The Dave Crenshaw Success Show

The Inspirational Learner, Sophie Thompson - CEO & Cofounder of VirtualSpeech

• Dave Crenshaw • Season 4 • Episode 5

Share episode

Sophie Thompson, co-founder of Virtual Speech, shares her inspiring journey of turning personal struggle into a global impact. After battling severe social anxiety, Sophie discovered a powerful way to push beyond her limits using virtual reality training. Since 2016, Virtual Speech has helped over 500,000 people in 130 countries tackle their own communication challenges. In this episode, Sophie opens up about how cognitive behavioral therapy and stepping outside her comfort zone led to profound personal growth. Hear how her unique blend of theology, international business, and a drive to connect with like-minded individuals fueled her mission. Then, choose which action will most likely help you reach your goal today.

Action Principles

Pick one to do this week:

1. Strengthen your skillset. With consistent practice, you can improve any skill. ACTION: Pick one skill you'd like to improve and take small, consistent steps toward getting better at it.

2. Surround yourself with the right people. The more time you spend around people with similar goals or high levels of success, the more you'll grow, too. ACTION: Find ways to spend more time with people who've achieved the result you aspire to reach.

3. Turn a weakness into a strength. Change your perspective on your weakness by finding a way to make it your strength. ACTION: Consider ways your weakness could be turned into a strength.

4. Step outside your comfort zone. Even the smallest change can open doors to new opportunities. ACTION: Choose one small action to do that it outside your comfort zone.

Guest Resources

Learn more about Sophie Thompson on LinkedIn or by visiting VirtualSpeech.com.

Suggested LinkedIn Learning Course

Turn Your Weaknesses into Strengths

Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world. DaveCrenshaw.com

Unknown:

We were very fortunate to be picked up by the press. So we were in the New York Times, for example, which we literally just sent each other one WhatsApp like, oh, look, we're in the New York Times. How cool. Okay, yeah, we had we were so naive in this

Dave Crenshaw:

episode, you'll get to know Sophie Thompson, the inspirational learner, and you'll hear the story of how she used her severe social anxiety to create a virtual reality training program that's helped hundreds of 1000s overcome their fear of public speaking. I'm Dave Crenshaw, and this is my success Show. Welcome back, friends, to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show. This is where I speak to some of the most successful people I've met in my life's journey. And I'm looking for universal principles of success, things that can help you and help my family succeed. In case you're not familiar with me, I'm a best selling author. I speak around the world of Fortune 500 companies, and I've taught millions of people how to be successful through my online courses, especially my courses on LinkedIn learning. With this show, I wanted to create something different. I was looking to create a legacy project specifically for my children, because I was thinking about, how can I help them learn all the wonderful lessons that I've learned from the people that I met, and then I thought, well, you'd enjoy learning along with them. The goal in every episode is to find something you can do, something you can put into action today this week, so that you make my guest success story a part of your success story. And today's guest, you absolutely want to do that with her man. What a story. Sophie Thompson co founded virtual speech in 2016 to overcome her fear of public speaking, she found that VR had a unique ability to help people practice in a safe environment and build their skills and confidence for real world situations, virtual speech has been used by over a half million people, 500,000 people in more than 130 countries, and has been featured in high profile news outlets like the BBC, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal Forbes and the Huffington Post, just a few small publications. Sophie has won several awards, such as inspirational woman in tech for her achievements with her company. She lives in Birmingham, England, where she enjoys historical fiction and swimming. Sophie, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Unknown:

Thank you very much for having me.

Dave Crenshaw:

So Sophie, I'm so interested in your story, especially as a public speaker and as someone in the training industry. So I'm fascinated, and we'll learn more about your story as we get along. Talk to me about when you were younger. I like to ask the question of every guest, what did you want to be when you grew up? What did you think you were going to become?

