Produced By - How to Speak With Confidence: Insights From a 3x TEDx Speaker Coach | #107: Nausheen I. Chen

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

Nausheen I. Chen is a public speaking coach, TEDx speaker, ex-filmmaker, and former Fortune 50 manager who’s helped over 500 leaders speak with clarity and confidence on stage and on camera. She’s trained execs at Google, Amazon and SAP, coached LinkedIn creators like Sophie Miller and Ruben Hassid, and teaches public speaking at Central European University and on LinkedIn Learning. From film sets in China to TEDx stages across the world, Nausheen brings a rare mix of storytelling, improv, and leadership to her work.In this episode, she shares how to build unshakable confidence, even if you’ve always feared public speaking. We talk stage presence, nerves, pre-talk rituals, and what it really takes to connect with an audience, whether it’s a packed theatre or a laptop webcam. Nausheen also opens up about her filmmaking years, her first TEDx talk, and why confidence has nothing to do with personality and everything to do with preparation.Connect with Nausheen:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nausheenichen/https://www.speaking.coach/TEDx Talks:https://youtu.be/_MFdHrWvU0E?si=U7OqhwPWDXHepFVxhttps://youtu.be/wUm23k29-5Y?si=N7yvJXOYZH8HQcM5https://youtu.be/trUz9wh-arE?si=0jsSBYuWhJ8XvVvG Timestamps:00:00 – Confidence is a skill01:16 – Nausheen’s story and start02:04 – From filmmaker to coach03:10 – What public speaking really means today04:28 – Nature vs nurture in confidence05:23 – Speaking up as the youngest child06:52 – Realising her value as a speaker07:39 – Building a film business in China09:30 – Working through language barriers10:12 – Directing, filming, and why she pivoted12:32 – Stage or camera coaching?13:30 – How COVID changed public speaking15:41 – Stage vs camera: which is harder?18:01 – Teaching both styles of speaking20:36 – Why she prefers directing over acting22:08 – Pressure and hierarchy in film23:56 – Managing nerves before big talks26:16 – Her pre-stage rituals27:29 – Why speaker energy sets the tone32:48 – Cultural surprises on stage in China35:19 – TEDx prep and the power of fun38:56 – Sharing personal stories on stage40:16 – Why she did more TEDx talks41:40 – Dream of speaking in French42:57 – Hobbies and downtime44:49 – Where to find her and her resources46:24 – Final advice: you’ve got more control48:48 – Wrap up and thank you Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I always like leaving people with this one thought that you have more control than you think you do. This is applicable for anything. Of course, your life in general, your decisions, your career, but of course, specifically do your confidence. A lot of people come to me and say, Nocheen, I'm an introvert. I just will never be able to speak like an extrovert on stage. Or Noshin, I've always been so scared of speaking on stage, I will never do it. I've literally had people who come to me who are in their 50s or 60s and they say, Noshi, I was so nervous about speaking on stage that I told my boss when I was in my 20s, I will never speak on stage.

And yes, it affected my career, but that's how I lived my life. And it's really saddening to hear because confidence is a skill you can absolutely learn. You are not born confident. You learn it. Either you learn it by doing different things in life and you just realize one day, oh yeah, I think I am confident in that. Or you feel like you don't have confidence in something simply because you haven't tried doing it. Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys.

Thank you. Hello, Noshin. Thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. Hi, Thomas. It's great being here. Norshin, I always start with the same question, which is introduction. But as we just spoke, I know that you've been to so many podcasts and conferences and speaking. So I know that you've done it so many times.

But since I've heard it as well, I feel like it will be shame not to ask you especially because I think that your introduction is really interesting, quite cool journey. So Norshin, can you please introduce yourself? Sure. I'm Norshi Nya-Cen, public speaking coach. I was always one of those kids who loved getting up on stage in front of the family, reciting the most boring poem ever, just getting all the attention. and really soaking it in and being very confident, even though I had no idea what I was talking about. So I carried that into my professional life at Crocker & Gamble. I was in the corporate world for many, many years doing marketing and PR,

but on the side, I was a communication skills trainer at the company. At one point, I was training people twice my age in communication skills and presentation skills. Never took that up as a career. didn't take a hint, got into filmmaking instead, and I was a producer and a director for commercials for many, many years. During that time, I started working with a lot of CEOs and senior folks that were speaking on camera for the first time. And these were people who were impressive.

They were leading huge companies. They were doing great things, and they were creating these corporate documentaries or videos to get funding. to get to raise money. And they would become really pale, robotic, weak versions of themselves when they spoke on camera. You would just be like, this is not the same person. I don't even want to watch this person.

