Standing on the TEDx Red Dot was a moment!

When I stood on the red dot, head bowed, I wasn’t just preparing to speak. 

 I was making space within me.

My hairdresser once told me: “Decrease everything in you so you can make space for the Spirit.”

My performance coach, Chrissy Caine, said: “Look down. Soak it all in before you begin.”

And so I did.

I practised my TEDx talk with concierges in hotels, people on the street, neighbours in my building, anyone who would listen.

Not just to rehearse, but to listen to the listening.
To hear what landed.

To understand not what I said, but what they received.

Because that’s what speaking really is.
It’s not about you.
It’s about them.
It’s about service.
It’s about emptying yourself so you can be filled with what the audience needs.

I still remember being 14 when my French teacher, Mr Squires, told me:
“You’ll get nowhere if all you do is talk all day.”

And yet, talking all day has been my bread and butter ever since a knee injury ended my dancing career.
What once sounded like criticism became prophecy.

It makes me smile now.
Because here I am, on the TEDx stage grateful and honoured to share my talk TEDx Milton Keynes Youth 

It almost didn’t happen.

Earlier this year, I applied to TEDx Cranfield and wasn’t picked. I told my executive coach, Graham Clark, how disappointed I was.

He said something I’ll never forget..
“You’ll probably get to do a TED talk when you know what you want to talk about.”

He was right.
Back then, I had plenty to say, but nothing distilled into the essence of who I am and what I stand for.

It wasn’t until my master’s Cranfield School of Management  mapping my entrepreneurial path that I asked myself…

What is my unique value proposition?

For years, people have called me the Confidence Queen.
But why?
Where does my confidence really come from?

As I searched, I realised: it comes from radical honesty.

From what I call the three mirrors..

The first mirror is the one we look into ourselves, self-awareness.

The second mirror is the one we show to others, by being honest about who we are.

The third mirror is the one we allow others to hold up, when we receive their truth about us.

That became my talk.
My framework.
My message.

And Graham was right.
You get to do a TED talk when you have something real to say.

Sometimes it’s not about forcing the moment.
It’s about trusting the timing.