Unknown:

Oh, well, that depends on what age you asked me. So if you asked me when I was seven, I wanted to be a hairdresser, then if you asked me when I was a teenager, I wanted to be a barrister. So I went from one extreme to the other and ended up doing neither. So yes, that's, that's what I wanted to be when I was a teenager

Dave Crenshaw:

and a barrister in UK. What does that mean? A lawyer? Basically, okay, all right, so you intended to be a lawyer. Is that something you studied in college? Talk to me a little about what your university experience was, yeah,

Unknown:

so I didn't actually study it. So I would say I wanted to do that when I was in my early teens, then as I progressed into my later teens, I would say that's where my social anxiety got worse, and my confidence got less. And so I was very worried that I might not get into university, which, looking back, is very silly, because I got, like, the highest possible grades, but I was kind of convinced that I wouldn't be able to my dad just told me to study whatever I enjoyed, whatever I was good at, and then in my head, I thought whatever I would also very easily get into. So I studied theology and religion at university. Interesting, yeah. So a lot of that was around, like many different religions, but also a lot around like history. So my dissertation, which is like my big project at the end, was focused on the Holocaust, for example. So it was really interesting. I did really enjoy it. And

Dave Crenshaw:

what was the goal with that study? Was it from a historian perspective, or did you actually want to go into clergy of some kind? What was your end design of studying that

Unknown:

just from a historical perspective? So I, I always found history really interesting. And, yeah, I just really enjoyed it. So I had no intention of joining the clergy or directly applying my degree. So. A lot of my peers, for example, have ended up being religious studies teachers, for example. Whereas that wasn't my plan. My plan was very short term of I enjoy learning about this. I love learning. Let's pick a topic to learn more about them and see what happens.

Dave Crenshaw:

I want to roll back just a little bit, and you mentioned a phrase that is a very important phrase in my family and for me, which is social anxiety. It's something that in particular, a couple of my children have dealt with in a very severe way, and they've gone through therapy and been successful with that therapy. So talk to me first of all about what your experience was, or still is with social anxiety. What does that look like for you?

Unknown:

When I was a child, I thought I was just shy, and so I'm 30, and even though that is relatively young still, when I was at school, say, 20 years ago, I don't think, well, certainly in the UK, we didn't have the language of social anxiety, like if, if you got nervous about something, you were just nervous. Like you were a nervous child. You were a shy child. So I look back at certain stages of my life, and you mentioned therapy, for example, and that's a great way of looking back as well. And I can identify times from when I was as young as six that I was socially anxious or anxious with a capital A rather than a little a like for example, I love swimming now, but actually when I was six, I used to get so nervous about going swimming and like being seen, and I felt like people could see me more, that I was so nervous. One time I threw up at the side of the pool because I hated that I was there. Oh my goodness, So little things like that. Or I started doing this thing where I would like, wave my mom goodbye in the car with my dad, and I would like cross my fingers. And I'd be like, okay, fingers crossed. Like, nothing bad happens, which I don't know what my parents thought was going on in my little head at the time, but I was convinced that something bad might happen, and that could be like, I was asked to, like, read in the past, or something like that, which I was very capable of doing, but I just didn't want any attention on me, you

Dave Crenshaw:

mentioned that you're very young, and you've accomplished a great deal at your young age. Is social anxiety still something that you deal with? I guess what I'm asking is what you did to sort of overcome that prior to virtual speech, were there? Did you go to therapy? Did you work with a doctor? What? What things did you attempt?

Unknown:

It took a long time to identify that that was a problem, and it was more when it went a step further, and I guess, manifested itself a bit more, along the lines of severe depression, that I then sought help for that and then realized that it was the two of them combined. So at that point, for example, I tried things like CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, which I did find useful. So things like going to the gym, I didn't go to the gym because I was scared. So, like we had steps to like, I would go with a friend, I would do this and and it did work for that, but it didn't actually change how I thought about myself, which I think was the biggest problem for me, then I think I did have medication at that point, but I didn't want to see that as a long term solution, because I felt like that was masking the symptoms but not the cause. So if I came off it, would I just be back to square one? I did actually stop taking medication, which, again, now I look back on I think it was just that one didn't suit me, and then I was just back to square one, and I just carried on.

Dave Crenshaw:

Was there a skill that you learned through therapy that you still use? And the reason why I'm asking that is I could see that someone listening to this is identifying with it, and say, Yeah, I have social anxiety like Sophie is describing. I'd love to give them one useful thing that they could use. Of course, virtual speech is part of that. But prior to that, is there just something, a tool in your belt that you use for those moments.

