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Hello and welcome to Reset!
If you're anything like me - you want a life filled with your own definition of success, the people you love and stories that will make the 90 year of version of your proud.
A life you're inspired by and doesn't burn you out in the process.
Each week, I'll be interviewing industry experts so that you and I can learn how to best navigate our careers, lives, health and happiness.
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Ash x
Ps. Let's connect on Instagram @reset____podcast + @ashcam____
Reset
How to Present Like A Professional - Interview with Nicole Joy, Founder of SHE Speaks Academy
Almost 75% of the population fear public speaking. However, the good news for all of us is - learning how to tell a story in a way that connects with your audience is a skill that can be practiced and perfected.
My guest today is Nicole Joy, Founder of SHE Speaks Academy.
She believes that women need to speak up and everyone has a story worth telling. Sharing stories inspire, create impact and can literally change the world.
With over 20 years of experience her unique SHE Speaks method has helped hundreds of women (many who are self confessed shy girls) to confidently take the stage.
Whether you need to present your ideas to a small team at work or to thousands of people on a TED X stage, this episode is packed with expert tips to help you to feel more confident in front of any size crowd.
Trust me when I say you're going to want to take notes in this episode.
* Why do people get so nervous before delivering a presentation?
* Can you be a great presenter if you're an introvert?
* How to prepare for a presentation?
* How to recover from a terrible presentation?
* How to change your beliefs and self confidence?
* How to reframe "I HAVE to do a speech" to "I GET to do a speech - how exciting is that!"
* How to join SHE Speaks Academy?
Buy Nicole's Book Recommendation "Dying to be me" https://amzn.to/4k1VMoD
Learn more about SHE Speaks Academy:
https://www.nicolejoyofficial.com/shespeaksacademy
Connect with Nicole on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/nicolejoy.official
Follow Ash on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashcam____/
See latest Reset Retreats, Workshops & Events: www.resetworkplace.com.au
Watch this episode on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@Reset.Workplace
Nicole, hey, welcome to Reset. Thank you for having me. Oh, so good to have you here. For anyone who doesn't know Nicole, she is the founder of She Speaks Academy and an absolute gem at helping women share their message with the world. I've been following you online for quite a while and watching your business growth and your clients grow. And so it's so lovely to have you here. You are very passionate about what you do. Why?
SPEAKER_01:Because women need to speak up. We need to tell our stories. We need to make more noise because the more noise we make, the louder we are, the harder we are to ignore. And I know that everyone has a story. I know a lot of women will say when I say that, oh, but I don't really have a story. There's nothing special about me. But my motto with She Speaks Academy is your story is your superpower. And when you learn to tell it properly in the way that only you can, your voice has the power to change someone's life, like quite literally change someone's life. So when people understand that, I feel like then they really can get a handle on, hang on, I can make so much more impact when I use my voice as opposed to, I'm just going to stay small, be quiet, fly under the radar, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00:When the term public speaking comes up, most people, including my friend Jez, who was kindly doing my hair this morning before this, says, oh my God, that's one of the scariest things that you can do in life. Why are people so scared of it? The judgment.
SPEAKER_01:Because we can all speak, right? We're not scared of speaking. We're scared of the judgment that comes along when we put ourselves out there. So we work on our fear of judgment and then that part kind of fades away. Having said that, It is a skill. It's not something that you're either born with or not. So when, like any skill, you're not going to be great at it the first time or the second time, maybe even third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth time. But if you keep going and you keep practicing, then it's going to get easier. Having said that as well, I've been doing this kind of work for 20 years, 20 plus years. I still get a little nervous before I get on stage. So it's not about I've I've got to do it until I don't feel nervous anymore because to me nerves is you care. You give a shit, right? It's not about getting rid of the nerves. It's about being able to get up and do it with the nerves because they will melt away. Like I just had the last one of 2024, our event, and every single speaker said to me, and these are women that have never spoken on a stage before, they say, oh, after the first couple of minutes, I was completely at home. I loved it. And they got off stage like, I want to do it again. And I told them all, I was like, you will want to do this again. This feeling of being up in front of an audience and talking about what you're passionate about, it's an addiction and you'll want to do it again. And all of like before they were like, you're crazy. There's no way I'm going to do this. And then they were like, you're right. I want to do it again. So it's something that you just need to keep with the right guidance, persevering at, and then it won't be so scary.
