10 core practices of a life-affirming speaker - number 1

 A life-affirming public speaker…

1. Practices taking your place in the world fully. Knows that we are on this earth for a short time so our journey is to become our full and authentic selves before we run out of time.

I'm developing what I think the core practices should be for a speaker who wants to be fully in their power and wants to be fully present.

Number one  is a bold one  and is what the other 9 practices will lead to but i wanted to start with the end in mind. Imagine if we could live our lives fully without stopping ourselves because of the fear of public speaking or being the centre of attention. What would life be like if we didn't hold ourselves back? So its an ideal and of course it may take a bit of work to get close to this goal.  I can't be like this everyday - some days I want to hide under the duvet but I know how powerful it is to take your place in the world.
The benefit of being our authentic selves is that it gives us clarity about our values and maybe even what our purpose in life is.  When we are congruent then our vital energy can be stronger. So in all a jolly good thing!

The "short time on earth" might seem strange to people aged under 30 but I'm 51 now and if I die when my dad died it gives me about 30 summers left. So each summer becomes more valuable than the last.

Here is Liz's story that she sent me on 14th October as I was editing the blog

I came again for the second time, after a few years, to your day workshop in London earlier in the year and wanted to say a huge THANK YOU for helping me to begin to 'stand up and be seen'  
You mentioned a quote about what people at different ages thought about speaking in front of groups and although I don't remember the detail it made a big impact on me, at 62, that when over 60 years, what have you got to lose, just do it! 
Anyway to cut a long story short I have taken the plunge and trained as a Nordic Walking instructor and last weekend led my first group walk of 7 people with me talking them through warm up exercises and 'being in charge', in all,  very much 'being seen!'  I LOVED IT!

Imagine being taking your place.
What would it be like to take your space in the world? What would you do? What would it feel like to be fully you?