And my job, as the director, was to get the best performance out of them. That's when I started coaching people to speak with more personality, more impact, more confidence on camera. and alongside I was also speaking on every stage I could find because I was one of my loves. I've been an improv performer. I've spoken on the TEDx stage a few times. I've just spoken every single opportunity that I got. So I ended up combining my love for being on stage, my experience being on stage, and my love for making sure that people are performing well on camera into public speaking.

Because really now, when we see. say public speaking, we no longer mean speaking behind a podium to a room full of a thousand people. It's public speaking, whether you are doing a webinar or a podcast like this one. Or if you're creating a video, you're absolutely public speaking because you're speaking to an imagined audience. That's the work I do now. So I work with CEOs, execs, and also entrepreneurs and founders who just want to make sure that they're presenting their best selves on camera and on stage. And does it then mean that you were basically born with that? Or, for example, were your parents also people with this type of profession

or were just naturally from a young age, someone who need to go out there and do public speaking? I have two very strange answers to that question. The first answer is I'm actually adopted, but the way. weirdest thing is my biological father, who did not raise me, he's just my biological father, right? I just share his DNA. He loves public speaking. And I had no idea. I wasn't raised like that. I mean, my actual parents, the parents who raised me, they were teachers and they worked, my dad worked in the post office. I don't think he liked public speaking at all, but somehow, biologically, I'm related to someone who loves it. So very weird coincidence.

It's in your blood, yeah. I don't know. I think it's just a freaky coincidence because I do believe that it's an absolutely teachable skill. So my second answer to that is, for me personally, it came as something that was a release. I was the youngest child growing up. No one ever actually listened to me.

I wasn't someone whose opinions mattered. So for me, I always wanted to be heard. I wanted people to listen to me and I realized the only times people actually paid attention or took me seriously was when I was performing something. When you're already on a stage, you have the attention. Then you just need to make sure that you do something that merits it. You do something that people feel rewarded for you.

They give you attention and you reward them with something. That was a value equation that I learned very early on in life. So I was subconsciously training myself to be on different. stages to be on camera just because I was a lonely child who just wanted to be heard. Yeah, but honestly, I cannot imagine what would it be like if I was born or if I was from a young age, someone who would feel comfortable in front of the stage, because in front of camera or in front of people, because I'm pretty sure it's not only me and you can speak from your own experience that the majority of us is scared, you know, speak in front of people and everything.

So if it was so natural, oh my God, it will be so. much easier and so much fun. That's really where the magic happens, right? When you realize that you have accumulated a specific set of skills that other people want, need and can benefit from. So for the longest time, I took this for granted. That's why I didn't take it up as a career choice till I was in my late 30s because I thought, yeah, sure, I love public speaking. Do other people struggle with it? Yeah, I guess they do. And then I started thinking about it. And my husband was one of the first people to point it out. And he said, you know, Nanshing, this is the one thing that you love doing. Why aren't you teaching it? And that was a light bulb moment for me. And before we

move forward with this, you said that you worked in film industry or commercials. And if I'm not mistaken, wasn't it in China? It was. So how did you get to China? It's quite exciting because it's already for me, because I actually studied film as well. So I was like, oh my God. You worked in film and in this industry. We need to talk about it. But then I also found that it was in China. So it was even more impressive, you know, like a different culture, language and everything. So can you tell us how did you get that or why China actually?

I was in New York studying filmmaking. I did my master's in it. And then my husband and I wanted to keep exploring and keep traveling. We didn't want to necessarily stay in the U.S. We wanted to explore a little bit beyond. he got an opportunity in China. And at the time, you could say I was completely unemployable in China because I didn't speak the language. And I also didn't really want to be a part of that specific work culture.

It's very hierarchical and it's not something that appealed to me. So in a way, entrepreneurship was the only route to doing the thing that I loved at the time to creating my own future, creating my own livelihood. So I started by doing these filmmaking workshops. just to first get into the community, to see what kind of interest there is. And they got sold out. Ended up doing multiple batches and then started getting these film projects. And in the beginning, the commercial projects that I got were literally for peanuts.

They paid almost nothing. And I ended up employing some of the students that I had in my workshops as people on the film crew, teaching them what to do because I had learned at university. And then building it little by little by little, we ended up working with Huawei, we ended up working with some of the big names in China and ended up doing great commercials for them that have become very memorable for me. Wow. But still, didn't you see the language as barrier? Or did you speak English or did you learn the language? Because I think it's literally one of the hardest ones.