Unknown:

I think the biggest takeaway I had from that era of my life was one of the things that I had to do was write down the things I was nervous about or anxious about for that week, and write it on a scale of one to 10 for how anxious I felt about it. And then after I had done it, write on a scale of one to 10 like how I felt about it afterwards. And I found that the things that I was most anxious about, and if I then did them, were the things that I would feel most happy about, and that if I just got over the the anxiety of it and just managed to do it, I would then feel so much happier than if I just stayed in my lane, stayed in my comfort. Sign, Oh, that's

Dave Crenshaw:

great. That's a wonderful skill. I think a couple things are going on. First, you're being objective about the situation, because anxiety is is activating the smallest part of your brain. It's all reactionary. And so if you can scale it like that with with numbers, then you start to become objective and more logical about it. And then that's another amazing revelation, that the things that you're avoiding are actually the things that would make you happy. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so you're you're studying at university where did technology start to come into your story? Because I know that that's a big part of the success that you've had. So

Unknown:

after I did my theology degree, I realized that that probably wasn't known to lead me into a job, and I loved learning, so I wanted to stay in education. So then I studied a master's degree, a post grad in international business. And it was while I was studying for that that I would talk more to my friends and my peers about like business in general, technology trends. And I just find like technology so exciting. And, yeah, really, that's where the love of technology came from, and then eventually where virtual speech came from. What

Dave Crenshaw:

made you want to study in international business? That's an important thing. Because part of the reason why I started this Sophie is I'm looking for patterns of success. And honestly, it shouldn't be shocking, but it's been shocking to me how many people have studied business as part of their story to be successful. Where did that idea come from, that that would be the good master's degree to pursue? I just

Unknown:

find it really interesting learning how things work and what increases the likelihood of things working and why things happen. And in a way, I think of some aspects of business, quite like psychology and about how the brain works and why we do what we do, and why a customer might react one way, or why a market might react another way. So again, similar to why I studied theology, it was actually just about what I found interesting and what I would like to learn more about, and then it just so happened that that would also more likely lead to a future career as well.

Dave Crenshaw:

That's a really important point of pursuing what you love and what you're interested in. Sometimes people get stuck because they're pursuing money, and they think, Oh, this career is going to make me wealthy, when, in fact, it's finding a career that you love that gives you the longevity that will lead to the prosperity, which has certainly been a part of your story. It also sounds like a big part of it is your interest in psychology. Why people make buying decisions and that sort of thing. Were you also studying psychology as part of that, or was that a hobby that you were doing because you were dealing with issues with social anxiety? Where did that come from?

Unknown:

I've never formally studied it, but I used to read quite a lot of personal development books. I think back then they were called self help books, which makes them sound a bit more dreary, but that's a much bigger field now, like if you go into a bookstore, there's so many more options now, and people have recognized a lot more about the importance of learning about yourself and how you can be your best self. So I think that's partly where the psychology element came from, because I would find those books helpful and motivating. They just hadn't kind of solved my overriding problem of like, what effectively was probably low self esteem that was contributing to the social anxiety. But I found it really interesting about, like, rewiring your brain and how that could work. I just couldn't do it.

Dave Crenshaw:

So you got your master's degree in 2016 Correct? Yes. Okay, and were you working prior to that? Was there a gap between your initial degree and the master's degree? What were you spending your time doing in that space? Or were you a full time student?

Unknown:

I was a full time student. So, I mean, I did, I worked at a pub, for example, but yeah, I went. I finished my undergraduate in July, and I started my postgraduate in September. So it was straight away.

Dave Crenshaw:

And then, according to what I see, you also founded virtual speech the same year that you graduated with your master's degree? Is that correct? Yes.

Unknown:

So we started virtual speech whilst I was studying for my master's, and that was because I had an assessed presentation coming up. And for my post grad, we were all being marked individually. So we all had to speak. And being academic was very important to me, and getting the highest possible grades is very important. Very important to me, but I had this massive blocker that I couldn't get up and speak. And I was talking to my friend who's now a business partner, Dom, and he was working with virtual reality at Jaguar Land Rover, the car company. And. And yeah, really, it was his idea that we could create an environment or an audience in an environment in virtual reality, and I could use that almost as a form of our own CBT therapy, where I could then get used to attention on me. Basically,