SPEAKER_00:Everyone that gets on stage after working with you seems like the most confident, inspiring speaker. I know that that's not the case before they start working with you, but can you give me some examples of why it is so important to become a great speaker? I
SPEAKER_01:think whether you're speaking on a stage or whether you're having an important conversation with a loved one, a hard conversation with a loved one, asking for a raise, setting boundaries and guidelines, being able to voice what you're really thinking and what you're passionate about is super important. So I do primarily work with women who want to become speakers. They want to actually get on the stage and make more of an impact from the stage. But being able to speak confidently will take you through every every area of your life. No one says, geez, I wish I didn't learn how to speak commonly. It's something that you're always going to have there. And it's an incredible return on investment. So particularly for women who are business owners or who have big dreams and want to make change in the world, you might have all the ideas under the sun. But if you can't articulate them and communicate them You're not going to make the change that you want to make. So to me, it's a skill that everybody should learn for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Let's dive a little deeper into that and those business wins. What are some of the things that since working with you, your clients have gone on to be able to do?
SPEAKER_01:The first one that comes to mind, beautiful Jen. When I first met her about 18 months ago, she could barely introduce herself to a room full of 10 women. That was a big deal for her.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And a few months ago, she stood on the stage in front of 100 women and absolutely nailed it. She was phenomenal. She was incredible. And now for her, she's just realised that's opened a whole new door of opportunity. She is still in corporate. Most of the women I work with are entrepreneurial, but she works in corporate and she had this realisation of, oh my gosh, I could do workshops. I could do this kind of thing for women in corporate as well. That to me is huge. And I know her personally, to see her not be able to confidently say her name in front of a small room and then go on to absolutely command the stage. That was a huge win. So that comes to mind first. And I've had women who have always looked at requests for speakers and thought, gosh, I wish I could do that. I wish I could do that. And they've done She Speaks. They've been on the stage, and now when they see requests for speakers, they confidently put themselves forward. They are running their own events. Two of my women are running their own events now, sold-out events. Like, it's incredible. The sky really is the limit, really, when it comes to being able to say what you want to say, tell your story, command a group of people and inspire them to move. There's really nothing you can't do. Can everyone become a great presenter? 100%. It's like I said before, it's a skill. It's something that you have to learn. Some people will pick it up more quickly than others, but it's definitely something with the right structure and template of what you need to say and when you need to say it. And then of course, all of the physical attributes, your voice, your body language, all of that, it's all learnable. I don't know if that's a word, but I'm going to roll with it. It's all learnable.
SPEAKER_00:What about people who are naturally more introverted? Are there any specific tips you've got for them?
SPEAKER_01:Some of the best speakers, believe it or not, are introverts. So I really don't believe that you have to be an extrovert to be good on a stage. I think, again, it comes down to that skill and there will be extroverts will find part of the process easier than others and introverts may need a little more work on whether it be projection of their voice, their body language. What I know to be true in my experience anyway is that A lot of the women that I work with are a mix of all of that. So it's not like all the extroverts come to me. I have people who are introverts but want to become speakers. And with the same processes that I go through with everybody, it works for them as well. So I feel like, not to sound dismissive of it, but saying I'm not a good speaker because I'm an introvert is a bit of a cop-out. A little bit of a hard truth there. Some of the most... incredible speakers I've ever seen call themselves introverts.
SPEAKER_02:Like,
SPEAKER_01:okay, well, that has just bust that myth that you don't need to be. And this is the other thing too, to be a great speaker, whether that's on stage, whether that's on camera, you don't need to be loud. The loudest person doesn't always make the most impact. It's what you're saying. It's the intention and the energy behind what you're saying, backed up with great delivery, with a great story. I always say stories over statistics because we're wired for stories. We want to hear... We almost want to hear ourselves in what the speaker is saying. Like, there's parts of their story that we can go, you know what, I resonate with that. So if someone's up there, look, statistics are... needed in some talks, of course, and they're great to back up your credibility and your authority. But we want to lead with those stories because it makes everyone's walls come down. It's like, oh, they're human. They're not a superhuman up on stage that knows more than me, knows everything. They're just doing their thing. And I think that's another thing that stops a lot of people from getting up and speaking, whether, again, camera, stage, I don't know enough.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not an expert. I don't know everything. And I tell you what, that is something that kept me stuck for so long before I launched She Speaks because I thought I'm not like a professional speaking coach. I don't have a diploma in voice training. I haven't done a TED Talk, like all of these things. stopped almost, didn't stop me, but almost stopped me from launching this. And I see a lot of people saying no to opportunities on stage because they think they don't know enough. Whereas you don't need to know everything. You just need to know a little bit more than the people that you're speaking to. And that's it. Very simple way of looking at it,
