its been a very busy week. i've had a pretty good one though, with steven away its just been a demonstartion of supreme efficiency and i've manged to get a lot done. 'getting a lot' done, however WAS a conveinient mask for actually putting off possibly the most important task on my list....writing a presentation that i agreed to give deligated on an NLP coachces course, speaking about how 'mental coaching' (NLP= Neuro Lingustic Programming) helps athletes. I agreed to do it a long whiel back, following a discussion about how much i HATED public speaking. How terrible at it i was and how it was probably one of my greatest fears! I reckon this probalby dates back to my days as an architectural undergradate at The Bartlett, which was FAMED for it brutal Crit sessions. Luckily I always seemed to come out of the firing line pretty well, but it could be a pant wetting-experience- especially when you knew that they knew that you were seriously blagging a project that was a good few weeks short of the amount of work needed to do it justice.... anyway I'd seen enough of my studio mates in tears as a result of a harsh Crit after several late nights hard graft.
Anyway, where my fear/utter lack of confidence in this area comes from is not important. What is of relevance is that when good old Jeremy, after our conversation, comes up up trumps with this 'favour' i could do for him...delivering a presentaion, about NLP, to a group of expericed NLP practitioners on a training course that he was running, about how his techniques can be used to help athletes/had helped me...what could i do but put on a brave face and agree to thrash this 'fear' out fo myself. all i need to do was be well prepared with a well thought-out talk of 90 minutes. Jeremy assured me of an open and responsive audience - after all, they were paying BIG BUCKS to attend the course. no pressure then!
so HOW is it that at 9.30 on a friday night, when i have a train to catch for my weekend trip away to yorkshire at 6am the next morning, i am battling to get the frigging computer to unfreeze and 'save' the presentation that i have finally finished so that i can sneak back to the office and print it out ready for monday morning.....? I even missed the final of Celebrety Masterchef!!! well, that'll be the busy week, won't it?
anyway - it got done, and i was pretty pleased with what i'd prepared. luckily it's a topic that i am fairly confident talking about, and included a fair few personal anecdotes and examples, which i could expand on if i needed - just had to keep on 'track' and avoid waffling into zones of bullshit, nerves or unitelligable mutterings of ...and ..ermmm.....er...oh hang on did i mention....er ...oh nevermind.
which i feel i may be doing with this blog post!
anyway, the presentation went BRILIANTLY. I really got into it, and enjoyed delivering it. The room had been set up perfectly, with my power point ( which i'd emailed to Jeremy late friday night just in case) set up on a laptop, angled subtly toward me so i could use teh slides as prompts, and projecting onto a creen behind. I was given a littel remote to change the slides and a cup of coffee. I could tell that the audience was interested and enjoying the talk - genuinley laughing at the little jokes i'd made and asking really relevant questions. I'd timed it almost to perfection ( we even ran over a little with all of the questins at the end) and a couple of teh audience actully put up their hand just to say what an intersting, relevant and enjoyble pesentaion it had been, that i was 'a natural motivational speaker' and clearly 'embodied everything that i'd talked about'!!!
I was totally shocked at how well received it had been - and so pleased that i'd had the guts to put myself into this position of deep fear, facing it, working hard and coming cleanly out the other side.
I was so pleased, in fact, that i 'treated myself' to a long easy ride in teh sunshine for the afternoon, instead of teh run, swim, unpacking, shopping, club admin, and laundry that i had planned for the rest of the day!
so, it's jo carritt.....now available for 'motivational speaking' bookings ;o)
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