Why I Keep Trying to Speak in Public

Three years ago, I randomly applied to be a speaker at WordCamp Cebu 2023. It was my first time. I didn’t research enough to understand the scale of the event.

I had presented before. In school, in a hackathon, flash talks. I got nervous every time but it went mostly fine.

Presentation day came and I walked into a hall with around 300 people. I was one of the speakers in the morning when it was still a single track - meaning all attendees are there.

I presented my unrehearsed talk. Zero reaction. It felt nothing I said landed. Just plain silent. I wanted to literally shrink.

Since then, every single time I talk in front of people, that particular feeling resurfaces. I’d get anxious, I’d get cold hands, I’d forget what I have to say.

It felt like trauma.

Embarrassment is an underexplored emotion

Over the next couple of years, I kept volunteering to speak. I once watched a reel that said “embarrassment is an underexplored emotion”.

I still could not deliver well. I still forget my lines. Something always went wrong.

But over time, I noticed: nothing bad happens after a bad talk.

People still talk to me afterwards, actually good conversation come out of it.

The last botched talk I did in a meetup, I noticed I didn’t feel like shrinking anymore.

What I got out of it was tangible feedback that my material isn’t landing.

Overprepare and go with the flow

I still wanted to get over what happened at my first WordCamp.

I applied at WordCamp Philippines 2026 and got accepted. This time I didn’t want to go unprepared. My thinking was: overprepare and go with the flow.

Luckily, over the years with the community I got friends who fully supported me. I opened up about my stress, my procrastination, my material and got feedback I needed.

I basically spammed them with updates. Even rehearsed with them the night before the talk. Full length!

Thank you Arvin, Oneal, Jhim, John, Rap, and my wife Julie for making sure I had time to work on my slides and rehearse.

Finally landing a talk that I feel good about

My time to present came. Although I’m 90% reliant on speaker notes, there were parts I didn’t even have to look. Which felt great.

I got a good question after the talk that very much related to my topic. Someone approached me while walking around to ask more questions. An attendee even reached out online to say that my presentation was easy to understand.

It feels good to finally override the feeling I felt during my first attempt.

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I’ll be presenting the same talk at WordCamp Kathmandu 2026 next. But I feel like this time, I’ll be able to present it a little bit more like telling a story than reading a script.

Let’s see!