I sat beside our agency COO, drinking water and eating a banana on the first day of Indie Beauty Expo LA. I’d been told by my coach that eating a banana before presenting could help calm your nerves but as far as I could tell, it wasn’t working. I hadn’t even set foot on stage yet and I was sick to my stomach. I wanted to go hide in a stairwell. What if I didn’t connect with people? What if my message fell flat? At our booth adjacent to the Uplink Live stage, I could see people gathering in their chairs, drawn in by the title and blurb they’d seen in a list of panels and presentations sent out in marketing emails and posted around the show floor of IBE. I was afraid because this was my first time on stage. But I wasn’t just discussing the logistics of social media; I talked about a very difficult time in my life, and a period of time that changed the trajectory of my story. On top of that, I was talking about three projects very dear to me. Projects I’d watched grow, and put a lot...
