People always say that I'm such a great people person and I speak so easily to them. While I'm having a conversation with a complete stranger, I'm dying inside, my palms are sweaty, I'm slurring all over my words and more than likely I sound like a complete moron. One thing I have going on is when I get nervous, I crack a lot of jokes. The downside to that is most of them are ridiculously NOT funny. So I basically just end up feeling like I'm cracking stale jokes and laughing only because I'm nervous, so they probably are thinking "Gosh this girl is not funny, her laugh is incredibly annoying, and she just thinks she is so hilarious when in all reality, she's not even close!"
With all that said. . . Saturday was my first day renting a booth at a craft fair for Pink Zebra, or any other company for that matter. I was so shy and nervous, to the point of when people would walk by, I couldn't say anything. In fact, I DIDN'T say anything. My friend, Nina, who rented the booth right next to me had to start the conversation with people, and lead them to my drawing I had going on at that time. After about 20 minutes of being shy and not knowing how or what to say, I loosened up and started being able to be that person that people said I was.
People learn something about themselves everyday, and what I learned that day will stay with me for the rest of my life. I learned why I had such stranger-phobia. . . It's because I lacked that confidence in myself. The confidence to be able to stand in front of someone else and be proud of the reason why I was standing there doing what I was doing. I guess the biggest fear is facing the rejection. Afraid of offending someone or being embarrassed by someone telling me "No, I'm not interested." I've told myself since last Saturday to not worry about the negative. Focus on the positive aspects of the business and the things that are going to be productive for me in the end. That doesn't mean I'll ignore concerns people have with Pink Zebra, but I'm not going to worry so much about what everybody thinks. I'm going to start focusing on making myself a better, more confident me, and no matter what happens with my business, I'll always be happy that I have that.
