10 minutes to Fill

You’re at a meeting in which your work is about to be shown to the entire office when you learn that the start will be delayed and you are asked to give an impromptu presentation to stall for time. What do you do?

If you are my wife, whose staging work was to be shown via a video the real estate office made to showcase their promotion that awarded lucky homeowners free staging of a room of their choice, you gulp and reply “sure”. She then proceeded to tell the audience about how the contest worked, how she and her team approached the staging, and how happy the homeowner was with the results. Her brief talk was very well received and provided good information to the group that they otherwise may not have received.

While my wife is a fantastic speaker who always receives positive feedback on her presentations, she, like many people is a VERY reluctant public speaker*. The toughest part is to get started. Once into the presentation, nerves calm and the words flow, often with a lot of humor included to keep things light – and to relieve a bit of the speaker’s stress. She is adept at using humor to make her points and that also puts the audience at ease and helps them to remember what they’ve heard. Upon completion she is always surprised by the positive feedback (I am not), and glad that she did it.

This post, while using my wife’s experience as an example, is about stepping out of your comfort zone, expanding your range, and feeling the energy of accomplishment. We all have our internal boundaries that dictate what we are comfortable with and that can be a good thing to keep us out of trouble, but it also can limit us. Only by stepping out of that comfort zone can we learn and grow. The cool part is that even taking small steps will expand what you are comfortable with. You can move at your own pace and when you do, I guarantee you will amaze yourself with what you can accomplish and how far out you can move the boundaries that define your growing comfort zone.

Here’s the link to the video mentioned above so you can see the process and finished product: https://youtu.be/cYPjc4NgM34

*Recent surveys show that public speaking is still the number one fear for adults.

If you are interested in getting more comfortable at speaking and improving your presentation skills, I suggest Toastmasters. As a founding member and past president of a chapter at my last employer I can attest to the program’s impact. https://www.toastmasters.org/

www.RetiredandInspiredat55.com 5-16-2022