I did try. I tried to learn it and then I realized either I can be an entrepreneur or I can learn Mandarin. The two cannot happen at the same time. So I chose the entrepreneur route and then I ended up employing bilingual people in my team. So I had a number of local Chinese, brilliant Chinese people who could speak in English and they could speak in Mandarin. Yes. And what role back then did you focus on, I believe you mentioned directing and producing or was there like one specific or kind of broad? In the beginning, I was doing everything. So I was the script writer, the director, the producer. I did some cameos in some of the commercials. There was one that we did for a frisbee bag and I was the one like throwing the bag or

catching the bag. So in the beginning, just like with every filmmaker really, you end up doing everything. I was going to say so. This is the reality of people who never tried either. Yeah. And then eventually, yes, my main role was the producer in the sense that I was the one getting the film projects and the director. And I kept those two roles as for me, really the director role was the one that was closest to my heart, specifically because I got to work with people. And that's one of the reasons I actually stepped away from filmmaking because the thing that I loved the most was working with my actors and non-professional talent, which is a nice way of saying the CEOs or the people that were speaking on camera who weren't actors. And that's where I

realized, wow, I just love getting these people to perform well, to speak well. I actually don't care as much about the artistic vision or the special effects. That stuff actually really freaked me out and gave me a lot of stress. So I thought, I want to take this little piece here, which is my favorite part of filmmaking, and take it with me into the public speaking world. And did you back then have like a vision or the goal to continue in the filmmaking career? Because before you discovered that you wanted to do the public speaking, or was it just temporary?

because I'm curious maybe like if your ambitions were to become, for example, film director or something like that. No, I never had those ambitions. That was also another big red flag for me. It was another sign that I didn't really belong in the filmmaking world. And that's why I really critically looked at what were the things that I loved about it that I can dig into the next thing that I do. Yeah. And then did you know if we wanted to like a focus on teaching people only in front of the camera because of the I'm pretty sure there would be so many people to teach them how to act in front of camera, or you knew that you want to teach people like you do now, basically for any type of public speaking and speaking in front of camera and stuff like that. I asked myself this question a lot because everyone says, niche down, concentrate and focus on one thing. For me, my love of the stage and my love of the camera are really equal. I cannot separate one from the other because they're both.

magical to me in different ways. When you're speaking on stage, you have this great energy. You're actually able to see in real time, how are people receiving the information? Are they with me? Are they not with me? Who's smiling at this joke? Who is yawning? Who's on their phone? Who's looking at me and nodding? And that really creates this great energy and exchange between you and the live audience. So I love that. But now, especially in a post-COVID world, we're doing a lot of more speaking online. And that's great because it actually gives you more opportunities to speak. You could probably only speak on an in-person stage, let's say, what, once a month, once every few months, but you can do a lot more podcasts, webinars, videos, LinkedIn lives, right? So that I love

as well, because it gives you a way to connect to people through your personality, through your story in such a direct way. And so you have to know how to try. translate that energy from the stage to the camera or from the camera to the stage. That is true. And I guess it makes it also more challenging, right? Because, for example, me personally, I cannot really compare because before the COVID, for me it was kind of completely different work. Because although back then I was in a similar situation to you in a sense that I was

studying film, but I definitely wasn't on such a level as you were. but I didn't do podcast, I didn't do like any kind of social media like now. So I can actually compare what was it like before and now. But from your experience, is it that have you enjoyed it more before or now or kind of pros and cons of both? Or how do you feel? There are definitely pros and cons of both. I look at it more from the point of view of the goal. What is the end goal?

Because a lot of people come to me and say, No, Sheen, I want to. speak more. I want to get more speaking opportunities. And then my first question to them is always, what is the end goal? Do you want to build your thought leadership? Do you want to just get more business? Or perhaps you're not an entrepreneur and you just want to build your personal brand because you want to future-proof your career. You need to have a very specific end goal and then reverse engineer it. And for different kinds of goals, you would eventually end up speaking on different kinds of platforms. The one thing I do know is that right now, the best thing to do is to do a mix of the two. Don't just rely on doing videos and live events and never having to show up in person.

But also, don't just rely on doing three or four speaking events a year and you imagine, okay, and now I've built my thought leadership. No, you have to eventually do both if the goal is to build a strong personal brand. And I might be wrong, but It's true that actually public speaking life is harder or scarier than on camera, or it depends, or you cannot really say? It really depends on what people are used to. So I work with two types of people. The first type are people that are a little more old school. These are folks that are used to being on stage who have done a lot of in-person workshops and they've done a lot of in-person presentations.

