'Sitting in my first conference I was nervous.' Common App Essay: on Failure

Prompt: Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?

Essay:
Sitting in my first conference I was nervous. I had never experienced something like it. Everyone was gathered around a large round table, all sitting in big brown rolling chairs. I was amazed at all the creative ideas everyone was pitching, it was a free flow ideas. Out of nowhere I heard "Robert what are your thoughts?" I was stunned, my very first conference and they wanted my opinion. I had many good ideas running though my head but I was reluctant to say them. What if it was a bad idea, what if I was ridiculed, and those were the thoughts going through my head. I simply responded "No, I have nothing to say". They moved on, and I sat there in disappointment.

During the summer I landed an internship at a small tech company just 15 minutes from my house. I was excited to quickly get started. Starting on the first day I was tasked to help design a website targeted to help other students manage their time. Being the only high school student at this company, I was very timid. At many different points I received many complements of my quality of work. But for some reason I still had some self-doubt in me. Throughout my life I have always self-doubted my ability both intellectually and physically. For many years I played competitive soccer, but besides all my accomplishments , I always doubted my level of play.

The reason I felt so disappointed about not speaking was because I actually had good ideas to be made. Naturally I am very quiet and conscientious. This was not the first time something similar has happen to me. Being a quiet person I tend not to open up to other people about what I am thinking. But until that conference I never really thought anything of it. That day I had an epiphany about voicing my opinion. It made me look into myself, and realize that I do have good ideas worth sharing. I realized that I had to stop doubting myself. After that I began to slowly start inputting my thoughts not only at my internship but in other places also. I learned that people do want to hear other people's opinions. Whenever I voiced my opinion I got positive feedback even if it wasn't the best idea.

That day of my first conference had a very big effect on me. It showed me that holding back your ideas is never a good idea. Although to some people this may seem like a minor event, it had a profound touch on my actions. I now truly believe that I have increasingly improved on getting rid of my self-doubt and began voicing who I really am.

Holy crap, I have that same exact attitude. In fact I have been trying my best to get rid of this trait but it is slow process so I understand exactly what you are writing about. Maybe I am becoming too biased here but I like this essay. The only thing is maybe you could focus more on the conference instead of going into another example. If you think it has enough substance to carry the majority of the essay then I would suggest doing that. If not, you could just leave it as is.