It’s been a minute.. But I am back with one of my favourite activities, reading and writing about reading.

How to Own the room: Women and the art of public speaking by Viv Groskop has been on my bookshelf for a couple of months and decided to add it to November reading list as it’s not too bulky.

It was a book filled with really practical tips on how to be present and carry an audience along when speaking. I really liked the relatability of the scenarios presented.

The author highlights that public speaking is not just about giving once in a lifetime speeches or TED talks and tries to help readers see that public speaking is not something meant for “just a few talented ones”.

She acknowledges that we are not all going to be in front of the biggest stages but shares ideas that anyone can adapt to whatever ‘stage’ they have to speak on. From presenting in a work meeting,facilitating a panel, giving a vote of thanks at a wedding,the book contains really actionable tips to help conquer the irrational fear most people have about speaking in front of other people.

It is a book written for women but the practical tips and exercises at the end of each chapter would really benefit anyone.The book is divided into 11 chapters with 8 of them highlighting the very different public speaking styles of women like Michelle Obama,Chinamanda Ngozi Adichie,Oprah Winfrey Susan Cain, Angela Merkel,Joan Rivers, Christine Lagarde, Emma Watson ,Virginia Woolf etc .

The author gives an analysis of their speaking styles and how we can all adapt or refine our speaking styles based on personality, context or ideas we are presenting. The author illlustrates with her character study that there are powerful speakers out there in every personality type. She successfully shows that introversion is not a good enough reason to avoid public speaking.

I particularly loved the conversational style of writing and reading it felt like listening to a good friend or coach giving you advice and sometimes telling you off for not believing in yourself.

Some of my favourite quotes and ideas that really resonated were the headers of the sections that the chapters were divided into. These are just a few of them;

Your imperfect presence is enough– To own the room does not mean you need to blow everyone away with your charisma and greatness. It means that, instead of being overwhelmed by the speech and trying to mould yourself into something you are not, you find ways of being yourself and making the speech fit around you even if you are a quiet modest person.

The more complex your ideas,the slower your speech– As a rule, going more slowly than you think you need to is a good idea. Those who pause naturally 3.5 times per minute,are the most successful at influencing their audience.

Take an attitude towards criticism:either embrace it or ignore it

You don’t have to be a great speaker to give an amazing speech

It’s ok to speak from notes

Show us what we have in common with you

Holding back can be just as powerful as holding forth

Be prepared to get it wrong

It is not really a book geared to the content or what makes a great speech but more geared to the how to make a great speech.
As the author herself states It is a book about how to be powerful in your speaking

It was a really great read and is one I would recommend to anyone (women especially)who is uncomfortable with the idea of public speaking and is looking for helpful tips on how to become confident in speaking to an audience of any size.

As usual thank you so much for reading.

Oyindamola

My Christian faith is a vital part of who I am and hope to be. It is the anchor of my convictions and values. Which is why Every Good Endeavour by Timothy Keller was such an amazing read for me.

We are often faced with varying thoughts when it comes to work with one of the biggest questions being How can I find fulfilment in my work?

The author tries to tackle this and a lot of other issues from the perspective of the Christian faith. He explores the contradictions and emotions that work brings up in most christains.The book gives helpful ideas from the Bible on the mindset a christian should have towards their work.The author takes a very balanced approach on how we should approach work and even how we should relate to non-christians in the marketplace.

Please see below some of my favourite quotes from the book;

Work is not all there is to life. You will not have a meaningful life without work, but you cannot say that your work is the meaning of your life.

Work is an important part of life and the author addresses and gives biblical perspective on why we would want to work. He draws on the book of Genesis, where’s Gods creative design of the earth can be seen as a form of work. This is what God set up as an ideal for people to aspire to.

Work was therefore not something done out of necessity, but something to contributing to the world and the good of others.

At the same time, he notes that it is important that work is not seen as the only meaning of life but a means to glorify God and serve others.

There may be no better way to love your neighbor, whether you are writing parking tickets, software, or books, than to simply do your work. But only skillful, competent work will do.

Dorothy Sayers writes, The church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him to not be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.

The two quotes above highlight a point which author emphasises in the book.

Faith should influence how a Christian works which means the pursuit of excellence is paramount. The author highlights that the original design of God for work was for it to be a calling.He states that the way we approach our work can be a form of worship regardless of the kind of work we do. If we view through this lens it makes it easier to put in our best and serve others to the best of our ability.

It means that all jobs—not merely so-called “helping professions”—are fundamentally ways of loving your neighbor. Christians do not have to do direct ministry or nonprofit charitable work in order to love others through their jobs

Your daily work is ultimately an act of worship to the God who called and equipped you to do it—no matter what kind of work it is. In the liner notes to his masterpiece A Love Supreme, John Coltrane says it beautifully: This album is a humble offering to Him. An attempt to say “THANK YOU GOD” through our work, even as we do in our hearts and with our tongues. May He help and strengthen all men in every good endeavour.

There seems to be an assumption by most Christians that ‘ministry’ or certain types of altruistic work are the only ones that matter to God.He goes into a lot of historical context into why and how this mindset became pervasive in the church. The author gives us a different framework to allowing the Christian worldview shape how and why we do our work regardless of what sort of work we do.

These are just a few of the other 180 highlights and notes I made as I read through. There is so much to unpack in this book as it relates to faith and work that I don’t think this one book review can do justice to.I found another article that summarises the book quite well. The article gives you a bit more detail but I really do think this is a book that should be read to get a full and broader context for the subject matter.

This is the first book Kindle book I have finished in a long while and this is testament to how much I really enjoyed the content as I am very much a hard copy book girl.It was a really great read and is a book that I would highly recommend to any Christian who has ever wondered about the intersection of work and faith.

