found confidence, and it wasn't until It really wasn't until I learned NLP and that's how I learned to tap into confidence, not just on stage, [00:08:00] but in real life.
And I learned how to speak up and I learned how to become a public speaker, but it took me decades of my life before I learned how to be comfortable with my own voice. Sometimes people ask me why I was so afraid to speak before and just, just to speak in front of a, like, not even in front of an audience, but just to You know, in a group of friends or family to just say something.
And I think I was always afraid of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing, making a mistake, embarrassing myself, that I just shut my voice down. I remember one moment where it really, really came to my conscious awareness of how big of a problem it was. I was at this multi day, multi speaker, three day event, and there were all these amazing speakers every day.
And at the [00:09:00] end of the first day, I was sitting in the hotel lobby, um, I was going to meet a friend for dinner after, and I was waiting for her. Everyone from the conference had cleared out by then, and suddenly there was one of the speakers who I really enjoyed his talk. He was standing in the lobby, and it was just the two of us.
I was sitting, playing on my phone. He was standing there, and then One of the other speakers came out and they were both standing just a couple of feet away from me. And then another speaker came and another one and these people who I had just been listening to and there was this part of me that really wanted to be able to talk to them and tell them like, Hey, I really liked your talk today.
I really enjoyed what you were speaking on or ask them questions or anything. But I had so much anxiety in that moment that I remember thinking, I just want to be invisible. Just make myself as small. I'm not as powerful and insignificant as I can possibly be [00:10:00] right now. I don't want them to look at me. I don't want them to see me here.
And so I was just trying to be. As unimportant and invisible as I could make myself. And then this other guy came out who was another attendee and I had met him before and he came over to me and he said, Hey, hey, Terry, what are you still doing here? And I was like, I was so embarrassed because I was sitting there trying to be invisible.
And here he is talking to me and bringing attention to the fact that I'm even there. And I was like, Oh, just, just meeting a friend for dinner, just waiting for her to meet me here. And then I watched as he started talking to these men, the speakers that day, started engaging with them. And before I knew it, they were like, Hey, let's all take a selfie.
Let's take a picture together. And they're including him in the picture. Then they're exchanging contact information, and I'm thinking, how, how does he do this so effortlessly? How does he just speak to these [00:11:00] people as if they're just people, as if they're normal humans? How, how does he do this? And that night, I was so, I was so angry at myself that I couldn't do that.
And I talked to my friend about it over dinner. And then I went home that night and I talked to my husband about it and told him how I was just. I just couldn't believe that I couldn't speak to them, that I couldn't take the opportunity to even say thank you for the talk today, to engage in a conversation, to re network a little bit.
And so the next day at the event, the host, the man who was hosting the event, said that the following morning, which would be, I guess, I don't know if it was the next day or the day, anyway, the day after the final day of the event. So the event ended on Saturday and he said on Sunday morning, Himself, and a few of the speakers who would still be in town the next day, we're going to meet for coffee at this local coffee shop.
And anyone who wanted to come and [00:12:00] spend time with them was welcome to join them. And I went home and I told my husband, I have to go to this coffee. I need to prove to myself that I can be in this room, that I belong in this room. And I'm going to talk to these men, there were women speakers too, but it was.
I don't know. The women had already gone. So it was just going to be some of the male speakers that were there. And so I went, I brought my husband with me for support, but I went. And at one point, the host of the event had everyone go around. We're all sitting on the patio in this like big circle. And he asked everyone to go around and share what their insight was from the weekend.
One big takeaway, one aha moment. And everything in me wanted to run away and hide. I thought about going to the bathroom when it was close to my turn and then sneaking back into the group later when my turn had passed. And I thought about leaving completely and just telling my husband we have to go.
But I stayed. And you see, what I haven't shared with you yet is that I kept having this vision of myself. Whenever I'd go to events like that, I would [00:13:00] see myself on that stage. And I would think, how, how can I do that? I have so much anxiety. I'm so afraid of speaking. How could I possibly ever get up there and speak?
Like speak as me. I can speak as a character in a play. No problem. But to speak as me, how could I ever possibly do that? And so I made myself stay in that circle. And when it came to me, I said that what I saw was this vision of what I wanted for the future. And this vision became really clear over the three days.
I told them that in listening to them and hearing their journeys of how they got to be where they are, and many of them talked about how five years before they were broke, five years before they went bankrupt, five years before they lost their business. And it made me think, in five years, where could I be?
If this is where I am today, what can I accomplish in five years time? And I said that I saw myself on stage speaking, but that I'm terrified of [00:14:00] it, and that even this moment, speaking from this group, was terrifying me. But I knew what I wanted. And after we had all gone around and we're all sort of mingling around and chatting, one of the speakers came up to me, uh, Nick, Nick Pasella from Australia.