SPEAKER_00:but that's it. Speaking of... sharing our truth. Can we dive a little bit more into your story and how did you overcome those limiting beliefs or those kind of fears around getting started?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I'll give you a really brief overview of my entrepreneurial journey. So I was a teacher by trade, school teacher. Hated it. Loved teaching, didn't like the school environment, the curriculum, the classroom politics, all the things. And I got out of that and I started my sleepwear label back in 2010. Absolutely no experience in fashion or business, but I had a desire to be the next Peter Alexander. That was my dream. So that got me going for a few years. I think I did that for about four or five years and then manifesting generator over here. So like I changed my mind. I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. Then I became a Pilates teacher and then I fell into the world of raw desserts. So that happened. I was experiencing eating disorders, disordered eating. And I tried all of the conventional things. Like I went to the psychologist, I did all the things and nothing was really resonating with me. And I mean, I'd gone from being obsessed with like winning modeling competitions and all of that sort of thing, eating well, broccoli, chicken, rice crackers during the week, starving myself basically during the week, and then I'd binge on the weekend. And like I would eat what a footballer could eat, like chips, ice cream, burgers, you name it, and then I'd make myself sick. And this was this cycle that was going on. And I remember one day I was surrounded by like lolly wrappers. I think I demolished like a whole box of chocolates. And I was like, I need help. This is not good. And I remember I rang the Butterfly Foundation and they were really helpful. And then they pointed me in the right direction of different professionals. But none of them really, it just didn't resonate with me. I remember one gave me this big stack of things to read and said like, go away and read that and come back. I was like, that's not what I need. I don't need practice reading. And a beautiful friend who's still a very good friend of mine, she lives in Florida now, Erin, and she was an intuitive eating coach. And I was like, what intuitive? No, no, no. I need someone to tell me what to eat because for so long, that's what I'd been doing. And she was like, no, no, no, no. We're going to get you in touch with your body to see what it feels like. And through that process, I stumbled across raw vegan desserts. Now, this is back when they weren't cool, right? This is when no one was really doing them. And I started experimenting in my kitchen. I started selling them to friends. I started putting them on Instagram. And that led to selling them to cafes and health food stores. And then someone said, why don't you do workshops? So I did workshops teaching people. I used to cart my Thermomix everywhere, all over Brisbane and the Gold Coast. And then... I was like, okay, this is getting a lot. I have to make samples for 80 to 90 people at a time. And a friend said, why don't you do a book? Why don't you write a cookbook? And then you can share your... recipes and message. And that's what I did. So in 2013, I published my first one, which was Eat Dessert for Breakfast. And then my follow-up in 2014 was Life's Too Short for Diets. So I dabbled in the whole book publishing. I self-published both of my books. I marketed all myself. So big learning curves. Then I started a podcast. I got into a wellness business. And then I kind of fell into... teaching women how to show up online. So on camera, on Instagram, marketing essentially, because I'd always done it myself. I was like, okay, I know a thing or two about this. So I fell into that and I did that for a few years. I was sort of group programs, coaches, all things. And then last year I was working with a coach and she said, and I just opened up a membership called Simply Selling. So how to sell without the ick. And she said, is this what you want to be doing? And straight away I was like, no. And when it came out of my mouth, I was like, Oh no, but I've just launched this membership. What do you mean no? And then she said, what do you want to be doing? I said, I want to teach people how to speak on a stage. I want to teach women how to become confident. And she's like, okay, let's go. Let's do that. And we did it off the bat. I think we wrote the program or I wrote the program. She helped through that process. And then I sat on it for like eight or nine months because the doubt and the comparison was huge. It was like... But you're not a speaker, Nicole. You're not a professional speaker. Even though I'd spoken on stages in front of hundreds of people, you're not a speaker. You haven't done a TED Talk. You don't have any, you're not qualified. You don't have a piece of paper that says you're able to teach someone how to speak confidently. And I kept looking at all these other speaking coaches with much bigger followings than I have and all the pieces of paper. And I just went, I can't do this. I can't do this. And I've, like, I've done so many different things. Books. Retreats. I used to run retreats with my best friend. There's another thing I forgot. The pajama label, all the things, nothing stopped me. Like I wasn't qualified for any of that. But for this, it was so, because I cared so much and I knew that this was the thing, that I was in all sorts with comparisonitis. And yeah, as I said, it took me about eight months. Even when I launched the first She Speaks podcast, I was still like, this is not going to work. This is not going to work. Part of me was like, this is really going to work. This is really going to work. But there was a part of me that was like, it's absolutely not going to work. You're a fraud. You're a failure. They're going to find out all the things. And it wasn't until I did the first She Speaks event, which was back in June, and it was amazing. It was a career highlight to date. Actually, every time I do an event, I go, and we've upped the career highlight. It was incredible to see those women who I knew were amazing petrified of getting up there, do the most amazing job. Like women would go, do you mean they're not professional speakers? What do you mean? They were amazing. And I thought, I may not have a piece of paper, but I've got the experience and I know what I'm doing. Even though it may not be qualified by a university or a diploma of something, I know what I'm doing. So that... having that evidence and being able to keep pushing through that, even like to show up and teach on these calls when there's a part of me going, you're a fraud, you're a fraud. This is not going to work. Like that was, that's a lot of, that's a lot of work. That was a lot. There was so many beliefs that I had to rewrite. My beautiful friend, Amy really helped me through that. Like we, we wrote down all of my beliefs. We burned them. Like I did all of that stuff. And then, What I found to be, in my experience, the most effective form of changing beliefs is writing down the ones that you do want, recording them in your own voice and listening to them first thing when you wake up and last thing. I did, like, I still do it now, but I think I probably did that for a good two to three months and still I didn't feel that it wasn't, things didn't feel like they'd changed that much. And then suddenly it was like that tipping point. I was like... hell yeah, I'm qualified to do this. I'm absolutely qualified. I'm the best person for this job. And now there's no doubt left. It's gone. That was a really long answer to your question. But yeah,
SPEAKER_00:that's how I'm sitting here today talking about She Speaks. I feel like so many people listening can probably relate to that journey, but maybe not all of them have been able to push past that journey. that huge mountain of
SPEAKER_01:resistance.
