That feeling of dread
Why does the thought of doing a presentation fill me with such dread? I know I’m not the only person in the world who’s not keen on public speaking but I wish I felt happier about it. I’ve done heaps of reading and given myself many pep talks but I still seize up at the very thought of it. I’d love to be one of those people who just stand up in front of a group and talk naturally, taking it all in their stride (though I guess they don’t necessarily feel as cool as they come across).
This topic has come up because we’re doing a talk on Thursday. We’re down for a full hour but the talk itself won’t need to be as long as that as we need to leave time for questions. Turns out I’m going to do the talky bit and my partner is going to control the powerpoint (if we manage to get hold of some equipment in time that is).
I forced myself to draft out the talk on Sunday and so am going to spend some time revising it today and preparing index cards so I’m not just reading it all out. Am feeling nervous even writing about it here. How pathetic am I?
I’m down to do a workshop in presentation skills in a few weeks, so hopefully that will help with my confidence. And this is something I definitely need help with!
How to Talk to Anyone
You know what it’s like when you go to a networking event and there are one or two there who seem to just breeze around the room, being greeted by loads of people they already know and talking to new people with ease? Wouldn’t you love to be just like that? I know I would, but instead I’m the one nervously standing in the door desperately looking around for a friendly face. Actually, I’m not as bad as I used to be, I’ve definitely got more confident but I would like to feel more comfortable with striking up a conversation with someone I’ve never met before.
One of my fears when it comes to networking is not knowing what to say when I meet someone for the first time. This book provides you with techniques for overcoming that - not just things to say, but the whole thing from how to enter a room and choose who to talk to, to how not to answer certain questions that might leave the other person at a loss as to how to respond. Great stuff! I can certainly see how I can do things differently. A lot of it is being more aware of how you are reacting to the situation.
I’ve got this one down as a book to dip into every now and then. I don’t think I’m going to be able to go out there and put all 92 tips into practice straight away, I’d never remember them all. So, I think the thing to do would be to try out one or two at a time and see how they help, gradually improving my networking and conversational skills.
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Fear and networking in Cornwall
We had a less than satisfactory networking experience last night. We went to a seminar/networking event run by one of our local business networks. These events are always pretty good with the seminar bit being really worth going to so we had decided to both attend. Big mistake. We’ve noticed it before but keep trying again - we’re just no good at networking if we go to an event together. We always end up talking ourselves out of it and leaving early.
As usual the speakers were excellent and we got a lot out of that, but as soon as it ended we went all unsure of ourselves and couldn’t bring ourselves to go and talk to anyone else. Pathetic isn’t it? I’d been all geared up to meet new people, but there is something about being with my partner that holds me back. On the way home we did the usual disection and came to the conclusion that I should go to stuff on my own - being on my own makes me much braver and I get a lot more out of it.
So a bit of a knock to our confidence, but I’m not letting it completely do away with what confidence I’ve gained over the last few weeks. I just have to go to more stuff and build on my networking skills. I know I can do it, it’s just unfortunately something that I have to do without my partner.
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
In theory this should have been just the book for me at the moment, with my goal to become more confident. There is undoubtedly a lot of good stuff in there and some techniques that I’ve read elsewhere and taken onboard.
However, for some reason I just couldn’t enjoy reading it. Over the last few years I’ve become much more open to ‘personal development’ but in my mind there is a distinction between personal development and self-help. I would say that this book definitely falls into the category of self-help. It put me off because it seemed to be for someone with very low self esteem who needed help in all aspects of their life, rather than for a reasonably confident businesswoman who needs a bit of help with confidence in certain situations (which is how I see myself). Maybe I need to open my mind a bit more and not cringe away from ’self-help’.
If you really do feel that you have a self-esteem/confidence problem then you may well find this helps you, but if you’re looking for something to help you feel more confident at meeting new people when networking then I would look elsewhere.
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Still working on being brilliant
I’ve just completed the fourth week of my 90 days of brilliance plan and I’m still hanging in there. I started off by preparing very detailed weekly plans and sticking to them very closely, but that has tailed off somewhat. Instead I’m now setting overall goals for each week, giving myself much more flexibility day-to-day. I’m feeling pretty good after four weeks:
- We’ve launched our new website and are actively working on expanding it
- I’m feeling much more confident about networking and as a result more enthusiastic about going to stuff
- I’ve prepared a 28-day marketing programme and started it (today in fact)
- We’ve defined our vision for 5-years and are actively working towards it
- I’m reading on average one book a week
- I’m signed up for an SQL course which will be starting in a few weeks
It’s all good stuff. Tomorrow will mark the end of the first 30-day plan so it will be time to sketch out what I want to achieve in the next 30 days.