He came up to me and he said that what I said really resonated with him. And we took a selfie and he said, make sure you tag me on that. And he complimented my hoodie. This is when I was a personal trainer and I made these hoodies that said, be fit, be strong, be healthy on the front. And he loved that. And his background was in personal training.
And suddenly we had this connection, and I added him on Facebook because he wanted me to tag him, and he accepted my friend request, and then I was talking with other speakers, and it's like this whole world started to open for me. And I don't think I would be where I am today, doing what I do today, if I hadn't pushed through that [00:15:00] fear in that moment, and spoke in front of that group.
And that was the catalyst. That was the thing I needed to be able to move forward. And from that point on, things started to change. I started going to networking groups and I'd still be terrified and I'd be so afraid to introduce myself, but I made myself do it over and over. I joined Toastmasters to force myself to speak week after week after week.
I started the podcast and this whole world of speaking began to open for me.
That's all the background, but let's, let's talk about this TED Talk that I said we're going to talk about.
So for the past 10 years or so, I've been doing lots of speaking, lots of training, feeling very comfortable, very confident on stage. I don't even think about it. I don't even think about speaking in front of groups or networking events anymore. In fact, just yesterday morning of the networking event and talking with some ladies I'd never met before.
And when it came time to [00:16:00] introduce ourselves, one of the ladies next to me said, Oh, I don't want to go after you. You're a speaker. And I was like, don't worry. I never know what to say at these things either. You're good. And they were like, yeah, right. And it's such a different position to where I was 10 years ago.
So I feel good on stage now. I thought when it came to giving this TEDx talk, I'm like, I've got this. This is fine. This is just another speaking event. But it wasn't. And all kinds of fears started to come up. It was. The hardest speaking event I have ever done.
I think a big part of why is because, uh, because of the topic. I speak on personal development. I speak on communication, mindset. I get in front of groups and I hypnotize groups of people for personal development, not stage shows. I don't do that. I can do that. I don't do that. But I, I do this stuff all the time.
But I wasn't speaking on my normal topics, [00:17:00] I was speaking about something really personal to me and I was speaking about secondary trauma and the effects of trauma on the people close to people who are experiencing trauma firsthand or post traumatic stress disorder. And I was speaking about my own experience as the wife of a police officer with PTSD and how his trauma became my trauma and the guilt and the shame that came with that of feeling unworthy of getting support because it wasn't my trauma.
I didn't go through it. I'm supposed to be okay. I don't want to give it all away because when the TED talk comes out on YouTube, I want you to watch the YouTube video, but that was a subject matter and it was so personal and so vulnerable to share. That I had so much resistance in practicing. It was a struggle to even write it.
It was a struggle to work on it. I kept avoiding it and avoiding it. I thought I would work on it all through Christmas and I didn't. I looked at it a [00:18:00] couple times, but that was it. And then suddenly the Christmas break was over. It's the beginning of January and I had 10 days to get it together and I struggled.
I couldn't learn my lines and for a TEDx talk, you need to have a script and you need to follow the script, you're not just you don't just a wing a TEDx talk. So I was every day I was getting on my Peloton and running lines on the Peloton trying to get it into my head. Trying to get the anxiety out by riding the bike at the same time as running lines, and it wasn't sticking.
When I was an actor, I never struggled to learn lines. I was always the first one off book in any rehearsal room because I learned my lines really easily. But this, it wasn't sticking. And my, my best friend Stefano was the coach for this, the speaking coach for this TEDx. And he was also speaking in it.
And I would tell him, like, Steph, I don't, I don't know if I can do this. [00:19:00] It's, it's not working. It's not sticking. I have so much internal resistance to this talk. And he kept saying to me, Just focus on the people you're doing this talk for. This talk is going to change lives. So many people are going to feel seen and heard because of this talk.
And intellectually, I knew that, but internally there was so much resistance. And even a week before, like the Friday before we did it, I still didn't know my lines. I was still struggling. I worked on it all that weekend, still, nothing was sticking. I could look at it, I could run it, and then I would go to put the script away and I wouldn't remember a single word.
Maybe the first three, that was it. And then on Monday, the week of, we had our first rehearsal as a group and I was struggling so badly to get through my talk. I could not remember it, I had to [00:20:00] keep calling for a line and, and having someone prompt me and feed me the lines. I mean, it wasn't the only one, there were a lot of people struggling.
On the Monday and I went home that night and I had my husband run lines with me. We sat on the couch and he ran lines with me over and over. And then Tuesday was a lot better. It was mostly there. I had to call for line a couple times and I went home and had my husband run lines with me again. And then on the Wednesday, I didn't have to call line at all.
I had, I know I had to call line once. Otherwise it was there, but I still wasn't sure. I still didn't feel confident with it. I was still questioning if I was even going to get on stage on that Friday. And then Thursday was a dress rehearsal. Thursday, it finally went smoothly. I didn't need to call a line.
