What makes you tick?What makes you uncomfortable?What do you love?Why are you speaking? Share some or all of these things in the first minute and you’ll create a connection with your audience. Good communication is all about rapport, empathy, relatability, authenticity, humility, and humour. Stand-up comics often start with the most important thing people need […]
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I’m driven by a fear of failure. My default assumption of most unexpected negative things I experience is that I must have messed up. This became embedded through years of floundering in education and full-time employment. “We’re concerned about…” and “I was hoping that…” are grim, familiar phrases from authority figures I was desperate to
Want to achieve speaking confidence? Of course you do – it’s the key to everything you desire: success at an interview, interest on a date, or being convincing at your work review. I bang on about getting speaking experience, but also vital for your growth is doing the research: I find that while doing research
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Standing behind a microphone in front of an audience can feel intimidating and very disconcerting. There’s the build-up, the pressure of expectation, and the theatre of the whole thing; a stage, a host, there may even be bright lights. Your instinct tells you that this is a dangerous situation, and that’s completely normal – you
Public Speaking is Safer Than You Think Read More »
‘Oh, just be yourself’. You may have been given this advice by a well-meaning friend or colleague when you told them how nervous you were when preparing for a talk. It may seem facile or naive, but I believe it’s actually your best strategy. The scariest one perhaps, but certainly the most effective, because speaking
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