Dave Crenshaw:

that's fascinating, especially the relationship that you had with someone that led to the foundation of the company, I find that's also a pattern of success. Is those we associate with will have a massive impact on who we become and what we accomplish in our career. Yeah,

Unknown:

hugely. I mean, I I didn't really know what virtual reality was at that point. I mean, most people know what it is now, or they've seen a headset now, but back in 2016

Dave Crenshaw:

that was early, right? Yeah, really

Unknown:

early. And when he said about virtual reality, I was like, Is that like a headset? What? So, yeah, thankfully, he'd been working in that field for even a couple of years by that point. So he was really early on. And, yeah, we just created virtual speech, just some, like, I always say, like, some nerdy fun that DOM created it because he's your classic, like, visionary entrepreneur. He's always creating things, and he enjoyed creating it. And I was almost the guinea pig testing out? Now,

Dave Crenshaw:

there's a phrase that you've used twice, which I'm very familiar with, but I want if I'm thinking like my children are learning how they've heard it for the first time, you mentioned CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, which it seems like it's a big part of virtual speech. It's a big part of your story. So could you provide some context, some definition of what CBT is, how it works,

Unknown:

I will try. So virtual speech is unofficially linked with CBT, and there's now a new area called Virtual Reality exposure therapy, which is a bit more closely aligned with what we do. So the way that I experienced it was building myself up to things that I was scared of. So for example, with something like public speaking, if I was scared of speaking to an audience of 50 people, my first step would be speak to one person. So that would be for me that was ordering my own food in a restaurant, which I couldn't originally do. So that was step one. Step Two might be to speak up during a group project discussion at university and that say in front of five people, and you gradually work your way up, and you become more comfortable with the previous step and more confident in your own ability to achieve that step before you then go on to the next one, so that ultimately you end up where you want to be. So if you think of it kind of like rungs on a ladder, that the first rung was one person, then it was five people, and then you keep going until you get to your your magical number of 50 in my case, yeah, and

Dave Crenshaw:

my understanding is exposure therapy is a specific application of cognitive behavioral therapy. So virtual speech. Then the concept was to create that sort of environment where someone could practice speaking in front of a virtual audience. What did the first version in 2016 look like, like, I'm thinking of what's, what was that second life, right? It was pretty clunky and blocky in the beginning. Was it like that with virtual speech?

Unknown:

I mean, yeah, ultimately, it would have been, but there wasn't an alternative at that point. Like, if you if so, for example, if I was to use the first version of virtual speech now, now that we're like, eight, nine years along in the technology, it would seem very clunky at the time because it was so new. And I think the first version had, like, very minimal environments. It was green screened people. So we actually still have one of these rooms, because our customers have become, like, actually, really like it, and I guess I'm quite emotionally attached to it too. One of the environments where we basically filmed all of our friends, and they are the audience members. Oh, that's great. There's one of the environments where you go into it and I can be like, Oh, that's Paula, that's Olivia, that's mad, and it's basically mine and Dom's friends at the time.

Dave Crenshaw:

Okay, so you actually have real people inside the immersion.

Unknown:

So we have some environments where we've recorded people and then placed them into a conference room, which we have created, like computer generated, and then we have some environments which are avatar based. There's pros and cons to both, but from my experience, I preferred to have the real people there, because with them looking at me, I felt like that was much more realistic and emotionally evocative than an avatar looking at me. But the benefit of avatars is they can be more interactive, so they can react to what you say. They can have practice conversations with you. So that's why we've we've got both in there who

Dave Crenshaw:

was doing the programming in that, because up to this point in your story, you hadn't mentioned anything with computer design or computer development. So was that in partnership with your friend? Was that something that you hired other people to do? How did you get the expertise you needed to create that that was Dom, great. So that partnership together allowed that to occur, yeah,

Unknown:

so I say that in the early days, Dom was the tech guy and I was the everything else girl. That was how we split the roles when we first started.