for them speaking on camera, bringing that same energy that they can feel in that room to being on camera and not having anyone there and just having to talk to themselves into a lens is weird. It's alien. They cannot be themselves. They're great on stage and they're awful on camera. And then you have the opposite type of person. Also, I'm generalizing here, but they are generally younger, potentially people that have grown up

with Instagram that have grown up with TikTok. And these are people that are very comfortable on camera, very comfortable with FaceTime, very comfortable seeing their own image. You put them on a stage and they feel like it's an entirely different world. They're like, what? Wait, how? What? I can't edit. I can't go back and say something differently. If I say it, it's just there. What if no one laughs at my jokes? What if people make fun of me? What if I get a question I can't answer? So it really depends on. on the world that you're coming from,

what is familiar to you? The thing that you haven't done will, of course, seem scary, intimidating, unfamiliar. Just as you were describing it, I was trying to imagine myself because I think I'm kind of the second person because I do the podcast online. And, you know, you just kind of show up on a camera.

You are comfortable in your room. And if I compare it like standing somewhere on a stage, everyone is looking at you and suddenly it's about your posture, about your, I don't know, just chose and eye contact and everything. I'm like, oh my God, this is completely different experience. You feel exposed for sure. Yeah. This is something I hear from clients a lot.

Yeah. And is there one of these that you maybe enjoy more people teaching or that you've got preference? No, I really love both. I love teaching and being on stage. I'm actually going to be on stage. Actually, I'm coming to London soon. I'm going to be speaking at the London Tech Week in June. And it's these kinds of events that I really look forward to

because then you can really build up energy and excitement. You can prepare for it. You can rehearse for it. It's a different level. Yeah. But I love doing podcasts. I love doing live events. I love doing videos.

And that's something I do every single week. Every week I'm recording 10 videos minimum for, for different social platforms. And that is more of an everyday thing. So that helps me refine my craft. It helps me explore different ways of speaking. I love that they're both very different. It's in a way, this is probably something you'll understand well coming from a similar

world. It's the difference between theater acting and acting on camera. They're very different. When you're in a theater, you're acting a play. You're very theatrical. You're dramatic. You make big gestures. And you speak, you project your voice and you have these big exaggerated expressions.

Because there are hundreds of people in the audience and the person and the last row should be able to feel what you're feeling, should be able to hear what you're saying and see the expressions. But on camera, you have to tone it down. If you are that dramatic on camera, no one's going to take you seriously. So you have to know how to translate. That energy into this online world, being on camera, making that connection that's more intimate. You have this mic. I don't need to shout anymore. Whatever I say, this mic is going to pick it up.

All my expressions are very clear to you. You can see when I'm thinking, when I'm angry at something, when I'm smiling, when I'm happy at something. So I need to exaggerate less, but at the same time, I need to make sure that my personality is coming through, that I'm not getting lazy. in terms of just being like, yeah, okay, so what's up, Thomas? Yeah, I know. That's not going to work. Yeah. And something that I'm generally curious about is with your background or experience from advertisement or film industry, although behind the camera and considering your experience of speaking,

weren't you interested in or curious about actually to appearing in front of camera, such as extras? People ask me this all the time in China. They would ask me to be the model or to be the actor in the videos. But when you're directing, it's a different kind of control. And I loved that control. I didn't want someone else to be my boss. The film is very much the director's medium.

And I love being in control in whatever role I'm in. So when I am the speaker on the stage, I'm the one in control. when I am the entrepreneur who's creating videos from my personal brand, I'm the one in control. When I'm directing a commercial, I'm the one in control. The actor has to listen to my feedback to make things better. So for me, it was really a matter of where can I have the most creative control. And the film is very much the director's medium. Yeah, it makes sense.

And I just want to say that because, as I said, I studied that before as well. And I feel like that everyone, when we started at university, everyone wanted to become a film director because it's like the, as you know, the most prestigious or the coolest or the job that everyone knows and you become famous for. And since I've kind of tried or seen what it is like, I just want to say that it takes a lot of responsibility,

pressure and hard work. So it's really impressive that you've been doing this work for such a long time. And I believe for several years. and on such a level, especially in China, so I just wanted to say that's a really well doubt for that. Thank you. I really appreciate that. I had to really be the bad guy.

And I have to say that was the part I did not enjoy. There was a whole Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing going on at one point where I would be totally fine as an everyday boss or an everyday team member when we're in the office. I'm collaborating and I'm listening to everyone. But on the film set, the director is the dictator. That's the only way the film is going to get made. If you listen to 20 opinions, everyone's going to be there for two weeks trying to shoot one minute or two minute commercial.

So that is a switch that I had to get used to. And a lot of people around me would constantly feel strange because they were like, we don't know what to do around her. And I had to really tell them that, look, I will be very nice to you. And I will listen to your opinions outside of the film set. Once we're on the film set, everyone has a role and only one person has an opinion. It has to be the director. There's no other way of doing it. Yeah.