SPEAKER_00:So congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. It was
SPEAKER_01:a lot, but I'm so glad I did it. It's always worth it, right? When you push past that resistance, you never go, geez, I wish I didn't push past that resistance. You're always very grateful that you did. Yeah. In my experience anyway.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I'm sure looking from the outside, people probably think, oh, she's a natural. She's so confident. She's doing this, this and this. So I think it's really important to share the other side that. is coming up for all of us all the time. Yes. And what's that saying? Every level there's a new devil. New
SPEAKER_01:level, new devil. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think it would be a really beautiful gift right now if you could talk our listeners through a bit of a framework, if they have a presentation coming up either at work or a pitch or something like, is there a framework and guys get a pen for this because you're going to want to write it down that you can just talk us through of like, how would I structure a presentation?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So the first thing that I would say, going back to what I said before, stories over statistics. So your introduction is the most important because if you can't get them at the intro, they're going to switch off. So I'm here today to talk to you about X, Y, Z, or I've been in this space for this many years and I'm this, and it's not an opportunity to list your resume. Get up there and drop them in the middle of a story. It's Get them to see what you saw, feel what you felt, hear what you heard, and choose a story that obviously has a concept or a main message that aligns with what you want to say. I think a big mistake is people try to put too much into a talk. So you need to figure out, okay, if they could walk away with one thing, if they could turn around and tell the person at home, what did Nicole speak about? And they went, blah. just one thing and then work backwards from that. So opening up with a story that has some kind of relevance to what you're talking about. And then we do something called roadmapping. So we talk the audience through what they're going to learn today. So it might be in the next 30 minutes, however long it is, I'm going to walk you through my three-step process for writing an engaging talk. Number one's this, number two's this, number three this. So when they're listening to you, their brain's like, okay, cool, I know where you're up to. It's not like, what's the time? What's happening? Is lunch soon? They know, okay, she said three, she's up to one, now she's two, now she's three. So be really clear in what you're going to lead them through. And then... when you break that down in each of those, have something to back it up. So there's some kind of novelty for the brain. So it's not, even if, and this is really important, even if it's stuff they've heard before, you have to come up with a way that makes them care. So whether it be a new way of explaining it, a new, there might be a little gift that you can add or a little bit of audio or a great statistic. This is where statistics are helpful, right? You back up this, you back up what you're saying. Images are great. Don't do death by PowerPoint. If you're going to use visual presentations, it's not to repeat what you're saying. And it's less is more. What I see so often when I go to presentations, paragraphs and paragraphs on there. What happens when that is behind you? The audience is then trying to look at that and read that, which means they're not listening to you. So you need to be able to keep their attention. So if you put all this pointless information on a slide, they're not listening to you anymore. So keep it really simple. Slides are there to complement what you're doing, not replace what you're doing. So we want a new way of teaching things. And then if you keep at the front of your mind, what's that one thing they want to walk away with? Make sure you back that up at the end. If it's a presentation at work, obviously there's not really a call to action, right? There's not, so if you want to work with me or if you want more information, come see me at the end. That's not generally what's happening maybe in a corporate space. But if you've been asked to speak at an event where you are allowed to talk about your business, give them one thing. Say, follow me on Instagram. That's been one of my most effective, I guess you could say, actions is every time I'm in front of a few hundred people, I literally say, pull out your phones. And I put my Instagram tag up on the screen. Follow me on Instagram to make sure you stay up to date with everything that I'm doing. And it's an immediate response of a couple of hundred people following you that want to follow you. So Leave them with one action, whether it be follow you, email you, DM you, come and see you up the back, like whatever it is, don't overload your audience. Just think of that one, okay, what's this one next step that they can take with me? So that's a very loose and brief structure. The other thing that I would be saying is follow. Practice. And what I say, practicing doesn't just mean reading off a piece of paper or doing it in the car or the shower, which is helpful. You need to, I say, practice with purpose and practice under pressure. So what that means is stand up and deliver it in the way that you would on the day. Practice under pressure means press record on your phone. Do it in front of somebody because something happens. The stakes are a lot higher. When you're just practicing by yourself and When you quote unquote stuff up, which we all do, no one ever gets it word for word, don't even try to, you tend to say, oh shit, I'll start again. When you're doing it with the camera on or you're doing it in front of someone, you don't have that luxury. You can't say to yourself, oh, hang on, I'll start again because you can't do that on stage. So it forces you to keep going. And then the final thing I would say, and I did just touch on it then, is don't try to memorize it word for word. Learn it in sections. And if you're visual, which I really am, I love like an index card. And I lay it out all in front of me like, okay, this is my opening story bit. This is my roadmap. This is point one. This is point two. And I just have dot points on that. And I practice that. Sometimes you'll say something that's so profound, you'll come out with this sentence or a phrase that you're like, I need to put that down, write that down. But don't try to memorize it word for word because that That's when you get stuck. That's when you go, oh, hang on. I said that bit in front of that bit and now I don't know where I'm at. Whereas if you learn it in sort of dot points, it's going to be easier for you to remember and not get so caught up on the exact words.
