I’ll start my post with a quote from Lee Iacocca, “You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.” Our ability to communicate will determine how successful we will be.    

Communication is not my strong suit. When I was in college, I developed a love for programing because of a class that I took in my senior year of high school. I’m an introvert; I thought it would be perfect to be a programmer. I know that the extent of my communication is talking to my computer and yelling at my monitor because my code does not work. This must be a match made in heaven; I don’t need to talk in front of an audience and I get to develop code all day long.  

As my career progressed and I learned more about the applications I support, the need to present in front of my team and stakeholders became important. I realized the importance of learning public speaking. Over the next 10 years, I’ve slowly worked on my ability to communicate in public. It is not an easy journey to constantly push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Each opportunity brings forth hours of preparation, followed by numerous practices, then a nervous presentation. But as I completed each opportunity, my confidence grew slowly until I became comfortable to speak in public. I gained a good perspective on how public communication is essential to my growth and development.

As I reflect on my journey, I gained a sense of appreciation of the result of my hard work. In the process, I also developed my desire to mentor others. I’ve been mentoring people I know that have the potential to be successful. I’m closing my post with quote from Lawrence Clark Powell, “write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow.” We speak to be heard and share our story. May you have success in honing your ability to communicate. Don’t worry that you’re not successful at first.  Keep at it – the more you practice, the better you’ll be.