Discover Your Very Own Shade of BOLD

For those who missed it, last week we had our second webinar event and it was even more exciting than our online Annual Meeting in March. We were delighted that more than 40 gorgeous women took time out from work, families, friends and cooking (because aren’t we all discovering our inner chefs these days?!), to attend the event and make our zoom call such a diverse and colorful one!

Not only was the crowd a delight, but our topic was one which every single person attending could learn something about. It was all about being BOLD and finding our very own versions of what that means. We had three fabulous ladies talk to us about the different aspects of being bolder and more confident.

We started the event off with Jill Saville, who is a professional coach, trainer and has over 30 years of people management under her belt. She talked to us about the role of our minds in building confidence and how we all have negative scripts and patterns we need to break out of. She took us through the steps involved, from ‘deciding and committing to changing’ all the way to ‘building new positive habits of thinking’. It is clearly a process that needs patience and while it is not easy, she explained how each and every one of us can do it. Jill even spoke to us about examples from her own life and how she has often had to use the same process to change her own mindset and habits. As she said to all of us, “prepare to be confident, practice it and then practice it some more, till it becomes a habit!

Our next speaker Sarah Battey is a psychologist, systemic coach and has worked extensively on leadership and organizational development. In fact, Sarah told us that her recent work has had a special focus on women, so we were truly lucky to have her talk to us about body language and how to use it to our advantage. Maybe you already know that more than 90% of our communication is actually non-verbal? Some of us might have heard this before but it is so easy to forget and ignore all the important signals our bodies are sending out! We talked about ‘Powerful VS Powerless body language’ and how we are all quite good at spotting the body language that makes someone else appear powerful but forget all about it when it comes to ourselves. We also discussed the ‘confidence=competence’ bias and how it can make us seem less competent even when we know our subject well. Sarah showed us some common mistakes we make with our posture, told us not to draw attention to our weaknesses and even showed us some powerful poses to practice before that next big meeting! So, go on, strike a pose that makes you feel confident, truly own it and as Sarah said to us, “always remember you feel worse than you look!”

We ended the evening with out third and final speaker, Mariana Florea who is a life coach, distinguished toastmaster and someone with the most positive outlook ever! She talked to us about conveying confidence and the importance of voice and intonation. We learnt all about how to express our thoughts more effectively and she even give us tips on how to do this thinking on our feet, at an event or a meeting. She introduced us to some simple acronyms that can help us remember these tips, like ‘PREP’ (Point-Reason-Example-Point) and ‘KISS’ (Keep It Short & Sweet). Some lucky volunteers even got a chance to learn how to use these by practicing with Mariana right then and there. She created some mock situations like interviews and meetings to help them try it out and we watched her share feedback and suggestions. It was great to see first hand how much more effective we can all be if we just make a few simple changes to how we express ourselves!

Sounds like fun doesn’t it? We are already gearing up for our next event which is all about that slippery slope… ‘Salary Negotiations’. Come learn about some common mistakes us women make and how to negotiate your salary better. We promise you will thank us someday! Get your ticket here. We hope to see you there and as the author Haruki Murakami said, “Be fearless, be brave, be bold and love yourself.”

– blog post by member Supriya Sodhi, entrepreneur and founder of DogStays

– The Be Bold webinar was also featured in The Chronicle and you can read the article by Jazmin Campbell online here.