The Moment a British Coach Told Me I Was Doing It Wrong #realtalk #publicspeaking #mindset

2 Jun 2024 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:54

In this personal anecdote, Robin recounts a pivotal moment during a 40‑minute keynote when an older British mentor, who had previously coached him on public speaking, interrupted his talk. The mentor pulled Robin aside and bluntly told him he was making the presentation about himself. He pointed out Robin’s nervous habits—shallow breathing, fidgeting, stumbling over words—and reminded him to take a deep breath and trust that the 80‑person audience was on his side. The story highlights the impact of direct, experienced feedback on a speaker’s mindset and delivery, emphasizing the importance of audience trust and self‑awareness in public speaking.

Chapters

but he was a proper old school, like, British gentleman in a lot of respects. And I remember he was watching me talk at an event which I was hosting, and partway through he called me out, and I'm in the middle of, like, doing my thing, like a 40-minute keynote. In front of people? In front of people. He just, he stood up, he casually just walked over whilst I'm speaking. I'm sort of, what's going on here then? And he said, Robin, come over. 'Cause we'd done a bit of, he'd done a bit of mentoring with me on the speaking side of things. Great guy, I just trusted him, so I knew when he stood up There was gravitas. He had something to say. So he pulled me to one side and he said, Robin, he said, you're making this all about you. And I was like, oh, sorry, what do you mean? He said, I can see you're not breathing, you're nervous. I can see you fidgeting. You're not really, you're stumbling over your words. You've been going now for like 15 minutes. He said, just take a deep breath. Remember that all of these people in this audience, and there's about 80 people there, they've got your back. They trust you.