Dave Crenshaw:

That's really important, though, in a partnership, is to have a clear dividing line. Did you do it just through a conversation, or was it written down just through conversation? Did you ever experience any kind of overlap or bumping into each other and responsibilities with that? Or did it still seem pretty clean because the line was simple,

Unknown:

it was always pretty clean, and even today, it's pretty clean. Like we've been working together for nine years now, like we've never argued about anything. I think that's one of like, the huge benefits of, from my point of view, of virtual speech, is that my business partner, we we know exactly how each other work. We know how to speak to each other. We have a lot of respect for each other, and so if there ever is anything that we might disagree on, it's never an argument. It's always very rational. Okay, well, what, what do you think like? Why do you think X? Why do you think y? But yeah, generally speaking, it's been very clear cut

Dave Crenshaw:

that can't be overemphasized, because many partnerships don't work very well. They end up having riffs or not working together. The band breaks up, so to speak. So the fact that you two have found that sweet spot of being able to communicate work together, that's admirable and and something that I think anyone listening to this needs to strive for, I might suggest having a written document to make that division more clear down the road, but it worked for you with what you did clearly. So you founded the company, and not long after you were able to get VC money. Is that correct? And for those who are unfamiliar, that's venture capital. That means someone investing money into virtual speech to help it grow. How did that come about?

Unknown:

So we released the first version of virtual speech onto the app stores, more so we could access it with anyone else. We released that in February 2016 and because VR was so new, then, we were the first virtual reality app to overcome the fear of public speaking. And because we were a new use case, and we were very fortunate to be picked up by the press, so we were in the New York Times, for example, which we literally just sent each other, one WhatsApp, like, oh, look, we're in the New York Times. How cool. Okay, yeah, we had we were so naive in that we just created it for ourselves and didn't see it as a business. At that point. We were like, Oh, how cool. Someone's seen it, written about it. But as a result of things like that, we had over 100,000 downloads in the first six months virtual reality in 2016 that was probably everyone who was using virtual reality. And we were approached by a company called Boost VC, and we were invited to apply for their accelerator program, which involved them providing in almost it was, it was a small amount of cash injection in exchange for equity. And then we went and lived out in Silicon Valley for three months. So we had that whole experience. And, yeah, it was brilliant.

Dave Crenshaw:

Could you talk to me about that three month experience? What that was like?

Unknown:

Yeah. So we were, there were about 10 to 15 different companies there that were all focused on virtual reality, augmented reality, emerging technologies. And so it was really inspiring to be around other people who were in the same industry, because I certainly didn't know anybody else working in that world, let alone trying to build a business in that world. And that period of time was pivotal for us in terms of taking virtual speech a bit more seriously, rather than just something that we could use, that actually, this is something that other people could use, and actually we want as many people to know about it as possible.

Dave Crenshaw:

And what was the day to day like was the VC involved in giving mentorship? Did they assign people to guide and lead the work that you were doing on a practical level?

Unknown:

How did that work? All of these companies were working in the same co working space. The VCs would work in the same space. So the people who behind boost VC were working in the same space as us, they would organize fireside chats with other entrepreneurs about how they'd built their companies, experiences they'd had. And we also could have the introductions from our VCs to other VCs, or if they had contacts at some of these big. Company. So for example, somebody we spoke to worked at Glassdoor, and we were talking to them about what would then become a VR interview practice.

Dave Crenshaw:

That's a great example of that power of association, of spending time with other people who are trying to do like things. So that's already a recurring aspect of your story. So you spent a few months there, and then came back to the UK and started to build the business. Did you ever get more venture capital money? Or from that point forward, were you focused on bootstrapping the business?

Unknown:

I would say, in all honesty, we spent a couple of years not knowing whether to

Dave Crenshaw:

raise money or not. Yeah, it's a hard question, yeah. And

Unknown:

I think sometimes people think that's the only option and the only route to success, and in hindsight, me and Don are both very glad that we didn't, because back in 2017 there was a bit of a hype cycle around VCs investing in VR companies and then them hiring lots of people, but actually the market demand wasn't there yet to sustain that growth and even just sustain those salaries of these people they hired, and you can get trapped into a VC cycle of you can't get the revenue to sustain yourself, so you have to raise again. And

Dave Crenshaw:

very true. I've seen that happen where companies just get addicted to getting more money rather than getting more sales. Yeah, exactly.

