Fear used to ride shotgun in every speech I gave. Sometimes it drove. The fear of getting it wrong. Of being too much. Of not being enough. But then I realized—fear isn’t the enemy. It’s the ember. It’s the match. And if you learn how to hold it right, you can turn that fear into fire.
Every great motivational speaker I’ve admired—every top keynote speaker, every inspiring poetic voice—had one thing in common: they didn’t avoid their struggles. They transformed them. They didn’t deny the fear—they danced with it. Because the most powerful stories aren’t the ones polished smooth. They’re the ones marked by the friction that forged them.
When I first stepped into the world of spoken word, I thought my job was to conquer fear. But I learned my job is to convert it. To take that nervous energy, those scars, that pain—and pour it into my performance like gasoline on purpose. The stage doesn’t want your perfection. It wants your process. Your proof. That you’ve come through something and lived to tell it—not with shame, but with spark.
Your struggle is not a weight—it’s your wood. Your fear is not a flaw—it’s your fuel. So take the mic, trembling hand and all, and let the fire speak. Because every time you speak through fear, you give someone else the courage to stand in their own. And that… is ignition.