SPEAKER_00:So we have the framework. We've prepped our presentation. We've been prepping the day of the presentation or the evening of the presentation. Yes. What are some pro tips around getting your mind and body ready?
SPEAKER_01:Don't practice anymore. On the day, if you keep practicing, particularly if you're walking up to the stage and you're saying it over and over to yourself, you're telling your brain that you don't know it. So we want to signal to our brain, we've got this. So on the day of a keynote or on the day of a presentation, I want you to make it as fun and enjoyable and relaxing as possible. Now, you might be thinking, oh, my God, what do you mean relaxing? But we need to get out of our heads and into our body. So breathing out. The quickest way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, so our rest and digest, is when you exhale longer than you inhale. So just an inhalation for four and an exhalation for six or eight, done five or six times, can be really effective for getting you out of your head and into your body. It's signaling to your body, I'm safe. And I like to actually couple that long exhalation with an audible sigh. So the, because that stimulates the vagus nerve and that also signals to your body, you're safe. It's okay. So in the leader, do what you would normally do. Have a beautiful breakfast, go for a walk, do your exercise, move your body, meditate, do the breath work. And We're really getting our body to take over from the head that may be going, you don't know this, you're going to stuff this up. Oh my God, who do you think you are getting up on that stage? We need to calm that person down. And we need, and you can, I mean, I talk to myself all the time, but even saying, it's okay, I know you're scared, but I've got this. Because a lot of the time, particularly if you've never done it before, if you don't have a lot of evidence, your brain is like, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. But by visualizing yourself doing it, you're giving your brain the evidence. So I'm a big visualization girl. I actually, for the She Speaks women, I create a visualization where I get them to see themselves up on stage and feel themselves in flow. And then the exhilaration they feel when they get off the stage and giving me a big hug and being like, oh my God, I did it. Like I go through the entire process. And when you do that, because your brain doesn't know the difference between real life and what's made up, you're starting to give it evidence. So that's something that I would really advise to do, not only just on the day, but throughout the lead up. Like really just give yourself those moments to close your eyes and see yourself up there doing a really good job. I think that's really helpful. But Other things, practical things, generally no alcohol, voice warm-ups. Voice warm-ups are really important. It doesn't have to be a lot with voice warm-ups. My sort of go-tos are humming. So humming your favourite song, making sure you keep your jaw really relaxed and you're not sort of– you're not like up there. And the lip trills are always really great. What is that? But making sure, again– actually, you'll be able to tell the difference. So if I'm doing it up high– It sounds like this. And everything kind of sounds tight. But if I leave my sort of jaw relaxed and a bit floppy, it's not like all tense. So you want to try and keep everything relaxed. So lip trills, humming your favourite song. A voice coach that I get to work with the women and myself as well, Rachel, she's beautiful. She's in Melbourne. She taught us the... So saying... You're like, what would you do that for? If something's yummy, right, you'd be like, mmm, mmm. But see how it's kind of creaky? Yeah, so it's like that is this beautiful little massage for your vocal cords. So I will often go around going, mmm, mmm, and I sound ridiculous. I know, I sound, I know. Voice warm-ups are not sexy. You sound like an idiot, but it's very important. So, yeah, my mmm, mmm, my lip trills, humming a song. Oh, the other thing, blowing into a glass of water with like only about this much water. So a quarter of an inch of water with a straw and just being like, ooh, like that. Again, it's like a beautiful, the reverberation back of the air back onto your vocal cords. It's like a beautiful little massage. So warmups, voice warmups, get out of your head as much as you can into your body. Don't drink alcohol. really cold water before you get on stage, like room temperature or warm water. Some people like honey and tea. Pineapple juice has a compound in it that's really great, particularly if you have a sore throat. It's like an anti-inflammatory property. There's so many little things and gosh, you could get a list of a hundred. But I think if you keep to a handful that feel good for you and the most important thing though, like you could do all the voice warmups in the world, but But if you haven't prepared and you didn't practice, voice warm-ups aren't going to help you that much. That's why preparation for talking, that's what my pet hate, I'm just going to wing it. I'm like, do not wing it. I feel like winging it is a disservice to your audience. It's a disservice to yourself. And, yeah, there are people that probably could. Like I could wing it probably, but I know I'd do a much better job if I didn't. So– I think preparation is key and that's such a cliche thing to say, but yeah, all the voice warmups and warm lemon tea in the world is not going to help you if you haven't prepared and practiced.