Unknown:

And so we decided to grow with the market instead. And we knew we had a product that people wanted, it was just how we could a spread the word about that product, but B monetized that product as well so that we could actually have it as our full time jobs, and rather than just something that we did for fun on the side, what's

Dave Crenshaw:

a mistake that you made during that growth period that later turned into a lesson that you won't forget, funnily

Unknown:

enough. So when we were, for example, on that three month accelerator, we spent so much time working like Dom, in particular, he was the first person into the office at 7am he was that last person to leave. We even won an award at the end of the three months, which was called the cockroach Award, which is something that boost VC talk about like be the cockroach and basically, cockroaches never die. So we won that award for our commitment to work. So even though we were in San Mateo for three months, we were really close to San Francisco. We actually didn't explore that much, but also I didn't socialize that much, which probably isn't surprising given my background, but now that I am more confident I'm older than I was, I look back and think actually the value of those relationships, and I don't even just mean value in terms of monetary value. I mean in terms of learning opportunities, social opportunities, and that area of life. I think it was a mistake not to place as much importance on that as I think it actually is,

Dave Crenshaw:

yeah, and it is of huge importance in so many areas of our life, right? If we're trying to have multifaceted success, it can impact the company financially to build these relationships, but it can make our life better and more rich and give us opportunity to serve other people. So, yeah, thank you for sharing that you've mentioned how you've gained more confidence as you've gotten older. How much of that do you attribute to virtual speech? I guess what I'm asking is, can you kind of walk us through what virtual speech does to help people gain more confidence? Yeah,

Unknown:

so I would attribute 100% virtual speech, but part of that is the product, and part of it is my role at virtual speech. So 100% is virtual speech the initial kickstart, certainly. So, for example, I could do that presentation in September 2017, so 18 months after we launched the first version of virtual speech, I was interviewed live on BBC World News. And for somebody who, 18 months before, couldn't order their own food in a restaurant, that was entirely virtual speech because we didn't have a business at that point. And then from there, I have continued to use virtual speech. I don't use it now for social anxiety. I use it now because I need to test the product. But I don't rely on it now, whereas before I even remember, actually for the BBC interview, we were literally creating a media training course at that moment in time, and I remember thinking, gosh,

Dave Crenshaw:

oh, that's perfect, yeah. So then,

Unknown:

as the years have gone on and my role has evolved, so for most of the last nine years, it was me endowment. I was doing sales, and so I I've had to continually expose myself to things that would make me scared. Said, so once you've done a few phone calls, for example, and a few demos, I felt confident in what I was talking about. So and it was ultimately my product, and nobody knew my product better than me and Don did, so that certainly helped. Then there were moments I remember flying to New York on my own for a meeting at one of the World Trade Center buildings, basically. And I remember flying there on my own thinking, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Because I'd never actually flown anywhere on my own, let alone a seven hour flight to one of the biggest cities in the world, and that was always putting that original CBT that I had, like years before, into practice, because suddenly I was going for this meeting at this massive company. I was on my own. There were going to be, I think there were seven or eight people in the room. They were all men. All could have been my dad, and I had to hold my own in that situation. So again, once I done it, I remember leaving the office and it started snowing, and I was like, I suck. I'm in an app Hathaway film. This is brilliant, so I remember feeling really good about it afterwards. So putting myself in those situations throughout the last few years has definitely helps.

Dave Crenshaw:

So my background Sophie was I originally coached business owners and entrepreneurs. Now I work with Fortune 500 companies, but one of the things I'd always say to my clients is that a business is a dojo for your life, because the business is a reflection of you. You have to grow as an entrepreneur. You have to become a better person, and that will make the business better and stronger. And what you're sharing is a perfect example of that you had to grow. It forced you to make changes, and that helped you overcome your social anxiety or lessen it, and also learn a variety of other leadership skills that you wouldn't have possessed otherwise.

Unknown:

Yeah, exactly. I've I've learned so much about so many different things over the last few years that I don't think I would have done had I have been in a different

Dave Crenshaw:

career path. Talk to me about the inspirational woman in tech award and also the other awards that you've received. Where did those come from? What has that been like to be given those