The Confidence Plan
I was immediately absorbed by it and made the mistake of starting it without a pen and paper to hand and then found myself champing at the bit to start writing my thoughts down. Now that’s a sign of a good book! I was impressed with how it started with laying the groundworks - encouraging you to start taking the smallest actions as taking action in itself can help build your confidence. The chapter on increasing your energy was also an eye-opener. The idea of dealing with the energy drains in your life - things that might seem insignificant but that drain a little bit of energy every time you notice them (like my leaving things piled up on the sofa - if I just tidied them away I’d feel so much better). Brilliant!
To be honest quite a bit of it is stuff that I’ve read elsewhere but in a ‘getting things done’ or ‘improving your effectiveness’ kind of way. Applying it to building my confidence was an interesting take. And of course the more times you read something the more it reinforces it in your mind. If you feel like you could do with working on your confidence I would highly recommend reading this book.
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Pushing past that comfort zone!
I’ve had a couple of days of doing things that stretch my comfort zone. Thursday evening I went to my first book club meeting. I felt quite nervous beforehand because I really didn’t know what to expect, but of course when I got there it was absolutely fine. It turned out that I already knew the woman who organises it (just hadn’t made the connection between name and face) and she was incredibly welcoming and encouraging, as were the rest of the group. I can’t wait for the next one now. What I need to work on is being more confident about speaking without having to be encouraged first.
And yesterday I went to my first speed networking event. There were a few familiar faces there which was good but I also spoke to lots of people I hadn’t met before. It was a really positive afternoon - I got some good reactions to my introduction and have made some promising contacts. Apart from a couple of people everyone was really nice and went out of their way to be interested. There was one bloke who I found completely rude - while I did my 60-second intro he actively looked bored and then told me that he had no interest in my business because he already had a website - then he went on to try to sell me his product… Come on, he only had to pretend to be interested for 60 seconds, that’s not much to ask is it?
Overall a really good, confidence-boosting couple of days. Just need to keep it up.
Confidence boosting link
As my current reading is on the subject of confidence I’ve been doing some looking around for related websites. The BBC has a good secton on improving your confidence, which includes some practical exercises to boost your confidence. Definitely looks like it’s worth spending a bit of time there and seeing what they have to say.
Confident Networking for Career Success and Satisfaction
The book easily passed the ‘easy to read’ test - it grabbed me straight away and kept me interested throughout. I liked the way that it didn’t jump straight in with the ‘you need to talk to as many people you don’t know as you can’ kind of stuff that usually goes hand in hand with networking advice. It acknowledges that not everybody is comfortable in networking situations and offers practical advice for how you can feel less daunted by it. I was also pleased that the authors recognised the value of online networking and offered some advice specifically about that (though best to ignore their description of ‘forums commonly known as blogging’).
What I wasn’t so satisfied with is that I didn’t feel like I came away from the book with a solid plan of action. I could go back through it and work through the different pieces of advice to slowly increase my confidence and skills, but the book doesn’t offer a particularly structured approach to this. Maybe I’m wanting to have my hand held a bit too much, but I do like it when practical books set you particular goals to achieve.
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A brilliant week
Yesterday was the end of the first week of my 90 days of brilliance. Ignoring the breaking-down-car incident it was a pretty good week and I’ve come to the end of it with my motivation still nice and high. One of the things that I’m working on is my networking skills and confidence (so expect some book reviews on these subjects…). I feel like I’ve made a positive start with this:
- I’ve identified various opportunities for networking in our area and signed up for the first few of these.
- I’m half way through a book on ‘confident networking’.
- I’ve been working on stretching my comfort zone by actively looking for things to do that I’d usually be nervous about.
- I’ve joined a local book club - the aim of this is to help me be more confident in talking in a groups. I’m reading the book at the moment and will have the first meeting next week.
Hopefully I’m on my way to feeling more confident in a networking situation.
