Ruba Shamshoum ربى شمشوم

One and a half years ago, I was back home preparing to be a bridesmaid in my sister’s wedding, when I got an email, that I’ll be participating in TEDx London Business School (which was just one week away!) I had to throw my sister a bachelorette party and write my TEDx talk in one week, find something meaningful to say since I wasn’t one of those people who went through a magical life-changing experience, and the worst part is that I had to remember the whole damn thing by heart! Thinking of the pressure that I felt that week makes me nervous even now. I was still making adjustments in the talk with the team two hours before I went on stage because I wasn’t really given much time to develop my talk and to prepare for it mentally

On June 30th, as I made my way to the microphone on the beautiful stage at Rich Mix, for the very first time I thought “this is not real! this is not happening! I’m actually performing a set of my songs at a beautiful venue in London, with amazing musicians”. None of it felt real, not the warm and amazing audience, not the incredible sound on stage (which happens so rarely!) not the smiling faces all over the place, not the album that had my name and face on it waiting on a table in the back of that room