Category Archives: public speaking

Finding my calling

conference speaker AustraliaIt may seem a little counter-intuitive, but I think I’ve accidentally stumbled across something I’m actually kind of good at. No, I know what you’re probably thinking. How on earth is that counter-intuitive? It seems like something completely normal, sort of expected on your coming of age journey, and actually, let’s be totally honest here, pretty lucky. All of those things are true, I know I ton of people my age who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing and where they’re going in life, and so to find a bit of direction is awesome, it’s just the direction that I’ve found that’s a little strange.

I’ve come to realise that I’m actually kind of fantastic at public speaking. I know. Weird, right? Really, I should have come to this conclusion a lot earlier, but the fact is that at high school, it’s kind of cool to hate public speaking. It’s the norm, and a lot of my high school experience was spent just trying to fit in. So the fact that I wasn’t half bad at giving speeches and such was never something I never really wanted to admit to myself. Now, though, things are different. I’ve realised that this is something I would actually really like to do, to be a conference speaker all around Australia, but the truth is I have absolutely no idea how to even start down that path. It’s a bit of a left-of-field profession, how do you even get into a business like that?

At the same time, I have a sneaking suspicion that no one is going to take advice from a key note speaker who has basically no experience. I mean, the first thing I watch out for when I’m listening to a speech is what kind of credentials the person talking has. In that regard, ‘straight out of uni’ doesn’t sound very impressive. So I have to work out a bit more of a plan. The problem isn’t, I haven’t got a clue where to start.