SPEAKER_00:Confidence. Seems like you've got a lot of it, but we talked earlier that that's that self-trust muscle that really takes time to build up. And if someone's going to be doing a presentation for the first time, what are some of the ways they can sort of We've talked about visualization, but build that trust muscle before they get on stage if it is the first time they're getting on stage. Visualization,
SPEAKER_01:as you said, definitely help them to do that. And know, I think, going into it, remembering that your audience actually wants to see you win. So a lot of the fear of public speaking comes from the fact that they're scared of judgment. But we need to remember when we go and watch somebody, we want them to be good, right? We don't go, geez, I hope this speaker's shit. Like nobody ever thinks that. We want them to be good. So I think you need to remember the audience wants to see you win. And sometimes showing that vulnerability is not a bad thing. And almost thanking your audience at the start for showing engagement and being there today, you can... say that this is my first presentation and I would absolutely love any feedback that you've got along the way to make this better. So you don't have to get up there and say, I'm so nervous. This is my first presentation because that doesn't actually instill a lot of confidence in your audience. So I would highly recommend not saying that. Framing it that way. It could be, this is my first presentation in this environment and I'd really love to make it as good as I can for you guys. So please let me know if there's anything at the end to make this better for you. So then you're coming from it for them rather than for you. It's for your audience because speaking is, if we get to the heart of it, it's about your audience. It's for your audience. So take the spotlight off yourself and ask yourself, what can I do for my audience? How can I make this the best presentation possible that I can right now for this audience? So that, I know, again, it sounds cliche, but a lot of it is mindset. It really is. It's going in there knowing that you don't have to be perfect for one, knowing that you don't need to know it all, and concentrating and making sure you just deliver on that one thing. What's that one thing that you want to be able to deliver on? and making sure, and of course, if you've prepped, you've got the framework and you've practiced under pressure and you've done all of that, you're going to walk in there okay. And the other thing, and this, you know what, this doesn't just go for presentations and being on stage. This is in everyday conversations, in podcasts, pausing. You don't have to talk or even though it sounds like I talk all the time. But you don't have to talk immediately after somebody asks you a question. You can take a moment to think about it. You can take a moment to reflect. You can even say, hang on just a moment while I gather my thoughts for that. And even if you're in the middle of a presentation, just a moment while I gather my thoughts for this won't be long. Rather than fumbling, making noises that are coming, I'm just sorry, I'm sorry. Stopping all of that and just pausing and knowing that silence is okay. Even in a conversation, like a normal conversation, it's okay. I think a lot of the times, and particularly I'm a fast talker, so I intentionally have to slow down. particularly in a everyday conversation, if I've got so much to say, I can sometimes not listen and just wait for my turn to speak, which is very different to listening. Waiting for a gap to say your piece is very different to listening. So I guess the power of the pause can be very, very powerful, whether it's stage, podcast, anywhere, knowing that you don't have to fill every single gap with words and silence is okay.
