My Journey to Public Speaking

When I went back to school at the age of 29, I thought that I was going to faint when I had to give a presentation. That presentation was a mandatory marketing 101 class during my freshman year at Pace University in New York City. I vividly remember how horrifying that experience was.

I remember that the classroom was very bright with lots and lots of fluorescent lights seeming to be pointed right at me! I also remember that the other students were such natural speakers (though not the best dressers), but delivered very clear and concise presentations. I must have blocked out the topic of my presentation though because I have no recollection of what it was about.??

During my university years, I realized that growing up in Sweden, I had not taken any classes on presentation skills. I am not sure if I chose not to take any classes that required presenting, or if it was less common back then.

Even though becoming a better public speaker has been a “goal” of mine for years or decades, it was not until Covid-19 that I took action.

For the last 10+ years, I have been actively networking. In the beginning, I had a pit in my stomach every time I had to walk into a room full of strangers. I got over the fear of meeting strangers after a few months of networking, at which point I saw myself walking into a room of “new friends.” However, I still stumbled on my words when I was speaking.

I have been a member of BNI chapter 12 in NYC for over six years. I love BNI and love my group, but I have fretted every single week about doing my 30-second presentation. After six years in the group, the members are my friends, can you imagine if I had to do the same in front of strangers? Or for 5, 10, or 15 minutes?

Then March 2020 happened. We were all told to stay at home, and I decided to go on a self-improvement and business growth crusade. And when I say crusade, I mean crusade!

Thanks to the recommendations of two amazing women whom I adore, Carrie Rattle and Elizabeth Eiss, I joined a coaching program called Shift/Co for conscious entrepreneurs. My main coach, Terri Maxwell, told me early on that I needed to be more active on LinkedIn. At that very moment, she did not say how.

As the Type A personality person that I am, I needed to know how to become more active on LinkedIn right then and there!??

I somehow found Joe Apfelbaum, or knowing Joe, maybe he found me. Joe and his partner, Tami, have a course that takes LinkedIn users from Lurkers to Influencers in 15 minutes a day. And boy was I a lurker! Up to this point, I had seen LinkedIn as a resume. Who knew that LinkedIn is a place to build relationships? Needless to say, I signed up, took the course, and am following the program to the “T.” My results from LinkedIn have been amazing and I cannot recommend the course enough.

Early on in the course, Joe and Tami taught the importance of posting videos on LinkedIn. They showed how easy it was;?? easy for them, not so easy for me at that point. I was still stumbling on my own words to the degree that I had to write down my own name so that I wouldn’t get it wrong?? Don’t laugh, I have actually misspoken both my and my company’s name on many occasions over the years.

In order for me to figure out what to say, I hired Melanie Fox- The Speechfox. Melanie helped me improve my pronunciation and make certain words in my Swedish accent clearer to understand. Although my husband sometimes looks like a question mark when I talk,?? Melanie helped me come up with some really easy-to-follow, practical ways to remember and practice my 30-second, 1-minute, and 5-minute pitches.

I still found it difficult, so I spoke with my friend who is a therapist, Stephanie Vanden Bos. Stephanie asked me questions about what happened to me when I was young that made me stuck. Although a little too personal to share, just knowing what “the roommate in my head” was saying brought some clarity. It made me realize that with the right help, I could overcome this fear.

But I needed to practice. I had known Vikram Rajan for years from networking in NYC. I had spoken with him about his VideoSocial platform. Prior to this new crusade of mine, VideoSocials had not been a good fit for me. However, this was a perfect time to join and start training. I had all the tools and done all this work, now it was just practicing. I joined in July of 2020, I taped 8 weeks of videos without posting a single one of them. They were all terrible!!! In spite of the positive feedback from Mark Bullock and the very close-nit supportive group and environment, I was still almost fainting every time.

In October of 2020, Joe Apfelbaum, my LinkedIn coach, put on a #10Tip10Days challenge on LinkedIn with a bunch of LinkedIn influencers. I must have been crazy, and probably didn’t think clearly, but I signed up. I had nightmares, but when I commit, I commit. So, there was no turning back.

I taped videos in my Videosocial club, re-recorded them after, guested several other VideoSocial meetings until I was happy with some, but not all, of the results.

At one point, Mark Bullock over at VideoSocials told me he saw me in ‘clubs’ every single day.?? I told him about the video challenge and my videos HAD to be posted, no matter how good or bad they were.

By the end of October, I had posted 10 videos for the challenge. Woohoo!!! Some were ok, some were not, but I posted 10 and that was a great victory.

By the end of the year, I was actually looking forward to my VideoSocial club calls where we get up to 3 minutes to tape our video presentation. Who would have ever thought? Not me!

Since then, I still practice almost daily. I use all these wonderful resources that I have engaged over the last year. I constantly practice, I’m on Clubhouse every day just so that I can say what I do many, many times.?? Follow me on CH @folsongrp

As a result of all this, my 2021 goals are:

1. Host my own video interview series
2. Be interviewed on Podcasts
3. Hold my own weekly Clubhouse club called "Manhattan Living" Every Friday at 10 am EST
4. Be the moderator for Karen Stone’s 5 am call on CH

My plan is to hold video interviews with NYC real estate and multifamily building experts every other Wednesday at 10 am. I plan on interviewing experts that are a little unusual or not often covered in other co-op, condo and landlord forums.

The first one was launched on 2/10, so that was a big win for me. Here’s the link to the video interview

I was also the co-host for a RealtySpeak podcast that airs on 2/23.

Most importantly, I liked the results of my first video interview, the podcast, and my clubhouse talks, and am excited to be in front of my audience the next time!