If you know me, you wouldn’t believe that I am absolutely terrified of public speaking. That’s right, plonk me in a group of hundreds of people and as long as I am sitting down and part of the group, no problem. The minute I am the speaker, at the front of the room, standing up, then in front of as little as three or four people, I can go to pieces.

Shaking, stuttering, face goes red, my legs sometimes give way, I start to hyperventilate…..rididulous isn’t it? Well, when the opportunity to do SOMETHING about it ‘presented’ itself to me I thought, might as well DO something about it. I want to be able to present and public speak, if only to prove to myself that I can. Not to mention the benefits it could have for my business.

Well I took part in the Present with Confidence course with Carmen Macdougall of cma coaching and Jeremy Lazarus of The Lazarus Group. And it was great! The course consisted of two preparatory teleclasses and one full day workshop, at the end of which each participant had to make a 7-10 miunute presentation to the rest of the group. And after a very shaky start, I did it and actually enjoyed it (in the end!).

Based on the principles of nuero-linguistic programming (NLP), the workshop was chock full of insightful and illuminating information, presented in an effortless and inspiring fashion by Jeremy, and at the end of it, although I wasn’t the super-smooth and super-cool presenter I wanted to be, my attitude towards public speaking had changed. No longer is it something merely to be terrified of, it is now something I WANT to do, because I know I CAN.

I am about to schedule my Present with Confidence follow-up call with Carmen, and I have just been asked to give a presentation to a women’s networking group in April, so the timing couldn’t be better! I’ll let you know how I get on…