Tuesday 24th March 2009 was a special and a great day for me. I was invited as a guest speaker to speak to a group of 35 aspiring entrepreneurs. This meet up is organized by EPTF under their Youth Enterprise Development Programme. The 2 week training programme is aimed at giving formal training in entrepreneurship. Our education system 8-4-4 here in Kenya focuses too much on churning graduates for employment. The emphasis is churning graduates and passing exams. Students do not gain much in life skills. This training is facilitated by individuals who are already running their businesses. I was one of the select facilitators. You will never guess the title for my session- Success Case Study!
I remember the 2 weeks in October 2005 when I was a student in one of these classes. I never knew that one day I would come back to this forum as a teacher…..ok, truth be told, my ambitious self aspired to be like one of those entrepreneurs. It was just after my University degree and I wanted to go into business. A friend of mine suggested that I attend this training for my own good! Thank you Jesee!
Now it’s 2009 and I am in this class to present myself as a case study. I made a resolution when I received the invitation for the training. I was not going to make notes for the class or to myself. If there was any story to be told, I should be able to march into the class, assess the students and tell my story in the most natural way, without referring to some cryptic notes and forcing the students to write notes they will not read.
The timing was not good. I was slotted for the afternoon session starting at 2pm. The likelihood of having the class doze on me was very high. But in retrospect, I think I did better than I expected. I remember seeing one of the students waving a placard from behind to tell me that I had exceeded my time by 20 minutes. And no one slept for 2 hours and 20minutes as I had feared before.
Anyway, I told the story of Digital Vision and the road we have travelled to where we are , the painful but important lessons we had learnt, the goofs we had made, the risks we took and the exciting race ahead of us.
After the presentation, I am now rethinking the herd mentality of preparing slides and notes for a session like this. Why would you not tell your story and instead opt to bore people with theory of how to run a business? I guess that is why I would have needed notes, if I opted to tell the “success secrets” instead of telling it as it is-matter of fact style
In a nutshell, this is what happened. I arrived at 2.31pm, (the class was assembling after the lunch break and yes, I was late, but I am working on this), after formal introductions by Diane, I never went straight to give ‘my lecture’, but rather I engaged the class to find out exactly who was in business and who was just about to start a business. I also asked the class about their reasons for starting a business. The common reasons given by would be entrepreneurs eg pursuing a passion, wealth creation, independence etc. But there were also other reasons eg “I don’t like working for a boss” “I don’t like someone being in control of my time” etc were also cited. I then gave the story of my company illustrating this with several learning points eg clarity of vision, goal setting, action orientation and getting started.
Since I realized most of the students in this class were just about to make a big step in their lives like starting a business, I emphasized the need for them to really get started from where they are and make small steps towards achieving their business. I also insisted on the need to plan and visualize about their ideal business. In short, just get going!!! Like Guy Kawasaki would say.
When making the presentation, time stopped. I was so engrossed in talking with the students that I suspect I enjoyed the talk better than some of my listeners. I was lost in that moment. Its been a long time since I experienced something as beautiful as this, what one of my favourite authors, Brian tracy refers to as the flow. You can also read about it from Steve Pavlinas Blog on how you can learn to enter the flow state
I am not a successful public speaker YET, but I think one of the most important things a speaker can do is to read the mood of the audience and then align your talk to that. That way, your message is going to resonate better with your listeners. This is not a prescription I am giving you, but more of a note to self.
I have to admit that I am still perplexed and a bit flattered by the title of my talk- success case study. However, I realize that maybe it is a act of faith from others professing that they have faith in what we are doing as a company. I know we are still far off from our eventual goal to be a products based company but we are getting there sooner than I think…..
I’ll see you at the top!
To our success!