Public Speaking & Presenting Skills
Learn to hold your own in-person, online, or on stage.
Training for small groups or individuals
In-Person or Remote
Tailored to meet your exact needs
MANAGE NERVES
Throbbing teeth and a panicked mind? Can’t stop talking? Dry mouth? Tunnel vision? Shaky Elvis leg? The list of nervous symptoms goes on and on. The flight or fight response is supposed to be in life or death situations, not when delivering the weekly team update, giving feedback, or answering an email. We can’t eradicate the symptoms, but we can learn to harness nervous energy and work with it, to achieve optimal performance in any setting.
REIGNITE YOUR PASSION FOR PRESENTING
Are you a seasoned pro who has been presenting for years and is tired of delivering the same messages, in the same way, to the same audiences? Learn creative ways to enliven your presentations, practice going off-piste, and handle challenging audiences.
ENGAGE AUDIENCES
“Hello? Is anyone listening?”
When presenting remotely it can feel as though you are speaking into a void. The same can be said for in-person presentations. Audiences are easily distracted by phones, the next meeting, and what they are going to have for dinner.
Read moreAttention is a commodity. As presenters, it is our job to engage our audiences, rather than give them permission to turn off. Learn how to put the audience at the heart of the presentation, so they feel you are offering something uniquely for them. Practice ways of grabbing the attention from the start, tailoring content, and changing the dynamic to re-engage when energy levels begin to drop.
MAKE POWERPOINT WORK FOR YOU
Is PowerPoint helping or hindering your presentations? An audience can read quicker than you can speak. Text-heavy slides turn you into an audio-book narrator and encourage the audience to tune you out.
Read moreLearn how to harness the live experience and work with PowerPoint. Create compelling visuals, emphasise key messages, and direct the audience’s attention to what’s important.
GET BUY-IN
Strategic storytelling can help to get buy-in and inspire others by bridging the divide between the speaker and the listener. Bring complex ideas to life through examples that paint a picture in the audience’s mind. People will not remember what you say, but how you
Read moremake them feel. Create a feedback loop between you and the listener by taking them on an emotional journey.
DEVELOP PRESENCE
What is it that draws our attention to a communicator and compels us to listen? Presence. Some people have it and others don’t, but it can be developed. Presence is the ability to be in the moment, at once aware of what is happening around you, while maintaining a razor-sharp internal focus
Read morethat keeps you grounded and in control of your reactions to external stimuli. Learn techniques to help you stay focused on the here and now, and not be distracted.
STRUCTURE YOUR CONTENT
You are an expert in your field. You know a vast amount of information on a topic. You’d like to share this information with others. Where do you begin?
Before firing up PowerPoint and doing an information dump, consider the audience,
Read moretailoring your content to them, and articulating a memorable central message. Practice using simple frameworks to structure your content in a variety of ways for different audiences.
BUILD CONFIDENCE
Confidence cannot be bestowed on you. It comes through practice and experience. Beyond learning the theory of presenting and public speaking, participants will practice applying tools and techniques that suit their individual style. They’ll also identify a variety of low-stakes opportunities to practice in the real world, such as: speaking up in a
Read moremeeting, delivering the weekly team update, giving a leaving speech, or MC’ing a wedding.
INCREASE THE INFLUENCE OF NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS
Learn tips and techniques for effectively preparing, improving clarity of delivery, and building rapport with English audiences.
10+ Years’ Experience Inspiring Professionals to Become Better Communicators
The Approach
To truly connect with others, we need to be in connection with ourselves.
Hold Your Own offers integrated training programmes that combine breath, voice, bodywork, and improv, with theory, and practical exercises for improving communication with others.
BREATH & VOICE
Breathing. We do it, all the time. And yet, we rarely think about how we are breathing, unless it is obstructed in some way. You will gain insight into how we breathe and how to unravel holding patterns. Practice simple techniques to work with the breath, to improve clarity of communication, to project the voice, and to manage the nervous
Read moresymptoms that arise when we feel under pressure. A relaxed breath and aligned posture can mean the difference between a resonant, well-rounded delivery in the lower register and a high pitched squeak.
Read moreto do something and the worst thing that we can do is to wish the nervous symptoms away, which only serves to exacerbate the heightened stress response. Rather, it is essential that we listen to it, and do something to dissipate the tension that is arising, so that we can manage our nervous energy. Become aware of holding patterns in the body and understand how to release tension from these areas, so that the breath can flow freely, and oxygen can flood the brain. With practice, you’ll soon be able to release tension on command. A well-aligned posture will elevate your mood, improve confidence, and increase focus.
BODYWORK
Our bodies develop holding patterns throughout our lives, that are a reflection of the positions that we repetitively put them into. These patterns can lead to misalignments, tension, and compromise breathing. When we are in stressful situations the body’s physiological response is to increase tension in order to act at a moment’s notice. When our body enters this state of fight flight or freeze, it is telling us
IMPROVISATION
Rigidity and perfectionism can get in the way of our ability to connect with an audience. Improv exercises are not only fun, but they improve flexibility, help you to think on your feet, go off-script, and answer unexpected questions with flair.
Ottillie draws on her expertise in facilitation, public speaking, communication, storytelling, theatre,
breath and body work, to design training programmes that meet people
where they are at and give them the tools to let go of unhelpful patterns, refine their innate abilities,
expand their skill set, and increase confidence.
Services
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Group Training
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One-to-One Skills Training & Pitch Perfect Polishing
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Retreats
In-person and remote options
Hold Your Own is based in Vancouver, Canada and provides in-person trainings across North America and internationally. Increasingly, companies are opting into Hold Your Own’s remote trainings, that allow participants from offices around the world, to safely come together, without the time, effort, and expense, of in-person trainings.