I arrived in Aruba on 9/22/15. Interview in the airport VIP
lounge.
After
arrival on the island we all gathered for the rehearsal at the historic
Cas di Cultura auditorium. This is the same place my sister
used
to have her ballet recitals (I understand a photo of her hangs
somewhere in the complex), and I had my High School graduation from
Colegio Arubano.
Rehearsal the night before did not go well for me.
I consider myself a frequent speaker (especially with all the numerous
successful
speaking
occasions in 2015),
but rehearsal went poorly. I would be the sixth of twelve
speakers, and we went in the order in the program. By then, I
heard the others speak, and I was not sure I was fitting in due to
fact that the topics were very wide ranging. In addition,
when I
went on stage, I was facing a very large empty auditorium, and I had a
hard time getting in gear. Another reason was that we were
allowed only 15 minutes (the purpose of TED talks are supposed to be
short and impactfull), and I was constantly worried about going over
time. Although I had received prior coaching from Ica Jones
(the
local president of Toastmasters) via Skype, I did not come off well
prepared. To top it all off, I started to sweat profusely as
result
of the stress. Afterwards, Ica said I sounded flat, and I
needed
to smile more. It was not my finest performance.
The next
morning I rehearsed out loud in front of a mirror, and my delivery
improved greatly. After a good rest in the afternoon and
another
practice run, I really felt ready. The event would start at
6:30pm, and last through the evening. We had sold out all the
tickets to a big room of 500 seats, and we were streaming world-wide.
The evening sold out of the 500 seats in the auditorium.
With Dagmara, Head of Content for the conference and personal friend in
the dressing room.
Maite Hontele was one of the speakers and she autographed a CD for me.
She was nominated for a
Latin
Grammy.
We were visited by Prime Minister Mike Eman and First Lady Doina Eman
in the dressing room.
This is Rachel Brathen, aka "yoga_girl", who has over two million
Instagram followers.
Some
of the speakers that night. Left-right: Vanessa Benlolo,
Glenn
Thode, Dagmara Avanindra (Head of Content), Michael Lampe (Datapanik),
Koert van Mensvoort,
unknown, unknown, and Roel van Rijsewijk.
The other speakers
My badge for the night.
The Prime Minister and Jim Stolze opened with Maybelline's choir.