Or your producer starts shouting at you that you don't have budget for that or something like that. Yeah. Exactly. Are you struggling to stay consistent on LinkedIn? Fan post helps you create high quality posts in minutes so you can write faster, show up more, and stress way less. built by creators for creators. It's the easiest way to grow your presents without burning out. Try it free at fanpost.com.

And then, as you mentioned before, you were going to speak on a stage in London. When it comes to public speaking, I guess that's also the question that you get asked a lot, but do you also get nervous, or is it for you like a second nature, so you don't get so? For big stuff, for sure. Everyone gets nervous.

There's a saying in the public speaking world that if someone says they're not getting nervous, they're lying. Everyone gets nervous. It's just different degrees of feeling nervous. And then it comes down to how do you manage those nerves? Do you let the nerves control you or can you control the nerves? In essence, feeling nervous is actually a good thing because it means that you care. You care enough about this opportunity that you're feeling something. Now, the best thing you can do for you. yourself is to turn that bundle of nerves into excitement. It's not that you're nervous about this upcoming opportunity. You're really excited. You want to do better. They actually studied this. They realized that the body produces the same physiological response, whether you're nervous or whether you're very, very excited. If you think about it, you start getting sweaty. You start trembling. think of a beautiful, important moment in your life, maybe when you got married, when you had your first kiss, when you saw your first born for the first time.

That's excitement. And you feel exactly the same things in your body that you do when you feel nervous about a big meeting, a big sales call, a big presentation, a big conversation you need to have with your boss or with your client. This essentially means that your brain can then label the emotion because your body is feeling the same thing. Your body is giving the same signals to the brain. Your brain can label it either as feeling nervous, oh my God, I'm going to really mess this up or feeling excited. Oh my God, I am so excited. I'm thrilled that I got this opportunity. How can I make the best of it? So it's turning something that's negative into something that's positive.

I guess it's not that easy, but worth working on because then it makes all the difference, doesn't it? It definitely leaves me thinking it's something that I need to work on as well. And besides this, it's like a mental thing, but have you got also some physical helpers or some kind of tactics that you do before that help you to calm down or to prepare or something like that? Oh, for sure. I call this the pregame ritual. And this is something I teach all my clients. and I have my clients make their own version of it.

The idea is to first calm the heck down right before you need to speak on stage or a camera and then really ramp up your energy, really get into the zone on purpose intentionally. So there are multiple types of warmups that you can do. There are physical warmups. So physical warmups to calm yourself down. Of course, you can do breathing exercises. You can some people meditate. And then physical warmups.

up to really warm yourself up can be a little bit of cardio. Some people listen to a favorite song that puts them in the right mood and they start dancing. Tony Robbins famously jumps on a trampoline to really get the energy up so that he can really come on stage and inspire everyone. The key to understand is that when you are the speaker, you become the energy ceiling and the energy floor for the audience, which essentially means that the audience will either rise to how much energy you're projecting, or they'll sink to how much indifference you're showing. Today, we're just going to be doing this presentation. I'll take you through this. Anyone have any questions? No, let's move on to the next slide. We've all seen this.

And then you're just like, can I get it over with, or why was this not an email? What am I doing with my life sitting here? Yeah, yeah. And would you be willing to share what is then your preparation or is your pregame? Sure. The very first thing is that it needs to exist. This is important because some people, I teach it to some people and then they say, yeah, okay, I'll see if I can get time to do it.

No, no, no. You have to make time to do it. So the very first thing I do is, regardless of where I am, I will take myself away from a social situation. Let's say I need to speak in about 10 minutes. I will extract myself from networking. I'll stop being interactive with people

and I'll just get to a space where I can be by myself and really focus on the things I'm going to be preparing, the things I'm going to be saying. I look at my intro. If you can really nail that intro, then you feel this wave of confidence. I do a check on myself. I make sure that everything looks good, everything's in place. It sounds really simple, but I actually once went on the TEDx stage and I had lipstick on my pants. And it was so embarrassing later because I realized I was carrying that extra lipstick so that I could touch up my lipstick and I just never used it. And it was just smudged all over my pants. And I still have, I of course have video proof of it now because it's part of my TED talk. But that's a hard lesson that I learned.