It was finally there. I ran lines again with my husband Thursday night. And Friday, I did my TED Talk. Friday night. Now, during the day on Friday, [00:21:00] there were two shows. There was an afternoon show and an evening show. Different speaker lineups for each one. I was in the evening. And I was there all day, and during the afternoon, I As we got closer and closer, my lines were fading, they were disappearing from my head.
There was a break in between of about an hour and a half, I think, in between the afternoon and the evening show. And I was backstage, and I was trying to run lines, and I kept messing up, I kept skipping things, I kept messing up royally. And starting to panic that I didn't actually know it, that I couldn't do this.
And then something incredible happened. And when I When it was time for me to go up, I was mic'd up backstage, I still was struggling to think of my script. But then I walked into the theatre, and as I was waiting in the wings for them to call my name and introduce me, my body just calmed down. Everything became clear.
I walked on stage, [00:22:00] and suddenly I felt like I was in complete control. I delivered a perfect performance. I didn't stumble over anything. I didn't forget anything. I didn't skip anything. It was a perfect start to finish. Flawless. And I felt so present, so grounded. And I'm not saying this to be like, Oh, I gave a perfect talk and to brag about it.
But because this I realized is the power of training that I've trained my whole life from the third grade on for that moment that when, when it came down to the wire. My body took over and knew what to do. My unconscious mind knew what to do, knew the script. And I just had to trust in myself that I was good, that I knew it, that it was there.
And it came out perfectly. I got a full standing ovation from the audience. People were crying. People came up to me [00:23:00] after the event and talked to me about how much my talk resonated with them. There was one woman in the audience who was 76 and said that she grew up in a house with a father who had fought in the war.
And was, was traumatized back then, they didn't know about PTSD. There was no help. There was no support. And she said that my talk made her childhood make so much sense now of what she experienced. So Stefano was right that it was an important talk that I feel will have a positive impact on people's lives.
But it was, for me, such a powerful experience internally to go through that. You know, I think often we think that we We've overcome our challenges. We've overcome our difficulties. And then suddenly there's a whole new layer. Like I thought, I'm like, I've got this. I can speak in any room in front of anyone.
I'm not this shy little mouse anymore. I'm not afraid of my voice. But working [00:24:00] on this talk was so different because it was so raw and so personal to me that that all came back again. The anxiety. The Sleepless Nights, My Mind Going Blank. So thank goodness for all the training I've done for so many decades at this point that I could just go on autopilot and it came out exactly the way it was meant to come out.
So it was an incredible experience and I'm so glad that I pushed through and I did it. You might have heard me talk about this before that when you're on the threshold of your gray zone, or we could call it your comfort zone, when you're on the threshold, pushing into it, leaning into it, it is so uncomfortable, and everything inside of you is going to want to run away.
Every part of you is going to be screaming to retreat and to go back to the [00:25:00] world that you know is safe.
And that's where I found myself, was right on the threshold, leaning into it, feeling all the pressure and the tension rising and rising and rising until in that moment when I stepped onto the stage, I broke through it. And I wonder how many times you have found yourself in that same position when you're up against yourself, you're leaning into that grey zone, you're right on the threshold.
And every part of you wants to retreat. And what do you do when you find yourself there? Do you lean in a little further? Do you lean into that tension until it just pops? Or do you retreat and go back?
So if, if you, if you're the kind of person who retreats and runs back, I want you to think about this next time, that what are you missing on the other side? Because on the other side of it, things get really good. And the moment you break through, you [00:26:00] find yourself in a new comfort zone, a new gray zone.
It doesn't disappear, it expands. And now your comfort level is much different. Until the next time you find yourself on the threshold. This is how we grow. This is how we improve. And we can't grow by continually running away from the thing that makes us uncomfortable. Growth happens by leaning into those moments of extreme pressure.
But it's not comfortable, and it's not easy. And this, I would say, is probably the biggest one I have had to break through. Wasn't just a few days ago, they said, how come you didn't promote your Ted talk more? How come you didn't invite everyone? Why didn't you share it in our network? And I said, because until the day of.
I wasn't convinced I'd actually do it. I wasn't convinced I would do it! I didn't want all my [00:27:00] friends buying tickets and then for me to say, Hey, uh, nope, not today guys, not gonna do it. Enjoy the show! I did have a couple friends come out and I'm grateful they did, but I did not heavily promote it and I'm sorry if the organizers are listening.
I did not promote it as well as I could have because I was so afraid of myself. I was afraid that I would give up and quit. I'm so glad that I didn't though. Such an incredible, incredible experience and if you find yourself there, on the threshold, Lean in. Lean in.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings about this today. I hope it was helpful. And if it was helpful, if you got one takeaway out of today's episode, send me a message and let me know. You can find me on social media at TheTeriHolland, or you can connect with me through my website at TeriHolland. ca. I'll put the links in the show notes.
Remember, it's Teri with [00:28:00] one R, one I. Holland, like the country. And I'd love to hear from you if you did get something out of today's episode. Thank you so much for being here. Bye for now, my friends.
