Chats about public speaking, coaching, presenting online vs in-person, event design and delegate experience development etc.—all the stuff I’ve been doing these past few years condensed into 30mins.
Dan produces a very impressive podcast with an eyebrow-raising amount of featured talent (like Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, Arianna Huffington etc.). Was lucky enough to spend some time rapping about what I’ve been up to in the past few years and hope you enjoy!
lightyear.fm show how radio broadcasts leave Earth at the speed of light. Scroll away from Earth and hear how far the biggest hits of the past have travelled. The farther away you get, the longer the waves take to travel there—and the older the music you’ll hear.
Who’s around in February 2023 and wants some professional development for public speaking?
At the end of the month I’ll be back in the valleys spending time with my immediate family again plus old friends. Will then be delivering more of my masterclasses for some clients and then be off to mainland Europe for more exploration.
I have the following dates available:
South Wales: Friday 3rd Feb
London: Mon 6th Feb (afternoon) + Tue 7th Feb (morning)
Dublin: Friday 10th Feb
Munich: 16&17th Feb
Berlin: 21st Feb
Here is the blurb for my ‘Purposeful Storytelling’ beginners masterclass (there’s also an advanced one as well if you need it):
Public speaking is a skill set which can be nurtured and developed. When combined with a range of storytelling techniques it provides a powerful strategy which is guaranteed to have a positive impact on achieving communication which resonates. This half-day OR full-day session, for up to 12 leaders, will cover: – Why nerves are your best friend – What personal qualities to amplify – Where TED/TEDx gets it right / wrong – Which body language techniques resonate – How to engage the audience from passive listeners to active participants
The above can be delivered also as a stand alone talk of about 75mins (which includes Q&A) and there’s no limits on attendee numbers for that. Great for a ‘lunch & learn’ session with the teams to kick off a year of professional development. Happy to also explore some 1-2-1’s as well on crafting great presentations plus delivering them with style.
If you haven’t seen my in action before check out the recent TEDx talk which went live last month (December 2022):
A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
Nineteen minutes of pure improvisation between beatboxer/looper/producer Beardyman and the freestyle rapper Harry Mack. With random words from the audience as a starting point in which to weave and overlay off-the-cuff stories with impressive lyrical and musical aplomb.
Revealing the development and process behind the thinking, testing and final solution of showing a coding workflow. What is revealed is the depth of thinking behind the production side of presenting technical aspects of computer work whilst retaining the human element of guidance. A job well done Outlier.
Wonderfully spoken, the enticing letters between literary lovers of ilk given voice by tremendous beings in this Letters Live piece. Steamy and erotic. Recitals are hard to do as the tread the line between verbatim reading out loud and nuanced emotive expression which is needed to bring the writers intentions alive. A perfect example of the latter in play here.
All offered up to inspire, teach and make you smile / think.
What a joy to be invited by Paul Teasdale (ex-Operational Performance Specialist for racing team McLaren and now Leadership Performance Coach) to participate in his great podcast he has going:
This podcast focuses on the individuals who have chosen a career path of helping others perform, in whatever guise that takes. Hear from coaches, trainers, teachers and lots of others about what it takes to perform in the industry of helping others.
In this 45minute chat I get into the following:
potted career history
new vs social media
relationship with failure
designing TEDx experiences
details on what I do now
presenting online skills
who I want to work with
Hope you enjoy and if you do, check out more podcasts and subscribe at Helping People Perform, thank Paul.
A hearty year coming out of 2020/2021 even though COVID devastated my event activity income stream. So very grateful for the variety of clients which contracted me to collaborate this year.
I crunched the numbers on how many gigs fell into which category (‘speaking’ includes talks as well as my ‘purposeful storytelling’ beginners and advanced full-and-half-day masterclasses for leadership groups) and here’s the results:
Also did the same for how much income each category pulled in as well:
So speaking is coming out as the top earner and as promised last year my in-person MCing is finally closed out as a service I offer.