***please note that the link above is an affiliate link that earns me a small commission at no extra cost to you***

Thank you so much for reading. I would love to hear from you if you have read the book or plan to so let’s chat in the comments.

Have a lovely Saturday and weekend.

Much love

Oyindamola

I will start by saying that I really loved this book. It is a really insightful book on what it means to build a personal brand. Practical,no fluff and packed with a lot of tools that anyone can use in building a strong and effective personal brand.

I loved the fact that the author approached branding not just from a business/entrepreneurial perspective. The book outlined ideas anyone can apply to connecting with a diverse audience at work or in life. It was a book that did not just roll out a plethora of cliches but gave really helpful ideas and tools to actually begin the process. There was an activity at the end of every chapter and if you did every activity as you read along, you would have a workable plan by the time you got the end of the book.

I also loved how how the author used her story and those of others in crafting what it entails to be a personal brand that is both loved and reviled. She used examples of brands or people that we all know and those less well known .I have always been wary of the word ‘building a brand’ as it always felt so phoney or disingenuous.

This book helped me see past that reticence as the author explains that a personal brand is less about building a persona but more about an emotional connection with a target audience.

In some ways we all have a target audience.Whether it’s a tribe of people who need your business or service, getting an organisation to see the value you can add to the organisation, or getting funding for your non profit we all have an audience that we need to appeal to and as such a brand that they can relate to.

Books in this genre tend to either over complicate the subject matter by using technical jargon or relying too much on anecdotes with little substance but this book manages to do both without going to the extremes. The author breaks down the process of building a personal brand into eight pillars which were;

1.Decision
2.Vision
3.Clarity
4.Strategy
5.Tactics
6.Metrics
7.Ownership
8.Be unapologetic

Sections 1,2,3,& 8 were mostly aimed at the mindset and reasons why you want to build a personal brand.Sections 4,5,6 go into a lot of branding frameworks and give you the tools required to build a brand both at a personal and organisational level.

There were so many quotes I loved but I particularly resonated with this quote from the section called –Own your truth.

Try to see your personal brand success as a contribution to making others happy.Or try to see how what you do adds value to someone else or something else. We have all been put here for a reason and it’s not just to make money or have a nice house or pay our bills on time or create extreme wealth. Yes those things are lovely and in some cases very necessary but we are here for so much more than that. Your talents,your gifts,character personality are in you for more than just you. Believe it or not you have been uniquely designed to help solve a unique problem in the world.You haven’t been created just for you,you have been created for others to enjoy what you bring. It might sound super corny but the world actually needs what you have. Your world and those in your world really need what you have,to show up without apology.The darkness all around us needs your unique light. When you switch on your torch,your light creates a way for others to see. Yes it might well be scary knowing that there are others dependent on your win but it also very rewarding when it happens.”

Page 21

In the section called –Branding is like dating she states that an effective personal brand is an authentic expression of the individual and a personification of who they really are

Another quote I loved in this section was;

Your why is is therefore the most important part of building an effective personal brand. Without knowing your ‘why’ you are left with nothing more than your capabilities and skills. There are too many people that share the same capabilities and skills as you,so it’s the who you are,not the what you are that matters.

Page 77

I also particularly loved the 12 brand archetypes she described in the section called – Your difference is your strength.The 12 brand archetypes defined in the book are;

1.The Sage 2.The Innocent 3. The Explorer 4. The Ruler 5. The Creator 6. The Caregiver 7.The Magician 8.The Hero 9.The Rebel 10.The Lover 11. The Jester 12. The Regular guy or girl

Based on the definitions and the work at the end of the chapter I ended up defining myself as a cross between 1,3,5 and 12.(a lot I know 😀). If you end up buying or reading the book this is one activity you should definitely not miss out on.

You can probably tell that this a book I really enjoyed and it is one that I will definitely be going back to again and again.

I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for some tips and techniques on building an effective brand. Asides from the branding tips there are also lessons that can be learned from the author’s story and interviews by other business leaders.

**please note that the link above is an affiliate link that earns me a small commission at no extra cost to you**

As usual thank you for reading and hope you have a great weekend.

Much love

Oyindamola

One of the things I have really enjoyed in the last few months is catching up with family and friends in person. I know we have had to make do with tech in the last 18 months but the conversations you have with people in the flesh are just richer.

And it’s made me think about deep conversations.

I read an article on cultivating friendships which highlighted that the quality of a conversation is based on the quality of questions posed by those involved.

I think mundane small talk e.g. the weather, cost of children’s school uniforms(don’t get me started on this one ), what is the best air fryer etc are necessary.

My natural inclination though especially when I am with people I care about is to want to go deeper BUT within the boundaries of what they WANT to share.

There is a real delicate balance between wanting to go deep and being nosy. It’s a balance that I really struggle with and one of the reasons why some of my conversations stay superficial as I am a bit cautious about not overstepping other people’s boundaries.

See below a few pointers from the article on asking good questions when you meet up with family and friends;

A good question shows people you care about them and value what they think. It moves conversation deeper in a natural way.
Consider what questions you want to ask someone when you’re on your way to meet them.

Here are several examples:

🔸What are a few themes in your life right now?
🔸What are a few things on your mind these days?
🔸What are you encouraged about recently?
🔸What has been discouraging to you?
🔸How are things going at home (or at work, or at school)?
🔸What are you reading recently, and what has stood out to you from it?

These are just examples and you might need to find a few go-to questions that work for you and then stay curious and keep asking more. Relationships are beautiful when we can share each other’s joys and burdens.

Anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you.

Misty Copeland

Weekends tend to be a time we meet up with people we care about so I hope this helps you in some way to frame or at least engage in deeper conversations. Please also share in the comments any other questions that you think will encourage deeper conversations.

Have a great Saturday and weekend ahead.

Much love

Oyindamola