My Television Debut and Exhaustion

I hate public speaking. This is a fear that I have had to face many times in my current work. I regularly teach trainings with small groups of people. I have also done speaking events with small groups of people. I love teaching our volunteers but hate doing the speaking events. I get so nervous and don't sleep well the night before. The events that I have done never have more than 30 people, but it still really unnerves me. Today I faced one of my biggest fears and gave two live interviews on the morning news.

When my supervisor asked me to do this last Thursday, I thought I was going to be sick right there. Just the thought of speaking on camera with thousands of viewers was enough to make me queasy. She assured me this interview would be taped so they could edit out any mistakes. Well, she was wrong. I did two live segments along with a member of our board. I hadn't slept well since Sunday but last night I only got two hours of sleep. I had to be up at 3:00 and at the studio at 4:45. My supervisor told me that it shouldn't take more than ten or fifteen to finish, but I did not leave the station until 7:00. I got home in time to get my lunch bag together and take the kids to school. It was a long day. Not only am I exhausted, but I did not even get a lunch break because I had a meeting for one of the teenagers on my caseload. But tomorrow I only have one meeting and a couple of visits in the morning and then I get to come home.

To celebrate facing my fears and doing very well on the interview (according to my supervisor and the board of directors as well as my husband and mother), I am going to get a nice run tomorrow and may bust out the Zumba game on Wii tomorrow afternoon when I am home all alone.