| January 15th, 2007

Leaving the Comfort Zone

There are many things in my life that I dread doing, and public speaking is one them, I can come up with every possible ‘excuse’ to convince myself why I cannot do it and why I should avoid it at any cost. In school when I had no choice but to speak in class for presentation (as my grade depended on it), I would just talk fast and finish the presentation in few minutes; I can take any challenge behind the scene, but feel uneasy when the limelight is on me. I am always awed by people who can speak eloquently in a big group, they all seem to know what to say, when to say it and how much, I don’t think I can ever do that, I can never be that articulate,  …see how convinced I am.   Â

So, why would someone like me would commit to go and speak in a university, especially when that university is no other than Harvard? Because, when I gave my commitment to be at a conference there to speak I was in euphoria from reading an email from a friend who has been instrumental to Adhunika. She wrote me, how much she was inspired by being involved with Adhunika and she wanted me to go the event and join the panel, as Owning Our Future, Courtesy: naina @ adhunikashe wanted to share that inspiration with rest of the people.  When I read those magical words, ‘I am inspired by being involved with Adhunika and want to share that inspiration with others’ – before I thought of anything else I wrote back to her – ‘Count me in’. But, when the day of the event started approaching I started loosing all the excitement and I kept asking myself why did I say I would participate, but then I didn’t want to let my friend down, so I kept my promise.

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On the day of the event during my bus trip to Boston from New York I kept thinking of one little fellow I left home with my husband for the first time in his life, our two-year old son. Although I was planning to tag him along to the event, my husband being supportive as always insisted I leave our son home, so I could enjoy the event.

Once I arrived at the event and started listening to all the experts in the field – that dreadful feeling came over, why did I come? As Adhunika’s work is mostly done on-line, I was jokingly saying to the organizers – anyone can go pretend to be me and speak, as no one really knows me by face. But the next day when it was my turn to speak – as I started talking I realized over the last few years we have built relationships with so many people, and some of them were in that room, these people have always come forward to support the work of Adhunika, they participate at the blog, they partner at the site with their work and support our projects in Dhaka, the rest of the people who didn’t know about our work – I soon felt the urge to share the work of Adhunika, I wasn’t afraid anymore to speak.  During that presentation, I realized we want our readers to come out of the barriers to use their potential, and here I was afraid to talk about a topic which I know like the back of my palm.

I was rejuvenated after I met all the great people at the event, it was a humbling experience, I am glad I left the comfort zone, otherwise I would have missed a great opportunity to meet our members as Adhunika is mostly on-line based – we don’t get to meet our members who continuously support us through their work. Now I can put a face to the names who contribute regularly to our web site.  So, you out there leave that comfort zone, and share your thoughts with us. You will be amazed how much you will gain from that uneasiness, you have nothing to loose.

 

About this blog

Adhunika blog is launched with a mission to share knowledge among women from every walk of life. Sometime it would be in the form of sharing experience to find a feasible solution of a problem; sometime it would be in the form of professional consultation, which Adhunika group will arrange for its bloggers. Nevertheless, the intent of this blog always remains the same - to help and empower women through a common web-based platform....read more

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