Tackling your fears head-on: why I started the podcast

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In this episode, Sujani delves into her personal struggles with speaking in public and how it affected her career in public health. She reflects on her initial reluctance to speak in various settings and her journey of self-improvement through the creation of her podcast.  Sujani shares that by creating opportunities to practice speaking, she was able to progressively build confidence and improve her communication skills. She emphasizes the importance of small, consistent steps toward facing and overcoming fears. Her transformation led to better engagement in conversations, more profound connections with colleagues, and the ability to speak up in meetings, which were once daunting tasks. By sharing her story, Sujani hopes to inspire listeners to embark on their own journeys of self-improvement and career advancement, proving that the challenges we face can become the catalysts for our triumphs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to PH Spotlight, a community for you
to build your public healthcareer with.
Join us weekly right here, andI'll be here too.
Your host, sujani Siva from PHSpot.
Hey, welcome to another episodeof the PH Spot podcast, and

(00:22):
welcome.
Today's episode is going to bejust me no guest today and I
want to tell you about how Iused fear to improve on a skill
that I felt I really needed togrow in my career, right.
So this podcast that you'relistening to, I started this

(00:45):
podcast just over four years agoand pH Spot has been around
over, you know, seven years, andso I started this podcast to
actually face my fear ofspeaking right.
Yes, there was that primaryobjective of bringing career

(01:07):
stories and career journeys toour community so that people
could learn kind of firsthandfrom their peers and people they
look up to in the field ofpublic health.
The secondary objective kind offor this podcast and for me to
do this was actually to face myfear of speaking.

(01:29):
I've been wanting to do thepodcast for years prior to that,
but it took me a very long timeto gather my strength, almost a
year of constantly thinkingabout it and then to actually
get behind the mic and hit,publish right, and to date I've
released over 150 episodes, andso that has been essentially 150

(01:57):
opportunities to face my fearand practice this skill.
It was terrifying at first,right, so I'd get behind the mic
, I'd stutter, I'd do multipletakes.
But when I look back at thisjourney of the past four and a
half years 150 episodes I am soglad I made the decision to face

(02:19):
my fear because I'm so muchmore comfortable, my fear
because I'm so much morecomfortable speaking in front of
large groups, small groups,meeting people, just jumping
into a conversation, and I justlove the person that I've become
now that I feel a lot morecomfortable to speak to people.

(02:40):
And for you to really understandhow much I hated speaking to
people and I'll tell you, kindof briefly at least, what my
childhood looked like, right.
So I used to be terrified ofspeaking to people, and I don't
know why, and this was both inpersonal settings and
professional ones.

(03:00):
So whether it was on stage infront of a large audience or to
my colleagues around theboardroom when I got my first
job, or even when I was inuniversity and I was
volunteering at a dental officeand I had this job as a
secretary.
I hated picking up the phone atthis part-time dental office

(03:23):
job and I was an undergrad atthat time.
I can even kind of go back tomy childhood when my older
sister was actually myspokesperson at times when we
were out with friends or atfamily events and she kind of
would step in to speak for mebecause I was quite shy, I

(03:44):
didn't want to say hi to peopleor engage in any sort of
conversation.
So when I tell you that Iabsolutely hated speaking to
people and that I was shy andterrified like that's the extent
of it, right and when I tellpeople this story now they are
very surprised that I used to bethat person right.

(04:06):
And so I guess the lesson hereis that if you really wanted to,
you know, know, improve on askill that anyone can work on,
improving that part ofthemselves.
I, you know, kind of like onthe flip side of that, I'm
someone who completely believesthat you should work on your

(04:27):
strengths and really improve onthose areas that you know that
you enjoy and and have justskills that you've built over
time and you're really strong inthose areas.
But I think there are someareas that we fear, or not so
great at that.
It might be a good idea to justwork towards improving those in

(04:52):
those areas a little bit rightlike, even though I do these
podcast recordings, I can go infront of a group, talk to people
, jump on zoom calls, runwebinars.
I don't love it, like Iwouldn't do these things if I
didn't have to.
So I think it's to say that Idon't need to be this keynote

(05:17):
speaker at a massive conference.
That's not kind of theaspirations I have.
But I did identify that by beingquite shy, not speaking up
during meetings, I was reallylosing out on opportunities.
So I had made a consciousdecision to myself to say that

(05:39):
you know, I really need toimprove in this area so that I
can speak up in the boardroom, Ican speak up during meetings, I
can express what I'm thinkingin a way that my colleagues can
understand, or, you know, peoplein the Peach Botkin community
can be inspired and motivated.
So there was that goal.

(06:00):
So I want to kind of ask you ifthere's something that you're
afraid of doing and if you couldjust have a marginal
improvement in that area, couldsomething look different?
And if you could just do onething to maybe improve on that

(06:25):
what would it be right?
And, like I told you, getting infront of the mic was not easy.
It took me a whole year right.
Some days I'd turn on therecording button and I'd freeze
every single time I hit record.
I had to do multiple takes andyou know, when I think back to

(06:47):
some of the older episodes, Iabsolutely did not want to go
back and listen to my own voicethere.
But I pushed through it allbecause I knew that I absolutely
needed to improve on mycommunication skill and that
opportunities to practice thisskill were limited and I didn't
have enough of them in my job.
So what I did is I created myown opportunity.

(07:11):
Right, and that's what I wantyou to do.
I don't want you to wait foropportunities to improve on
those skills.
I want you to think about howyou can take control of your own
career growth and how can youhelp yourself.
Push through that fear, open upopportunities for yourself,
build up in this area and reallysee where that takes you.

(07:33):
Right, because you know, fouryears later, here I am.
I can turn on the mic, I canjump on a call, I can walk into
any room, big or small, andstrike up a conversation with
zero hesitation and, mostimportantly, I do this with a
lot of joy and not fear like Iused to have right, and

(07:54):
sometimes I will tell you Idon't recognize myself because
that's not who I used to be, andI really like that.
I'm able to have conversationswith people, connect with them
at a personal kind of like humanlevel and really get to know
individuals, which I feel like Ididn't do when I was younger
and, you know, maybe I hadmissed out on meeting and

(08:17):
getting to know some veryinteresting people.
So here I am today through thispodcast episode, encouraging
you to not let your fears orlack of a certain skill get in
the way of growing in yourcareer, and I really hope that
my story can act as aninspiration for you today, and
I'd absolutely love it if youcould declare to me you know,

(08:41):
write to me, tell me via emailor direct message on LinkedIn
what skill you'd like to committo improving or a fear that
you're going to face, and I wantto be there personally to
encourage you so that we can getyou on the other side and
really see what opportunitiesopen up for you.

(09:02):
All right, so you got this.
I'm cheering for you and I'llsee you or I'll be in your ear
on a future episode.