What I learned today…. In conversation with Michelle Bowden

My guest today, on Real Women Real Success was Michelle Bowden, the author of DON’T PICTURE ME NAKED – how to present your ideas and influence people using techniques that actually work and one of the most vibrant and energetic people I know.

You can listen to the show here or subscribe to the podcast in the iTunes store

Here are some highlights from our conversation that rang particularly true for me:

• Success is hard work – and it’s not instant! *
• Believe you are a lucky person and luck will come your way
• Exist in a state of gratitude – always recognise how fortunate you are and how much you really have
• There are always going to be compromises and you won’t always enjoy them, but you need to be present to what you are doing right now
• Outsource and get as much support into your life as possible so you can spend your time doing the things you love

Michelle also shared two top tips for beating your nerves when presenting to an audience:

1. Remember it’s about them, not you. Your audience isn’t there to criticise you, they’re there to learn from you, so stop worrying about you and focus your energy on how you can be of service to them
2. Nervousness and excitement create the same physical experience within the body, you just change the language you use to articulate these experiences depending on your circumstances. Next time you think you feel nervous about speaking in public, reframe this experience by changing your language; you are simply feeling ‘funny tummy’ because you’re excited!

Michelle has been the Director of her own thriving business, that offers in-house and public training programs to help people present and influence at work, for the past 10 years. She coaches Australian executives for upcoming important presentations and is a conference speaker herself.

As well as all of that she’s also a very busy wife and mother of three little girls: Holly, Maddie and Annabelle.

You can find out more about Michelle and buy her book, atwww.michellebowden.com.au

* Michelle talked about spending 10 years building a thriving business, 10 years developing her skills as a speaker and a trainer, 10 years creating the wealth of knowledge that went into her book and 10 years earning her CSP qualification, the highest recognition for a professional speaker in the world. I thought it was also interesting that Michelle found 10 years to be her magic number. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he talks about 10 years or 10,000 hours as being the required effort for mastery and Michelle success is a testament to what you can achieve with continued effort.