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Have you ever been nervous about something that turned out to be a hugely positive experience?
This just happened to me and I wanted to share some of my takeaways in case they apply to you too.
Two weeks ago we held the NoCode UK conference which I co-organised.
I’ll be honest: organising a large event and being near the centre of attention is not something I’m naturally good at. I was extremely far outside of my comfort zone.
In the months leading up to the conference I must have asked myself a hundred times “why oh why did I take this on?!”.
But, like so many things in life, the payoff was unexpectedly wonderful.
The conference ran smoothly, everyone had a good time, the sponsors and speakers were happy, and there was gratitude pouring in from all corners.
It had all been worth it. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Not only that, but I learned a lot about myself.
I wanted to share these learnings in case they’re helpful to you too.
4 things I learned while outside my comfort zone
1. Seek opportunities to work with people who are better than you
The idea for the conference came from a discussion I had with my buddy James. James and I have hosted a podcast together for the past couple of years where we talk about our nocode SaaS journeys.
James is extremely smart and very focused. Whenever we record the podcast I get a strong sense that he knows exactly what he’s doing, while I’m just fumbling around in the dark. His results confirm this suspicion. His SaaS is going from strength-to-strength, while mine is, well, non-existent at the moment.
Thus, recording the podcast with James has been an excellent learning experience for me over the past two years. I’m not sure James would say the same 😄
The conference was another opportunity to work alongside others who are better than me. In particular, our co-organiser Ash was incredibly impressive. His levels of organisation, attention-to-detail, and ability to get things done is on another level.
Working with Ash was hugely inspiring. And not just Ash, but all of the organisers, volunteers, and speakers. Watching them operate, I was able to take away inspiration and ideas from everyone.
If you want to up your game, you need to know what someone at the top of their game looks like.
They say you end up being the average of the five people you spend the most time with. But unless you’re willing to drop your best friends, it’s hard to control who those people are.
But it is possible to find situations where you can work or volunteer alongside other high performers.
Seek out these opportunities.
2. Identify your talents and weaknesses
I used to think I was a relatively organised person. And then I met Ash and I saw what being organised actually looks like.
Turns out I’m quite disorganised.
The night before the conference I was talking about this personal realisation with an agency founder.
He said all of his hires do an exercise where they put different tasks into categories:
- The tasks that give them energy.
- The tasks they find challenging but will do.
- The tasks that deplete their energy.
The point of this exercise is to get an honest view of each person’s talents and weaknesses.
A typical job description will have a list of tasks which will likely be spread across categories. Of course in the interview you say you’re good at all of them, but the reality is you’ll be better at some than others.
By understanding the reality of which tasks give someone energy and which they find a struggle, the tasks can be reorganised to allow the team to focus mainly on the things they’re talented at.
The problem is most freelancers and indie founders never do this exercise.
As a solopreneur I’m used to wearing the jack-of-all-trades hat. But I’m increasingly realising I’m not good at every task.
In fact many I’m downright bad at.
I delay my business admin for months at a time. I rarely repurpose my content across different platforms.
So I’ve started the process of doing this exercise on myself. Below is an early iteration.
My plan is to reorganise the way I operate so that I’m primarily focused on tasks which give me energy. These are also the tasks I feel I’m most “talented” at.
For the challenging tasks I will find ways to move them into the centre circle. This could be by breaking down the tasks into subtasks, and figuring out which parts to remove and which to keep.
For example, with email newsletters I enjoy the thinking part and some of the writing. But I don’t like proofreading or my writing style. So maybe I’ll try to find someone to help with that. Or perhaps I just need more repetition until it gets easier.
For video tutorials, I just find it hard to motivate myself to start recording. Once I’m going I quite enjoy it. So perhaps I need to improve my studio setup so I’m more excited about the final output.
For the outer circle, I’m going to look at ways to avoid this altogether by outsourcing or automating some or all of it.
Have you ever done an exercise like this? I’d love to hear about it if you have.
3. Consistent branding is worth the effort
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always thought of branding as something only big companies do. And beyond the top few companies that nail it, most brands are a bit meh.
The conference changed my view.
So many people complimented us on our branding. And not just the brand itself, but the consistency across everything we did.
The website, the emails, the venue decor, the swag, the speaker slides were all branded and consistent. This was thanks to Karla who did our branding, and Ash who made sure we applied it everywhere.
People noticed. It made the whole event feel a lot more professional.
And this professional feel meant more people bought tickets and more sponsors approached us. It made the speakers feel good about the time and effort they’d put in to be there.
It will make the video clips and photos from the conference look better, which will influence how well next year’s conference sells.
Overall it turned out to be a huge return for a minimal investment.
This was an eye-opener for me, and something I’m going to take more seriously for all my future projects.
4. The best learning happens outside your comfort zone
When I was 13 years-old the teacher asked me to read out loud to the whole class. In my head I was fine with that.
Unfortunately my body didn’t get the memo. My voice started shaking uncontrollably.
Since that day I’ve had a fear of public speaking. Over the years there were several other situations where the same thing happened. This reinforced my fear. It became self-perpetuating.
It’s been extremely tempting to shy away from all public speaking since then. But I’ve always pushed myself to take opportunities when they arose, even though it makes me feel nervous for months beforehand, because I know it’s something one can get better at with practice and it’s an important life skill to have.
I also know that avoiding public speaking opportunities would mean needing to admit “I don’t want to do it because I’m afraid of public speaking” which would reinforce my fear and make it even worse.
So, with this in mind, I accepted that James and I would do the opening remarks at the conference and tried not to worry too much about it. Thankfully there was so much other work to do I didn’t have time to overthink it.
When the moment came, I actually felt calmer than I’ve ever felt before in front of a crowd. My body surprised me!
Afterwards I felt amazing. In fact that achievement was almost as important for me personally as the whole conference itself.
And the result of forcing myself outside of my comfort zone is that next time it will be a little bit easier still.
It’s a cliché, but it really does work.
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What I’m currently working on
Due to the conference and various holidays I feel like I haven’t done any revenue-generating work for weeks now.
Below is a photo from my trip to Scotland. Despite my claim it was a good spot to build, it was impossible to be productive with my kids and family there.
Today is my first day back at my desk (with no views) and I’m excited to get started.
I’m planning to make some updates to the Bullet Launch SaaS boilerplate, which has been getting fantastic feedback so far.
I’m also going to start work on a new SaaS project. Details to come soon!
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