For this Speakers Institute Premiere Bootcamp presentation, I’ve had to dismantle one of the biggest strongholds in my life. It felt like I was pushing a huge rock up the hill and being met with resistance.

I knew it by heart when I went to bed, but when I got up at 5:30 to rehearse my presentation, it felt like all the powers of hell had descended on me.

I couldn’t get a single word out before I burst into tears—and spent the next two hours crying, wrestling with the blackout in my brain and the suffocating despair crushing my chest. When Clive came down he comforted and prayed for me until it was time to go get ready.

I have this memory from when I was a little girl in Germany — I was crying for attention, but instead, my head was shoved under cold water. I slapped my hands over my mouth, swallowed my tears, and vowed never to cry again. Growing up in a world where children were meant to be seen, not heard, became woven into the very fabric of my being. And then there was my stepdad’s constant “Think before you speak” every time I had something to say… until I got so stuck thinking my voice had no value that I stopped speaking altogether.

I could have the most amazing conversations with people in my head—until I opened my mouth, and it all vanished. That’s why I've always shied away whenever someone said they saw me on stages and in stadiums.

It took every ounce of strength I had to hold this together.