Photos by: Slow School Of Business
Discovering your purpose can be one of those light bulb moments in life. Aligning your values with your work is one way of ensuring satisfaction, motivation and happiness. Our Cadet Olivia Walker recently participated in the Slow School of Business’ ‘Talk On Purpose’ This four-day course delves deep into purpose, personal storytelling, leadership and public speaking – all things that we weave into our Cadetship journey. At the end of the course, participants present to an audience to share their purpose journey. Olivia shares her experience.
Preparation and visualisation
I spent three days in the Abbotsford Convent being mentored by the most seasoned public speakers in the industry working towards delivering a short three-minute speech about personal purpose in front of a live studio audience. I’d already done a bit of public speaking with my extra-curricular activities as well as the Doxa Cadetship professional development training, but this was a chance to delve deeper.
Initially the prospect seemed rather daunting, but once we began work on our scripts and I realised just how supported I was within the group, almost all that fear disappeared. Carolyn Tate, the founder of Slow School, goes above and beyond to ensure that the environment we were working in was a comfortable one where you can focus your energy on creating a masterpiece that truly reflects your voice and the message you want to deliver to the world. We did this via daily meditation and breathing exercises. We also got one-on-one script help to assist us with content and structure.
“This course wasn’t just about public speaking it was about how we can use our voice to communicate a message, our story.”
Photos by: Slow School Of Business
Brainstorming, storytelling & script writing
During the course we participated in a variety of activities, including:
- Brainstorming what our purpose is how what we do relates to that
- A story telling workshop focusing on how to relate on a personal level with the audience
- Public speaking techniques and effective delivery
- Development of a script for the presentation, presenting our own personal purpose
- Presenting our scripts in small groups and receiving instructive feedback
- A mock panel where we presented our scripts for feedback in front of our mentor
Public speaking
Naturally, just before I went on stage I was super nervous. There are all sorts of things going through your head at that moment but the most prominent thing on my mind was I hope my message resonates with someone. I wasn’t taking part in this course just to deliver a talk. I had something to share. I was really grateful that some familiar faces from the Doxa Cadetship team were there to support me on the night, which was awesome.
It was so rewarding working alongside people from all different walks of life. It gives you the ability to soak up all the different perspectives and learn what they too are passionate about. It’s a scenario where you feel inspired by your own peers, which I think is really special because we often look to people who we hold in high regard as mentors when actually, we can learn just as much from the people we surround ourselves with.