The Speeeeeeeeeeeech!

Putting my best foot forward :)

Well. The Speech. Some of you may have been reading the lead up to the event with these posts (feel free to read for the first time or for a refresh!):

23rd January 2011 - Post
8th February 2011 - Post
15th February 2011 - Post

The day of The Speech started off extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeemly early. Bosslady was picking me up from my house at 5.50am (and I hadn't fully packed the night or days before because we had our massive launch event on the night before and I was up practicing the speech I hadn't looked at since the Toastmasters practice run) so we could drive to Canberra for a 9.15am arrival.

It was quite a fun drive down since we were both trying to practice and drive and give pointers and discuss what to expect (and the nerves were slowly building in me...). Bosslady has done a few talks, but this was my first one in front of a 'crowd' of people that I didn't know.

We arrived in Canberra with what we thought was plenty of time to spare. Until we hit Canberra morning peak hour traffic. So we ended up actually arriving at 9.45am for a 10am start to the International Women's Day talk that we were the main event for.

Then technology didn't work as well as we thought it would. Typical!

But the people that greeted us were wonderful. Warm, friendly and engaging. Women started coming into the room and filling out the seats and it was great to see that it was a pretty good turn out.

Very soon it was Bosslady's time to be introduced. She did fabulously and I almost (almost) forgot that I was up next. The audience seemed really connected with what she was speaking about and there was a great Q&A session.

All of a sudden it was my turn. I admit I had a bit of a shaky start by going blank for the longest 3 seconds I'd experienced in a long time. I felt my voice was really rattling when I actually started speaking, but then I broke the ice by speaking from the heart - that I was really nervous because it was my first time speaking in front of an audience but that I hoped that they would bear with me. And I managed to get into the swing of it and adapt the prepared speed to the room and the timing.

And it went great (at least for a first timer!). There was eye contact and nodding from some individuals in the audience. I felt like I was speaking and they were actually listening (yippeee!). I got a nice round of applause and Bosslady was happy too.

Overall it was a great experience and I would really love to be up in that sort of space again. I think I could fall in love with speaking. So watch out, I may be shouting at you from a podium one of these days...

Make it as you wish SSSs!
Arienne xo