Unknown:

so the inspirational woman in tech award, there's a stupid, funny story behind that. So that was a really posh hometown in London, and it was a black tie event, and it was the first event I've been to, and I took one of my brothers with me, and I was talking to the person who was going to read out my category before the event started, and I was just chatting to them, and they were holding an envelope, and I could see they'd written down everybody's names and they'd circled one, and they hadn't circled mine. And so I went back to my brother, and I was like, just so you know, I've seen who wins. It's not me. It's fine. Let's just enjoy the meal and like, let's just clap away like you see on TV. And so we were at this table, and we were just having a lovely time. My country came, and I was certain that I hadn't won it, so I didn't have any nerves or any, like adrenaline or anything pumping through me. I was just I took a picture when my name flashed up on the screen, like, oh, look, there I am, Mum. And then they read out my name, and I was so shocked. And my whole table work, because I told them all this story that I'm definitely not, you know, it's not me. So, yeah, everybody on the table went crazy. My brother's scuffling to get his phone to record it sent to my parents. So yeah, turns out I had won that award, and part of the reason I had won that was because in the interview they did before, one of the things they were asking about was challenges that we'd had along the way. And I spoke about the mental health challenges that I think many entrepreneurs face many people face it, but I think it's quite unspoken about how many business owners or entrepreneurs face that, because it's very much glamorized, like, Oh, if you start a business, you'll become Mark Zuckerberg, and that's simply not the case. And actually it's very hard and very lonely, and there's a lot of sacrifice involved. And so I spoke to them about that, and then when I won that award, and I was speaking to them afterwards, they said that, like, really, that was what had pushed me over the line to winning. It was my honesty in talking about that and wanting to raise awareness of

Dave Crenshaw:

that. And I know you've won many other awards as well over the last several years. Yes,

Unknown:

so things like great British Entrepreneur of the Year awards. There's something called the progress 1000 which was amazing, but bizarre to me, that is the it's technically London's 1000 most influential people. So I did. Used to live in London and. But that was one of those stories where i i was sitting working from home. This was pre pandemic, when nobody else was working from home. Hence the loneliness. I was just working from home. I'd been invited to this event. I thought that would be fun, and I got an email, and it was an article which was talking about the progress 1000 and it had people like Prince Harry in there, the founder of Wikipedia. And then it had me, and I was sitting there with a Winnie the Pooh blanket on me, keeping me warm, because I didn't put the heating on, like, the most unglamorous situation possible. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is crazy. It's about, I think, as a classic example of people talk about, like awards they've won and and obviously the achievements that have led those awards are very big, but actually, like, the person behind it is probably just as shocked as anyone else, yeah,

Dave Crenshaw:

well, and I admire there is a thread running through your story, and it's I recognize the humility that you have with all this, that this is all very fun and exciting for you, and you're not taking yourself very seriously, which I think is the right attitude to have as an entrepreneur. So talk to me about what you're currently working on, and where you see things headed over the next five years with virtual speech. So

Unknown:

obviously we've spoken a lot about public speaking and how we started, but now we have a catalog of over 20 courses that are all focused on communication skills. So obviously we still have public speaking and presentations, but we also have job interviews, difficult conversations, giving and receiving feedback, sales, pitching, leadership, communication, over 20 courses around those themes, and each one is teaching about the theory and the techniques, but crucially, you also get the opportunity to practice them, so that not only can you practice that skill, but you can build your confidence so that you can use that skill to your best use and best ability. Something that we have added the start of last year, which has taken that to the next level, is we've integrated generative AI so that now the avatars can respond to you and give you feedback based on exactly what you said two years ago. That feedback was on the delivery. So how many filler words you've said? How many ums and ahs your eye contact, pace, volume, tone, listenability, those kinds of things. But yeah, it was only about 18 months ago, basically when the world exploded with GPT that the app can now understand exactly what you're saying. It can ask you questions based on what you're saying. If you're practicing a difficult conversation, it will respond to you based on exactly what you've said.

Dave Crenshaw:

Wow, that's an exciting advancement, and it's only going to get better. I mean, we're in the very early stages of what AI can do.