So doing a check on yourself, making sure everything looks good. and then doing a few enunciation exercises. This is where you can say a few tongue twisters, or you can do some facial exercises where you can open up your mouth, make your face really small, open it up. So what you're essentially doing is you're exercising your facial muscles and you're exercising your vocal cords

by saying some tongue twisters. Again, you're from a similar world, so you might have heard of red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather. That's a tongue twister that people use, or can I cook a proper cup of coffee in a copper coffee pot? Saying those tongue twisters a few times, what it does is that it helps you practice your enunciation,

so that when you're on stage, you're not just mumbling like this and not even opening your mouth and just kind of not even really pronouncing the voice. You're actually enunciating. Yeah, yeah. Because it reminds me what you just said, you know, you need to share like some kind of vibe or energy and so that people who are actually listening or watching can feel something. Because sometimes, you know, people reach out to me that they want to appear on the podcast.

And oftentimes they have, you know, impressive, I don't know, CV when they share it or background or something like that. And I refuse or I say that I'm not interested, but it's not because they wouldn't be interesting. It's just because that if I speak with someone that I'm not really, curious about or interested in speaking, then I cannot really lead the conversation that it's going to be engaging for the audience. So then I feel like that I can be speaking to the person, but it's going to be like, oh, no, she, so what did you do? What's your background? You know, and then the audience can feel that it's, that I'm not interested either. So for me, it's kind of hard to explain to people that it's not that they wouldn't be interesting. It's just that

I maybe wouldn't be able to convey the energy as with people that I'm just curious about. So just example that it reminds me of what you were speaking about, that, you know, the person who's speaking, whether it's podcast or on a stage that it's important really to be energetic, to help with the atmosphere and to share the wipes to the listeners or to the audience. Yeah. The bad news is that if people don't find you interesting, it's your fault. It's your job to make yourself interesting when you're on stage and when you're on camera. It's your job to know who is the audience. How can I speak to them in a way that just like you said, they feel that they are the ones who you want to talk to.

There's real magic in being able to speak to 100 or 1,000 people as if you're speaking to each one of them individually, as if you're having a one-on-one conversation with all of them. If you can achieve that, then you can absolutely be memorable. You'll be the most memorable speaker. They will think about your presentation or your podcast or your video forever. They will become your fans. They will become part of your tribe. Yeah, that's, oh my God, it would be awesome.

And before, when you mention it with the lipstick, I actually wanted to ask you a question if you've got any fails or, I don't know, any fall pass or anything like that. And if so, if we would be willing to share. So you mentioned the one with the lipstick, but are there like any other interesting or funny stories that you would be willing to share with us? Sure. So when I'm on stage, I love interacting with the audience. I never wanted to be a one-way conversation.

So I asked them lots of questions. I get people involved. Sometimes I even bring them up on stage. And that was the tactic that I tried. The first time I presented in China, I was on stage. I was talking about storytelling. And I asked about ads at that point. I was connecting ads to storytelling.

So I asked the audience, has anyone seen an interesting ad lately? And usually when I ask this question, a lot of hands go up, right? People like ads. They see interesting ads. No one responded. It's crickets.

And I was like, everyone, and I repeated myself, everyone's just staring at me. And then I made a little joke about it and said, What, no one seen an, has anyone seen an ad? Any of you? Like, is that, do you guys hate ads?

Then I got a few chuckles and I started making fun of myself a little bit and I got out of that situation. I later realized it was because there was a cultural gap. In China, people don't think of speeches or events as two-way conversations. When they go and attend a speech for them, it's like a lecture. In fact, they even call you teacher. Because they're giving you respect. So I had people coming up to me and saying, Teacher Noshin, and they were giving me that as a sign of respect.

But they are not mentally prepared to interact. And I did not understand that before that happened. And so from that point onwards, I would still interact, but I would mentally prepare them beforehand. So I would say, now I know you're not used to interacting. You probably don't want to answer questions. But I'm going to ask you some questions in this. in this speech. Are you okay with that? Does that work for you? Are all of you going to be

interested in talking to me? Please talk to me. Sometimes I get lonely on the stage. And then they all laugh and then they're like, yes, and then the ice is broken. So it's just a matter of mentally preparing the audience for what you want them to do. Yeah, that was a good one. I wasn't expecting that. But I guess it's always like a homework or challenging to prepare. If the audience is always different and you don't know what to expect. It also makes it maybe a bit more fun and challenging. It's going to be something different. Yeah, absolutely.

When it comes to interacting with them or adding humor, a multicultural audience is the most challenging. Yeah. And you did a few TED talks. So what was it? Because TED talks obviously are very big. Everyone knows them. I think it's like when you do tech talk, it's just impressive.

So what was the experience like for you? Maybe when you did the first one, Was it something that you'd be nervous about, excited about, how did you feel? It was incredible. It was one of my life dreams to be on the TEDx stage. It was definitely something I was working towards in a very intentional way. I was pitching to a lot of events, doing interviews, getting selected, shortlisted, and then someone would say no or someone would think, no, that's not appropriate.