SPEAKER_00:What if your presentation is actually a disaster? So the tech doesn't work, people are walking out, like how do you bounce back from something? I
SPEAKER_01:have had something like this happen. I was on stage in front of nearly 300 people and it was a demonstration for a particular brand of cooking equipment and I knew that that it wasn't going to work with my raw desserts. I knew that it was going to get all stuck and it wouldn't work. And I told them this. I said, this is not going to work. And sure enough, putting all the ingredients in, press go, and it just sounded like it was dying. And I look out, there's 300 people there. I was like, I'm not going to say the name of it now because I could get in trouble, who knows. And I said, and that's why I don't own a... So I said to them, I cracked a joke. That's my go-to, I guess you could say. And then I said, but if this does happen to you, and then I just started quite animatedly trying to pull the nuts and the dates and everything out of the bottom. And, yeah, I died in that moment. There was no coming back from that. And... I just kept going. What I didn't do is I didn't ignore what happened. So if I would have tried to pretend it was working, that would have been worse. So if your tech fails, and believe me, it will, there will be a time where your carefully constructed canvas slides will not appear on the screen behind you. you need to keep going anyway. You can't fumble and go, oh, where's the tech guy? Can someone, you just have to go, all right, guys, well, I guess I'm not doing the slides today. Or you might have your computer in front of you and you could be going, oh my gosh, I've spent so much time on these slides. Look, you're missing out on these, but I'm just going to give them to you anyway. So you have to acknowledge if something, I don't even want to say bad because it's just unforeseen, unexpected. Let's just say that. If that happens, don't ignore it. Acknowledge it and then do your best with where you're at. If people are walking out, I know, or if you see people on their phones, the first thing our brain wants to go to is you're boring, they hate you. But what if that guy that just walked out got an urgent message from his kid's school and he needed to go? What if the people looking at their phones are actually busy looking you up because they love what you're saying and they're trying to follow you on social media? Now, I know a little bit of a faux pas being on phones when someone is talking. I get it. But if your brain automatically goes to the worst possible scenario, which is you suck and you're never going to be asked again, it's going to be really hard for you to keep going. Whereas if you walk into it going, like I've been in a presentation before where I've got that, you need to come home now. It did not mean I really didn't want to go. The speaker was incredible. I didn't want to go. But life happens. So again, mindset. Up there thinking, well, they've got something that I don't know anything about. It has nothing to do with me. It's got nothing to do with me. So I think they're in two circumstances. If tech fails, which it will, prepare for it. Don't ignore it. Acknowledge it and then do the best you can. If the power goes out or something, you're probably all going to have to leave the room. There's nothing you can do about that. But if the slides don't work, if the microphone isn't working, things like, hey guys, my mic isn't working. I'm just going to take a moment and chat to the AV guys. Don't feel like you have to skim over it and make it perfect. Do what you can. I hope that's helpful.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's really helpful. And I know that a lot of presentations these days are actually also delivered on Zoom, for example. And I've had this, I've been paid to host workshops on Zoom and you get on there and everyone's got their cameras off or you get on there and your slides don't show and you just have to own it and move forward. And I think it's that reframe of like, everyone's got their cameras off, but maybe they're actively taking notes the entire time. So show up as if you're about to change their life. And you might.
SPEAKER_01:That's really good. That's really good advice. It's like show up like they care. And like I said before, show up because they want you to be good. You're going to make a difference if you show up and with that mindset of I'm here to serve. I'm here to serve. This is not about me and my perfect slides and my perfectly rehearsed talk. This is about me making real change for the people in front of me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, beautiful. If we were having this chat in five years' time... Ooh, I love questions like this. What would you be telling me has happened within those five years?
SPEAKER_01:Maybe I would be talking to you from LA or London, saying we've set up She Speaks over here. It's now international, which is... Most definitely going to happen within, if not sooner, five years. I'm actually expanding nationally already next year. So this year, actually, this podcast is coming out. Sorry, I've got my years mixed up. This year, we're already expanding because I obviously, and this is something that all business owners will need to learn at some point, you can't do it all. You can't do it all and you need to delegate. So I have decided that the women that have come through She Speaks. And it's only available to women who've done the She Speaks Academy program. If they live in areas far away from me, so basically not on the Gold Coaster in Brisbane, then they can be the mentors for an independently organized She Speaks in their area. So a little bit like the TEDx model. So TEDx is independently organized of TED. So I still do the trainings. They'll come on to my Zoom calls, but those girls in those areas will be their mentors. So they don't get, so the girls in the regional areas don't get my one-on-one mentorship they get the group mentoring, but the girls that have been through my program who have done the experience. And this was so important to me because I've already had a lot of people, speaking of internationally, I had a lady from Ontario in Canada reach out and go, I want to do this in Canada. I said, well, you've got to come to Australia and do She Speaks First because I think it's really important that they've been through that experience. So these ladies will almost be able to, not almost, they will be able to offer something that I can't. Because going through She Speaks as a newbie speaker is not something that I have actually done. So I think it's going to be really powerful. And that's going to be kicking off in Tasmania and New South Wales, which is exciting. So then in a few years time, I'll be saying we're in LA, we're in London, we're in Europe, we're doing all the things.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I am so excited. And if someone's listening and thinking, hey, I want to expand my world. I want to come and be part of She Speaks and then I want to do it in my own town, city, whatever it is. How do they find you online? So I
SPEAKER_01:hang out most on Instagram. So Nicole Joy Full Stop Official, I'm sure we'll put all this in the show notes. I love to hang out on Instagram. I really love it. I've tried LinkedIn and I know that I need to be more consistent on LinkedIn, but I just love Instagram. I've got such a beautiful community on Instagram and then you'll see... all of the links, all of the things. We're actually going to be going to Melbourne later on this year. So I will be running that in Melbourne. So it won't be an independently organised one. And because the Brisbane one in a few months is already full, we are going to be running it in Melbourne. I've already had women in Queensland go, I will fly to Melbourne to do it because I don't want to miss out. So if it is something that you want to do, know that the She Speaks cohorts fill really quickly, which is very exciting.
SPEAKER_00:So good. And And is there something that we haven't had a chance to speak about today that you think or you wish more people knew?
