In my last post, I talked about speaking at EconoMe in Cincinnati. Today, I’ll tell you a little bit more about the weekend.
I always enjoy visits to the Midwest. I grew up in Chicagoland, so going back to the middle of the United States always feels like I’m returning home. But, I had never been to Cincinnati, so this was a new adventure.
Cincinnati, EconoMe, and Skyline Chili
I got into Cincinnati on Thursday evening. I get bored after about 5 minutes in a hotel room, so I walked across the street to the University of Cincinnati.
I was feeling a little queasy about my upcoming talk. Seeing the venue that I’m performing at helps ease the anxiety, so I walked over to investigate.
The doors were locked, but I peeked in the windows. It was a big room. Scary! What had I signed on for?!??
Friday
The next morning, I took a walk down to the river.
Cincinnati is a city in transition. Some parts of the city are beautiful. Other parts are still waiting for someone to restore them to their former glory.
I really enjoyed the vibe of the city.
The riverfront is beautiful.
On the walk back, I was feeling a little anxious again, so I rehearsed my talk in my head. It was at that time that I realized I had the entire thing memorized. This felt good.
Terror (Where Are My Speaker Notes?!??)
At 12:30, it was time to rehearse my talk. When giving talks, the speaker has a monitor in front of the stage that only they can see. In every talk I’ve ever given, the monitor displays speaker notes from the slide deck. When I looked at this monitor, it was simply a mirror of the big screen the audience sees. So, this happened:
- Me: Can I get my speaker notes on the monitor?
- Diania (conference organizer): We’re not doing that. You’ll just see a mirror of what the audience sees.
- Me: (freaking out quietly): Shit! Shit!! Shit!!! SHIT!!!
It was at this time that I nearly had a panic attack. I was depending on the notes to trigger what I was going to say and make sure I didn’t forget anything. While I had the talk memorized, I wanted the notes as a crutch on the big stage.
I rehearsed the talk many more times…
Skyline And Stackers
Skyline Chili is a divisive food. I find that the locals love it. Visitors to Cincinnati hate it. I had to try it.
Skyline Chili does not taste like the chili you may be accustomed to. It seemed to have cinnamon and maybe nutmeg. If you eat it expecting it to taste like chili from Texas, you’re going to be weirded out. Knowing that it was different, I went in with no expectations and enjoyed it. I’d go back.
Friday night finished with the crew from Stacking Benjamins putting on a hilarious show. If you ever have a chance to see Stacking Benjamins on tour, do it.
Saturday
The big day had arrived. Diania opened the conference followed by Bitches Get Riches.
The rest of the day was a blur. It was difficult to enjoy the other speakers knowing my talk was coming up.
I was scheduled to go on after Paula Pant. Paula is a great speaker and knowing I’d have to follow her freaked me out a bit. I also found myself rewriting parts of my talk in my head 5 minutes before I had to go on stage. What could possibly go wrong?
I was mostly confident in my material, but that little voice in the back of your head is difficult to quiet:
What if you screw this up?
I was happy with my talk. No matter how much I prepare, I usually forget something. This time, I didn’t leave anything on the table. Phew! I could now calmly enjoy the rest of the weekend.
One thought I had going into this was:
If I do a good job with my talk at EconoMe, maybe I should quit public speaking? Go out on a high note.
I’m still undecided. These things take a lot of time and energy. I rehearsed this talk (always me just talking to myself) 100s of times. Hours and hours of preparation for 25 minutes on stage.
Sunday
Sunday morning, we went on an urban hike. It was fun to learn a little bit more about Cincinnati.
In the afternoon, I went back to the conference venue. I sat down in the back of the room and considered the weekend.
For much of my life, I lacked confidence and felt uneasy around others. Some call this introversion. I probably am an introvert, but I think the discomfort was more a manifestation of me not being right with myself. Insecurity can take you to bad places. A people-pleaser personality ends up pleasing no one.
But, then I took myself out of my comfort zone and tried public speaking. I noticed every time I gave a talk, I felt a little better about myself. Less insecure. More confident. I began to notice how conversations with other humans were energizing instead of terrifying.
After this weekend at EconoMe, I’m in a good place. I feel at peace with myself.
Cincinnati was good.
Thank you for listening.
More 1500 Days!!!
You can also find me (and the dinosaurs) at:
Mile High FI podcast:
Also here:
- EconoMe: Hey look, I’m speaking at EconoMe later this year!
- Facebook: Facebook group and page
- YouTube: My channel is mostly devoted to home improvement, but I have some other material coming up soon too.
