MY PHILOSOPHY

Do you feel like you’d love to create a positive change in the world by speaking or performing but fear is holding you back?

My work is designed to help you overcome that fear and then share your ideas and stories with impact.

I believe that anyone (and that includes you) can have the impact they want to achieve as a public speaker or creative performer.

And you will have the greatest impact when you are being truly yourself on stage- not a carbon copy of someone else.

But how do you become more yourself? I believe that this comes when you drop down from your thinking self to your feeling self and then focus on the things that you are passionate about (heart) or which give you a sense of purpose (gut).

HOW TO CREATE A CONNECTION WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

When you talk about the things that you are passionate about or which give you a sense of purpose, this allows you to make an emotional connection with your audience and with yourself. And that helps you to create even more impact.

Remember this quote from Maya Angelou:

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I believe that telling personal stories is one of the most effective ways to enhance emotional connection with yourself and your audience.

Everyone has a story that others can learn from.

But here’s the important bit.

Your stories will have the most impact when they are told from an intent to give rather than take.

What do I mean by this?

I mean that your impact will be greatest when your motivation for sharing your story is to help others. To help them heal, see a new perspective, learn a new idea or piece of information. If you tell your story with the intent to show off or massage your ego, your audience will pick up on this energy and it will be a turn off for them.

This is why I only work with people who want to make a positive contribution to the world through their public speaking or performing.

FEAR AND PUBLIC SPEAKING

FEAR IS A SIGN SOMETHING IS IMPORTANT TO YOU

Let me start by letting you into a little secret. Everyone (even the most experienced of speakers) feels a little fear before they get up to speak. Or, if they don’t that’s a problem. Why is that? The answer lies in my second core belief:

Fear is a sign that what you are about to do matters to you.

If you don’t feel anything, then it is harder to create excitement. And if you have no excitement, that makes it harder to create an emotional connection with your audience. Your talk will feel flat and lifeless. So, that is what I believe that the first step in becoming a great speaker or performer is to become more connected with your feelings, sensations and emotions. I help my clients achieve this through a process known as Somatic coating. You can find more details here.

OTHER WAYS YOU CAN TURN FEAR INTO EXCITEMENT

Always remember that you don’t need to try to be someone else. This can help to reduce the pressure we sometimes put on ourselves to perform. If all we need to do is be ourselves, that sounds a lot less daunting.

Tap into your purpose and passion. Talk about the things that light you up and make you feel excited. Then you literally are creating excitement!

Practice in what feels like a safe, judgment-free environment to start with while you build your confidence. That might be just practicing in front of a trusted friend to start with. As your confidence grows you will find that the situations in which you feel safe and secure will grow too and you can start speaking to larger audiences.

Have fun and play, even when you’re talking about the most serious of topics. It can feel like extra pressure when give weight to more serious subjects, as if you need to do them justice. But by creating a little lightness, you draw in your audience and reduce the stress you are experiencing.

Create structures that help to reassure you that nothing will go wrong. This could be a written script, cue cards and other reminders. I help my clients to find the level of reassurance and types of structures that work best for them.