Here’s what some of the clients said about what I delivered for them:
“DK delivered a brilliant session for my team, giving us all accessible, understandable and effective advice on how to present engagingly. The training worked for those with extensive presenting experience as well as those with little exposure to public speaking. It was also very practical and encouraged us to embed our learning by doing. Highly recommended!” Emma McLean, Engagement Lead, Engagement Lead, Accenture The Dock (Dublin)
“Engaging, smooth and professional. DK delivered his ‘Presenting Engagingly Online’ session to some of the sport sector in Wales. He keeps you locked in with his presentation, exhibiting exactly what he’s preaching with all the best tips and tricks for online delivery in the age of working from home. A top man who I highly recommend. Diolch, DK!” Matthew Davies, Digital Marketing Lead, Sport Wales
“I cannot recommend DK highly enough – we just had our second very well attended event with him “Presenting Engagingly Online”, which has received fantastic feedback from all the participants. After the first event on “presenting with purpose” with DK last year, our whole team gained a new level of confidence and know how, and it was so popular we just had to offer another session with DK. From the perspective of events organisation, the whole thing couldn’t have been easier – Having all the content and information provided in advance, easy set up made our jobs so much easier.” Julia Hahn, Wellington Branch Manager, German New Zealand Chambers of Commerce
Developed from an offer I had been delivering from the previous year as so many clients transitioned to the online medium to speak at conferences globally and I noticed nearly everyone do it so badly.
I had two other ideas to add to the offers which I still might do but for now, if you’re still sharing your screen and reading from a script to present online, first of all, don’t, it’s so bad for the folks watching, and secondly take my course and you will never present that way again plus engage with the participants in ways which excite and ignite emotional reactions.
CURATED / CREATED
As evident in the #47, #46, #45, #44, #43, #42, #41, #40, #39, #38, #37 digital breadcrumbs offerings—the good stuff I tweet collected into cohesive and more snackable monthly blog posts—my curiosity is still raging.
Had also a strong offering of blog posts this year also which included:
I also started a new series ‘for those who want to tell better stories: few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits’:
On a more human scale, I continue to gather humans in conversations via Creative Welly, which is now up to 39 episodes—read the recent blog post benchmark review—it offers fuel for my spirit and stretches my cognition into new realms whilst satisfying my desire to learn in analogue form.
TEDXNELSON
I did a TEDx talk. A distillation of my 16 years as a paid speaker, 10 years as a facilitator through the TEDx licenses I held and the past 6 years paying my rent as a bona fide speaker coach. I’m now trying to write a companion guide based on this talk to publish early next year.
Till then, if you got an important presentation or pitch coming up and struggling to prepare, this will help (or your money back) and please share on if you find it of use.
It received over 10,000 views in just under a week of going live!
CREATIVE LEADERSHIP NZ
My little creativity conference for leaders never made a return after COVID (did mention it last year as a potential project to reignite). Am thinking someone needs to take it on if there’s someone who wants to…
LESSONS LEARNED
…but what we make.
Or more eloquently put: Amor Fati / the love of ones fate.
Especially if framed through a proactive lens of defining ones path and embracing the journey of discovery through intention.
Half the battle here is knowing thyself so recently invested in a couple of coaching sessions and spent time talking to wiser souls than I, to uncover the characteristics which I can’t see of myself (thanks Shazia, Neil, Tim, Mary)—what’s interesting is that they all came to similar conclusions of where I should be devoting my time.
This was further reinforced via the CliftonStrengths Assessment (thank you Antonia) which really helped to both define and validate the elements to amplify along with giving me the language in which to craft a path forward. These are my top 5 strengths from the assessment:
On a more personal level I keep coming back to: Can I choose gratitude in this moment? Can’t remember where I came across someone saying it although they had ‘happiness’ rather than gratitude in their question. When asked it activates a depth of connection with the world which I haven’t felt for a very long time.
2023 STRATEGY
Simply, pages are being turned.
New unexplored paths are being pursued with hope and vigour.