- Instagram: Pretty pictures of dinosaurs, sunsets, and nail guns!
- Twitter: Spontaneous, often insane, ramblings
- Coworking space: On the surface, MMM HQ is a coworking space. Look a little deeper and you’ll see that we’re really building community. The members of MMM HQ are some of the finest people I know.
Other resources I like:
- Camp FIs are amazingly fun! I hope to attend Rocky Mountain and Joshua Tree this year. See you there?
- Need to learn how to invest? The Simple Path to Wealth is all you need.
- New to FIRE? Need some FIREy guidance? Check out Fiology and the accompanying workbook!
Join the 10s who have signed up already!
Subscribing will improve your life in incredible ways*.
*Only if your life is pretty bad to begin with.
Glad to see you found the lacrosse games. Looks like a good weekend. Sad we missed it
Let’s go in 2023! It was a helluva time!
Former Cincinnati resident and sad I couldn’t attend, would have loved seeing you and Paula and the panel with MMM!
Chilli – very divisive and after 2 years of not liking it I now crave my skyline fix every trip home. Personally I recommend cheese coneys and chilli cheese fries, the spaghetti is definitely not the highlight even if the “Three-way” is the famous menu item.
I did have the coney too! Pretty good!
There are advantages to NOT being a foodie. Taco Bell is a treat for me!
Cinci is a nice town, I used to go there for work trips a lot (not a huge fan of the chili though)
Glad you persevered through the challenges and took the time to reflect on it all and share with us!
I was giving an economic forecast or something like that years ago and the attorney general of our state and, I think, the president of the biggest university were also speaking. I had given the thumb drive with my slides on it to one of the organizers of the event and they promptly drove off to the wrong venue, and never came back. So when it was time for my talk, which was all based around the slides, I had no notes, I had nothing. I managed to get through it pretty well but talk about pressure! So I feel your pain. Sounds like you sailed through as well. I never had a teleprompter though, that would be too easy!
Whoah, that is a good story! Far more stressful than mine!
Wow, the stage doesn’t even have a podium to hide your notes. I am sure you did great and looks like there were a lot of familiar faces. I only found out about it quite late. Plan to be there next year if this is an annual event.
Financial Freedom Countdown recently posted…How To Retire Early: Step-By-Step Guide To Retire At Any Age
EconoMe was great! See you there in 2023?
Your talk was great, Carl! We really enjoyed it! I love Skyline but it’s definitely a “sometimes food”. I contend that Gold Star Chili (https://www.goldstarchili.com/) is better. Next EconoMe, we’ll have a Cincy Chili taste test.
Thanks John!
Gold Star is on my list when I make it back!
Fantastic write-up, and marvelous job! I’ve hit a fair few cities in the Midwest but somehow Cincinnati hasn’t snuck on the list just yet. Someday…
There’s a tiny local chain nearby that serves four different kids of chili and Skyline-style is on the list, but I haven’t tried it yet. Just last week I saw a statement asserting that “Cincinnati chili is just pumpkin spice ground beef”. Yikes.
Pumpkin spice of ground beef! That’s accurate!
You rocked the talk! Practice makes perfect 🙂
I didn’t have any of the chili but I was equally impressed with Cincinnati. Apparently I like brick cities on rivers that are trying to come back. I’m so glad we got to hang out a bit and hope we get to do so again next year sometime!!
Gwen, it was great to see you again!
And yeah, we have the same taste in cities! I like that Diania had EconoMe in Cincinnati. Every little boost helps!
I HEAR YOU on the disproportionate effort to reward ratio of public speaking! That’s why I did exactly ONE practiced/rehearsed speech (WDS in 2016), and then vowed to only do things where “winging it” was acceptable from that point onwards. You still get all the fun of the on-stage experience, without any of the shitty Powerpointing and Practicing in advance.
To me this feels like a win/win. As long as your audience has low expectations for your level of preparedness 🙂
But your talk was great – we all thoroughly enjoyed it!
“…and then vowed to only do things where “winging it” was acceptable from that point onwards.”
Ahhh, hence the almost total lack of planning in your life! It all makes sense now! 🙂
I’ve come to realize that an unplanned life is a happy life. Still working on it…
Thanks for the kind comments on the talk! Full circle. I feel like a chapter of my life has now concluded. It feels pretty good.
I really enjoyed revisiting the event through this article. It was great to see you there, and the talk was fantastic. I agree with Pete, you can just step on stage and start talking and you’ll be fine. We just want to hear whatever you genuinely want to tell us.