It may seem a little counter-intuitive, but I think I’ve accidentally stumbled across something I’m actually kind of good at. No, I know what you’re probably thinking. How on earth is that counter-intuitive? It seems like something completely normal, sort of expected on your coming of age journey, and actually, let’s be totally honest here, pretty lucky. All of those things are true, I know I ton of people my age who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing and where they’re going in life, and so to find a bit of direction is awesome, it’s just the direction that I’ve found that’s a little strange.
I’ve come to realise that I’m actually kind of fantastic at public speaking. I know. Weird, right? Really, I should have come to this conclusion a lot earlier, but the fact is that at high school, it’s kind of cool to hate public speaking. It’s the norm, and a lot of my high school experience was spent just trying to fit in. So the fact that I wasn’t half bad at giving speeches and such was never something I never really wanted to admit to myself. Now, though, things are different. I’ve realised that this is something I would actually really like to do, to be a conference speaker all around Australia, but the truth is I have absolutely no idea how to even start down that path. It’s a bit of a left-of-field profession, how do you even get into a business like that?
At the same time, I have a sneaking suspicion that no one is going to take advice from a key note speaker who has basically no experience. I mean, the first thing I watch out for when I’m listening to a speech is what kind of credentials the person talking has. In that regard, ‘straight out of uni’ doesn’t sound very impressive. So I have to work out a bit more of a plan. The problem isn’t, I haven’t got a clue where to start.
When people hear what I do, they call me a happiness psychologist. I really don’t know why…it always just seems redundant. It’s not like people don’t have brains of their own, and thus the field of psychology applies to them. Is this one of those turn of phrases that I keep hearing about? Maybe, but I’m definitely more of a people person and words don’t always make a lot of sense to me.
You know how your parents always told you that you were going to get square eyes, watching the screen for too long? Well…maybe there was some truth to that. I guess it’s because I’m coding so late and it’s usually dark, but sometimes I can see what I’ve been working on in front of my eyes like I haven’t left the screen. Is it possible to look at something so long it actually becomes kind of…imprinted on your retinas? Maybe I should get my eyes tested.