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22Jul

Key Piece of Speaking Advice: Be Yourself but Elevated

I had a photo shoot yesterday – look out for new images soon – and one part of the day's events was running a small group Q&A session while I was snapped “in action”. One client in the group asked me: “Sarah, if there’s one piece of advice you’d give to people wanting to improve their speaking skills, what would it be?” My answer: “Be yourself, but elevated.” “Being ourselves” is an ideal foundation - but is often simply not enough when we're speaking in front of a group. We need to elevate our natural state. Particularly when we're presenting virtually, where our persona...

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22Apr

Beware Personalising your Messaging At the Wrong Times

Beware personalising your messaging at the wrong times. Two examples from the current Australian Federal election campaign. When we communicate, connecting with our audience by personalising our messaging and bringing it back to us is - at times - a very good idea. But to be persuasive and to influence that audience, it has to be carefully managed: at the right time and in the right context. Watching the federal election campaign playing out at the moment I’m always fascinated to see how the candidates communicate. And I’m going to give you two examples where I don’t think either the Prime Minister or opposition leader have got...

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09Apr

Good Public Speaking – Let Your Points Land

Our ideas are only as good as our audience's ability to consume and digest them. Whether that audience is 1 or 10,000. Let that really sink in for a moment. If that statement is true - and I believe it is - then our ability to communicate so that the audience hears us and "gets it" is even more important than we might realise. Great communication is about creating shared understanding. Would you agree? Good Public Speaking - Let your Points Land I often say that good public speaking – for example - is not about us, it's about our audience. And that our delivery...

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19Mar

Is Self-Belief Essential At The Start?

When I decided to start my own business in 2009 I didn’t have any real belief that it would succeed. I started anyway, basically because I didn’t want to look back in 30 years and regret never having a go. So here’s my premise: you don’t have to believe in yourself when you start something new. Is Self-belief Essential at the Start? You just have to take action, and self-belief will follow. I often talk to my clients too about holding belief for them until they’ve built some for themselves. It's perfectly possible to outsource your belief at the start...and often a very good...

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29Oct

Keep To Time in your Presentation

As a presenter, how do you keep to time in your presentation? In a recent high-level meeting of the UN about the global nuclear threat - in which Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the world lives “in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe” - a newspaper report in the Age Melbourne (Oct. 4th 2020) tells us: “103 of the 193 UN member nations were scheduled to speak for two minutes but many spoke longer, meaning only 79 delivered addresses.” Keep to Time in your Presentation This is a common issue for speakers - and in going over time, other speakers may be pushed off the...

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