And then I got into this one. It was first a long process because getting into TEDx means first you're sending them a written pitch, then if they shortlist you, then you have anywhere from one to three interviews with different people on the organizing committee. So I believe I had two different interviews. And then I got a call. And I was, I was ecstatic. It just felt like, is this really happening? So I had about maybe 10 seconds of excitement. And then immediately, I started feeling all the bad stuff. I started feeling like an imposter. What have I gotten myself into? Not only will I embarrass myself, I will embarrass myself on the TEDx stage. Good job, Norshin. It's going to be filmed as well.

Right? It's an end of on YouTube. This is what you got yourself into. I started feeling for sure. I started feeling the nerves. I started feeling like, have I finally bitten off more than I can chew? Have I finally done something that I shouldn't have done in the first place? Do I deserve to be on that stage? And then I'm a doer. I really believe in taking action. even if you're scared or you're nervous. So I put those feelings on pause and I just started working for it. And as the days went by and I got closer and closer to the event, I did feel good knowing that I was prepared because I prepared for it for weeks

and I knew I had to memorize the talk, not something that I normally do. It was absolutely the first time that I memorized a talk. And I wanted to do it so well that I could do it back. So I was really going over the stock maybe five, six, seven times a day, every day for the entire week leading up to the event. I was even saying it in my sleep the night before. And when the day finally came, the idea was to have fun. And this is the number one thing I tell all my clients as well. When you're speaking on stage, if you can have fun, the audience will have fun.

If you can teach them something, inspire them to do something, educate them. them or entertain them. If you can make them feel something, and if that something is memorable, valuable, then they will remember what you said. They will associate that feeling with your message. And your message has a much higher chance of being remembered. And you can only do that if you are the one feeling relaxed. Because if you're feeling stressed, you're going to show that stress. You're going to transfer that stress to the audience. And you're damaging the impact that you can make. the moment you can learn to just let go and have fun, real fun in the moment, and think of it as a chance to connect with so many people,

so many eyes, so many faces, so many expressions, that's when the real magic can happen. I can only agree. And how was the experience in the end? Were you happy with the result? Were you satisfied with your performance? It was fantastic. I loved it.

I loved every minute of it. my very first TEDx talk was extremely personal. So it had nothing to do with business. It was very much my personal story of overcoming the way that I was raised and how I started questioning things and I started becoming more of an independent thinker. So it really was about independent thinking. It was called the power of breaking your beliefs. And I told very personal stories about the breakup of my marriage, and running off with my ex, exploring the world, and questioning the things that I had held very deeply to and very closely to myself for the longest time.

And I had some people coming up to me after the event saying, we can't believe you talked about those things on stage. We, it was strange and shocking and we almost felt embarrassed on your behalf. I was like, I don't feel embarrassed. I love that I was able to talk about it and I hope that that shock was something good. And I said, no, no, no, it was very good. We really liked watching it. We just couldn't believe it was happening.

So it was great. I loved it. And what then made you actually to do second and third that talk? I believe because the first one was so personal and I knew that if I wanted to be smart about building my business and building my personal brand, I should do a talk that is connected to what I do to the work. So then my second one was really more about work. It was connected to storytelling.

And then the third one was something I got invited for. It was actually one of the academic TEDx talks. And that was also very deeply connected to the work that I do. And actually, I believe that one did the best online. It was called, what comes first? Confidence or action. So I talked all about what is this thing called confidence? Because it's the number one question I get asked as a public speaking coach.

And I really dissected it and I feel the onion and I showed people different examples. I showed people research and scientific studies that have been done on confidence, really unraveling what really is confidence. And I wanted to share that with that specific audience as well because it was an educational audience. So it was a lot of young people, a lot of teenagers, a lot of people in their early 20s who were there and who were really eager to learn. Yeah, I guess you might have had and hopefully had big positive impact on them.

Thank you. I hope so. That was always the hope. The question, that is, are there more TED Talks coming or are you planning or do you want anymore? I would love to do one in French because, of course, my work is in English. Everything I do is in English. And that will always be the case because English is the language I feel the most comfortable in. But I am also now a French speaker. I speak French in. As soon as I step out of the house, I speak French. And my French is getting better and better, but I have never spoken on stage in French. So for sure, one of my next goals would be to do a proper talk in French to an audience.

And I believe it will also help me get closer to some of my clients who are non-native English speakers and who have to go do talks in English because I don't feel that pressure in English, but I absolutely will feel that pressure in French. So in a way, doing that experiment will also help me get into the shoes, the minds, the hearts of some of my non-Native English speaker clients. Yeah, I'm sure it will be a good challenge since you haven't done that yet. And then, just to be aware of time, that will be finishing soon. I've got a few more lighter questions at the end, although I could be asking questions forever.

