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day?
“Yours truly” finally broke loose from over 20 years
of public speaking phobia. It was a sink or swim
choice. I decided to do some breast strokes...
She first realized she had this phobia for speaking
in front of an audience about 20 years ago while LTV
8 tapes were rolling, camera, lights and all …..and
the next action was an image of this fresh-faced PRO
bolting right out, in the middle of her Welcome
Speech; in full glare of top guns in the media -
John Momoh, Willie Egbe and Mr
“Robert Redford” (whom she married 9 months later).
Her task had been to introduce the sweetest and
latest sensation in the music industry, a woman who
was poised to inject new gusto into the industry.
Her name? Onyeka Onwenu. Needless to say, someone
else did the introductions as yours’ truly crawled
up the stairs and would have stayed there all night
but for the guests especially “Robert” who cajoled
her
into joining the party.. .Typically, I had so
internalized that incident that it eventually
defined
all my attempts to break free. My first major public
speaking task came (after many other false
starts) with the launch of Genevieve in September
2003. All I could think of was, ‘so I am going to
have to face this demon, this manipulative
monster who had my tongue!’ I moaned into the
microphone as my name was announced. And with a
frozen smile I tried to imagine that “everyone was
naked” as someone had advised! But the image of me
talking to a bunch of nudes made me panic more. So,
finding myself in a hard place, I decided to just do
it. I just spoke from my cue
card, and my heart...You know what?. Standing at the
lectern and talking about Genevieve worked the
magic! Nothing else mattered, not even
the trillion butterflies in my tummy; after all, no
one knows my story as I do. And then came The Pink
Ball, May 2005. How could I not speak? I
had another story to tell but then there was that
demon again! Don’t worry, said my husband, we will
record your speech and play it back to the audience
so you won’t need to go up and speak. It was a
perfect plan (nearly) until the MC (Adesuwa) called
me up to say “something”! Oh God! NO! But as I
strode up the stairs all I could feel was a
calmness. I can do this, I told myself as I said my
piece and then held my peace. Oh, it’s been an on
going battle but never have I been more
determined to fight this than now. The monster
wanted to rear its head during our GG but it stood
no chance, for you see, I am living in the NOW of my
life where there are no monsters. I have since
realised that there are no monsters really
except the ones we create in our minds. It just
sometimes takes too long for us to figure it out.
What monster is holding you back? Crush its
head NOW!
It’s only some days to our 5th anniversary party and
we’re taking no monsters, sorry, prisoners as we
honour “Ordinary women doing extraordinary
things” See you at the Torquoise anniversary
celebration. It’s a party, not a grand ball, so
dress easy and come prepared to enjoy because we’ve
gone all out to impress. |
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| In the NOW
Gatherings (GG) in
Partnership with Figment of
Imagination has come and gone and what a
day it was! Ladies with a yearning to discover
the secret of entrepreneurial success and pump up their CAN-DO
passion, arrived the Victoria Crown Plaza as early as 7.30am. With
registration over, they are ushered into the cosy venue where
Insolitus had taken charge as corporate consultants to the GG (Watch
out for this growing brand).
The mood for the seminar was set the minute “Yours truly” climbed
the podium (what butterfies?) and admonished the ladies to GO BREAK
SOME EGGS AND GO MAKE SOME OMLETTE! However, the main tonic for that
get-up-and-go feeling was administered intravenously through the
extremely brilliant and well thought-out presentations of Lanre
Olusola, Leke Alder, Dr Doyin Abiola, Nike Ogunlesi and Jumoke
Adenowo. Our participants just hung on their every word. One thing
was sure, they didn’t plan to leave the venue the same way they
came, especially not after Leke Alder’s very down right practical
130-page presentation on ‘Building a Successful Business’. Shhh,
don’t tell anyone now, but by the end of the day, I had sent word to
my office to destroy all existing letterheads and also bin our
VISION and MISSION; Leke had got us all thinking - “Branding”. It
also seemed the right time to race back to the drawing board in
search of less trite or cliched VISION especially after being
reminded that NIKE’s VISION was “CRUSH ADDIDAS”. One of the
participants was so fired up that her VISION instantly became “CRUSH
ALDER”! I don’t know what I had expected at our first GG but
definitely not that brilliant outing! God just loves us to bits at
Genevieve. At the close of the seminar, you could feel the positive
energy and a Top-Up of The
CAN DO spirit Genevieve talks about so much. The power within was
ready to be unleashed; it was time to get off the auto pilot mode
and take charge. It was such a great feeling! Hope it holds on long
enough and no discouragement shall help it to peter into
insignificance! Shall I tell you what significant event took place
at the venue same
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