SPEAKER_01:I would love to leave your listeners with this one quote. And I swear I think I'm going to turn this into a book one day. And that is, confident women don't know more. Confident women move more. I think we can get so stuck. And we've touched on this, right? You have to know it all. You need to be the most qualified. You need to have the most experience. But really, when you see women doing bold things and going after the things that they want to go after, it's not because they know it all. It's because they move and they figure it out along the way. And they move without knowing how it's going to turn out. They move with no guarantees. And I think when we can remember that, because I think it's very easy to look at someone traditionally doing things that you admire and, oh, she must have it all sorted. She must know exactly what she's doing, be confident all the time, have no self-doubt. But the thing is, as a confident woman, I have doubt. I don't know how it's going to turn out. I procrastinate. I can compare myself to other women, but I choose to move anyway. I think that's something really important.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, goosebumps. And the ripple effects that that has to your friendship circle, your community and the world is
SPEAKER_01:huge. Absolutely. You never know how your action affects someone else. Just by showing up as you, taking one step, two step, three step, four steps towards that thing that you want, it inspires other women to do the same. Not just women, but since my world and your world a lot is with women, never underestimate how much impact you can have just by taking action.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm excited to read your book when you turn that
SPEAKER_01:into a book. It's totally turning into a
SPEAKER_00:book. But in the meantime, is there another book that you think everyone should have on their shelf or read at some point in their life?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I mulled over this so long because there's quite a few. But I don't think I can answer this question without talking about this one experience and this one book. It's Anita Moorjani's book called Dying to Be Me. And I actually read it in the throes of trying to have a baby. And it was a five-year journey for us to have my little girl, Lucia. And this book completely changed my outlook on it. So I I had been told that I had two options, adoption or IVF. And my head was like, no, no, no, this is not how it's supposed to work. We're a healthy couple. We're doing all the things right. I just want to be able to have a baby naturally. And I built up in my head that IVF was going to be this big, awful, scary thing. And I was going to have all these symptoms and... It was going to be awful. Basically, in my head, I was like, it's going to be terrible. And I heard all the horror stories and I was like, it's going to be terrible. And I remember reading in this book, so to paraphrase, she had stage four cancer, had tumors the size of lemons throughout her whole body, literally on her deathbed, had a near-death experience, came back, healed herself completely of cancer within, I think it was five or six weeks. It's incredible. And there's this part in the book where she talks about watching the nurses administer the chemotherapy drugs and they're all in their scrubs because obviously it's dangerous. And there was a big skull saying poison on the drip bag. And she remembers reflecting on that going, huh. That's interesting. If I would have seen this before my near-death experience and before my, I guess, appreciation and understanding of how the universe works, I would have freaked out about the fact that they're putting poison into my veins and the fear of them putting the poison into my veins would do far more harm than the cancer would. And I read that part and I went, well, if she can change her mind about chemotherapy drugs, I sure as hell can change my mind about IVF. And so I made up my mind that the experience of IVF was going to be beautiful. I mean, every morning I would call them my baby-making drugs and I'd put my diffuser on and I'd be like, okay, babe, let's yell out to my husband, let's make a baby. And I'd sit there and I'd inject myself and I didn't get any of the symptoms. I sailed through it. And I know that that experience is not the same for everybody. And we were pregnant in the first round and But I really do believe in the power of the mind there. I mean, if somebody can have that experience with stage four cancer, literally about to die, then I think we, and we do, we underestimate the power of our brain. And so I made a decision that it was going to be a very different experience to the one that I thought it was going to be, and it was. So that book, I think, opens us up to the power of our mind, our bodies, the universe, how it all works. I think it's a really beautiful book. No, it's not a business book. I thought I was going to say something about a business book, but that book has definitely had the most impact on me.
SPEAKER_00:Amazing. And I can see that message kind of ripple across everything you do of the mindset shift of... For your clients, I don't have to do a speech. I get to do a speech. This is allowed to be fun. This doesn't have to be terrifying. And the words we use and the mindset and the way we show up in the world.
SPEAKER_01:Again, I know it sounds cliche when you hear mindset is everything. But when you understand that it actually is, that it governs everything, you can command the cells in your body. When you really get that, I think... It's liberating. It's exciting. You think, oh my gosh, like there literally is nothing that I can't do. And that's exciting when you make that decision. Is it going to always be easy?
UNKNOWN:No.
SPEAKER_01:But if that's at the forefront, if you're like, I can do this and I will move even when I don't feel confident, I'll move even when I don't know the answers and I'll figure it out along the way, life really does become wonderful.
SPEAKER_00:We'll leave it on that note. Life does become wonderful. Life is wonderful and it's full of magic. Nicole, thank you so much. This has been a really fun chat. Thank you for having me. Pleasure. And we'll link to your Instagram, all the good stuff in the show notes so people can find out where to follow you and hopefully join the She Speaks community. Yes, I would love them to. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.