Yeah. But what is it that you enjoy doing in your free time or what are some of your hobbies? I am a huge Doctor Who fan. This is something a lot of people don't know about me. I am a Huvian. So I love watching Doctor Who. My husband and I are big nerds. So we dissect every episode and we go into the fandom and the folklore. So that's one thing I enjoy doing. A second thing is probably not going to be surprising is just having interesting conversations about life. the universe and everything. So if you ask me, what is my happy place? It's really sitting down with a close friend and just talking about everything and being at ease with myself and being at ease with the other person because we spend so much of our time performing different roles. Right now,

I'm a guest on a podcast. I have to perform and behave a certain way. You're the host. You have to perform and behave a certain way. When we're working with our clients, or for people that have bosses and teams when you're working with them, you're putting on a different hat. And those rules, of course, are enjoyable in different ways, but they're also taxing. They take away a little bit of you. So for me, being able to really truly connect with another human being that I really care for and I don't have a lot of boundaries with, that's my ultimate enjoyment of free time, where I don't have to pretend. I don't have to pretend. I don't have to perform. I can just be myself and talk about all my controversial opinions that I keep

to myself a lot of the times in business, because you should. No, it's a great point. You left me thinking and it's actually something that I enjoyed too and would love to probably do that more. So it's something I need to work on. And Nushin, can you summarize or tell people where they can find you, follow you, and market and if your services. Sure. Speaking.coach, that's my home on the internet. So if you go to speaking.com coach, you'll be able to first find out more about me. You'll be able to find out how we could work together. But more than that, there is a free course waiting for you there. This is one of the best courses that I can share with you for absolutely free. It's called the Speak Fearlessly course. And it will guide you through the principles of being a strong, confident, impactful speaker. And I mentioned that it was completely free. So if you go to speaking.coach, you'll be able to get that. And other than that, I'm also, as I was telling you earlier,

I'm working on this program called the Confidence Accelerator, which I'm really excited about. We're going to be launching it soon. It might be out by the time this podcast gets published. And that is creating a one-stop place for anyone who doesn't feel confident, who wants to be more impactful, more confident, more impressive when they speak anywhere. It is a course, it's a community, it's live coaching sessions with me, all of it in one place.

And I will leave everything in show notes. I can only say that your website looks really nice. I've of course had a look. And as we discussed before they're recording, I'm a big fan of your videos. So I encourage people to follow whether it's TikTok, YouTube or LinkedIn. It looks great. And then the very last question, now it's like a space for you if you've got any final message, piece of advice or question that you wish I asked you and did not. Now is your space

to share it. Sure. For me, I always like leaving people with this one thought that you have more control than you think you do. This is applicable for anything. Of course, your life in general, your decisions, your career, but of course, specifically to your confidence. A lot of people come to me and say, Noshin, I'm an introvert. I just will never be able to speak like an extrovert on stage. Or Noshin, I've always been so scared of speaking on stage. I will never do it. I've literally had people who come to me who are in their 50s or 60s and they say, Noshin, I was so nervous about speaking on stage that I told my boss when I was in my 20s, I will never speak on stage. And yes, it affected my career, but that's how I lived my life. And it's really some

saddening to hear because confidence is a skill you can absolutely learn. You are not born confident. You learn it. Either you learn it by doing different things in life and you just realize one day, oh yeah, I think I am confident in that. Or you feel like you don't have confidence in something simply because you haven't tried doing it. And speaking in public is one of those things that you don't do often enough so you feel like you don't have confidence in it. But you have so much control over. it. You can absolutely go from someone who goes blank on stage, who shudders at the thought of people looking at them to someone who is confident and at ease and can show the world who they really are by being on stage or being on camera. So I encourage everyone to think about what

is the one thing you can do to gain control over the thing that is scaring you. There's always something that you can do. Yeah, it's a beautiful message and something that I will think about as well. So then Noshin, I want to say a big thank you. I really enjoyed it. I've got so many more questions, but maybe sometime in the future we can do the sequel. So thank you so much. It was very insightful for me as well.

I really enjoyed it. I think you're doing just a great job. I'm not saying that I'm jealous of your skills. Maybe I'm a bit. But thank you so much for joining me. I really enjoyed it and I will keep following and supporting. So thank you. Oh, thank you.

Thank you so much for having me. This was great. Thank you so much for hosting me. Thanks for listening to Produce Bye with Tomi. Check the show notes for all the links. And don't forget to subscribe, like and share your feedback. Speak soon.