Unknown:

Yeah, exactly. So when you said it five years I was thinking, well, I could never have predicted this five years ago. So it's really difficult to tell where we might be. Something that we are working on is around a mixed reality version of virtual speech. So then, for example, if you were sitting in an empty office room, you could put on a headset and you would still be able to see your office room, but we would overlay our avatars onto the chairs so that you can have that practice in a room that you're familiar with, or if you're about to speak at a conference in a room that you're not familiar with, but we should help you get familiar With that's

Dave Crenshaw:

exciting. As an educator, my head's spinning with ideas and ways to make that work in what I do. So it's thrilling that you are at the forefront of that, and I'll use this as a segue too. The thing I love most about what you're doing Sophie is as an educator, I believe in practical application, learning by doing. When I give a speech, I'm having the audience get up out of their seats and do things, because just sitting and listening is not a very effective way to learn. So thank you for being at the forefront of making that a reality of learning, I think the best way possible. So from that, I'm going to segue to what I do at the end of every episode, which is, I encourage those who have been listening to do something about what they've heard. So you've got this wonderful story, wonderful example. But now, what's the application? What can we do? So what I'm going to do, Sophie, is I'm going to suggest three possible actions that someone can take based on your story, and then I'd love you to add one at the end. Sound good. Okay, okay, so the first one, and this is a recurring theme, it's also part of what virtual speech does, but it's how Sophie overcame her social anxiety practice a skill you struggle with. And. Start small, try something weekly, and then do a little bit more, right? Just try a little bit more, and keep practicing that each week. And the more you make just a little bit of an effort, then it's going to become easier for you that exposure therapy, that practice, that cognitive behavioral therapy. So choose something that you're struggling with and just try something small with it. Practice that skill. The second one is to consider the association of friends that you have meaning. Look at the people that you're associating with, looking look at the people you're spending time with, like Sophie found her partner while she was in her program and at university, or associating with people in the incubator in Silicon Valley, find people who are trying to do great things that you want to do. The more you spend time with them, the easier it's going to become for you to find the success that you want. And then the last one, I just want you to consider, is your weakness really a strength? What is it that you struggle with that you have a hard time with? Sophie struggled with social anxiety, and that led to the strength of creating a program to help people overcome that through virtual speech, I struggled with organization, that led to me creating my course on time management fundamentals and the books that I write, maybe you have a weakness that's also a strength. So just take a moment to consider if that's a possibility. Okay, Sophie, those are my three. What's one that you would add to the list? Oh

Unknown:

my gosh, yours were brilliant.

Dave Crenshaw:

Well, they came from you.

Unknown:

I think I would just iterate really about pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. So if that is something like social anxiety, it doesn't have to be building yourself up to do a presentation, because on day one, that sounds absolutely terrifying, and you'd rather just avoid it at all costs. It could be something simple, like something I used to do, for example, is when family friends would come over, people I'd known for 15 years. I would hide upstairs at my parents house because I didn't I didn't know what to say to them. I didn't want them to die. I was there, so just go downstairs and speak to them. Or if you, for example, if you have, like, a regular coffee shop that you go to ask the server how they are that day, or if they've been busy, just you can start off on micro levels, really small before you then start to build yourself up to having those conversations, or say, doing a virtual speech course and practicing that you don't have to run before you can walk, but every little step you take does all add up to a big result. So true.

Dave Crenshaw:

Thank you for sharing that. Sophie, thank you for your example. If people want to follow you or learn more about virtual speech, what's the best place for them to go.

Unknown:

So you can go to the virtual speech website, which is just virtual speech.com and then we're across all major social media platforms as well. So you can find us there. I personally, if you want to, anybody wants to contact me, I'm most active on LinkedIn, so yeah, you're very welcome to connect with me. Drop me a message, and yeah, I'll get back to

Dave Crenshaw:

you. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Sophie for sharing your wisdom and your story with us. Very inspiring. I appreciate it.

Unknown:

Thank you very much. This has been really enjoyable, and thank

Dave Crenshaw:

you everyone for listening. Remember, it's not just about the knowledge that you heard or gained. It's not just about how you felt while you heard her story. It's about what you do. So do one thing this week, and you'll make Sophie Thompson's success story a part of your success story. Thanks for listening.

Darci Crenshaw:

You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show, hosted by my dad, Dave Crenshaw, and produced by invaluable incorporated research and assistant production by Victoria bidez, Sound Editing by Nick Wright, voiceover by me Darci Crenshaw, and the music is by Ryan Brady via Pon five. Licensing, please subscribe to the Dave Crenshaw success show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you like to get your podcast. If you have a suggestion for someone my dad might like to interview, please send it to guests at Dave crenshaw.com and please don't forget to leave us a five star review. See you next time you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Dave Crenshaw

Host