For now I will continue to offer my speaker coaching and creative producing services, however, will start to transition with a more calculated strategy for my future so watch this space.
So, how was your year, what are you feeling grateful for and what do you have lined up for your fate in 2023?
78 humans, 39 episodes, over 18 months, one idea to have ‘courageous conversations with bold humans.’
It has been a pure joy to sit down with such a diverse range of leaders. Learning from such talent in such an unencumbered way, celebrating through storytelling their current position in life whilst evolving ideas through simple conversation. Nothing can replace this purely analogue process of interaction for me.
What you might not know is that we record three episodes back-to-back in one day which shocks people but actually it’s so energising whilst I’m in it.
Was validating earlier this year to receive a sponsored opportunity to apply for a Webby Award, basically like the Oscars for the web although it’s pretty pricey to apply. Didn’t win but was lovely to have the opportunity to put the little project forward for it and very nice of the award body to invite us to for free under one category (have a personal gripe about awards you have to pay for although as it was for free thought there was nothing to lose until I then got spammed like hell from their parent company with snail mail (seriously) for other online awards, sighs).
Creative Welly is still a self-funded and voluntary-produced endeavour, in association with video extraordinaire Jono Tucker from Empire Films (special thanks to David from Flashdog Studio for allowing us to utilise the space at cost), and there’s now approximately 65 hours worth of unique video content exploring the creative talent in my network.
And all those episodes are out there as audio as well, uploaded to anchor.fm (which is owned by Spotify) where recently they told us we’re in the top 4% of content creators:
I’d suggest you go subscribe via the site to the video version, as I’ve discussed before, it’s so so unique because it’s specifically designed to create intimacy for the viewer in a never seen before format. If audio is your jam though here’s the subscription options.
So thank to all of the participants up until now. For many it’s been a big deal to step into the public arena in this way and am always enamoured by their bravery.
Am already looking to book in January 2023 recordings and continue on this journey as still got a juicy list of humans to get through. Until then, here’s the bumper list for you to work through for the silly season:
Got an important presentation or pitch coming up and struggling to prepare? This will help (or your money back): exploring the three elements which make up a great talk plus a Jedi-mind trick which will reframe those debilitating nerves once and for all.
What a joy to be invited to give a TEDx talk last month in Whakatū Nelson, at their first ever in-person event.
After nearly a decade of developing and delivering the TEDx offerings for Te Whanganui-o-Tara Wellington, was an honour to be stepping on that red rug as just a speaker to share my ‘idea worth spreading.’
As discussed in the talk, scripts are rubbish, and just to prove here’s mine which I prepared my talk from after developing different options via the post-it note medium (if you’re speaking from lived experience this is all you need):
Thanks to all the good people behind the scenes at TEDxNelson for the opportunity to share my story/ies plus the attendees and other speakers for making it a great day.
BUY NOW Speaking With Purpose: A guide to delivering impressive presentations!
For only $10NZD this bundle deal featured an ebook with a juicy 37 chapters, nearly 14,000 words across 89 pages plus a 1hour34mins audiobook version (read by me).
The livestream of The Pitch Drop experiment, the longest running lab experiment (established in 1927 to demonstrate how tar is the most viscous liquid, there’s been 9 drops have fallen in 95 years).
Whilst it still breathes, check out social.perma.cc which allows you to capture a thread from Twitter and archive it in sealed PDFs to attest to legitimacy.
A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
FRAGMENTS illustrates superbly how to report back on a research project. My first career was in local government and I remember taking part in ‘community consultations’ which we’d then had to synthesis into written reports for committee meetings. Here’s an example of how to do it properly. Led by ff.studio and Peopletoo, in collaboration with Essex County Council (ECC), plus funded by the DfE.
This is what happens when you ask a Welsh actor of pedigree to improvise what he would say to a Welsh football side ahead of the World Cup to inspire them. Not just does this but so full of ‘hwyl’ (a Welsh word for heart, effort and the life spirit). Read about the backstory here.
