Samantha Touchais - After 20+ Years I Decided That I Wanted A Different Balance In My Life, Including Looking After My Young Children (Motivation Speaker, France)

 

The key difference between an average talk and a life-changing one is not just about the words you use or the stories you tell, it is about the feelings you evoke in your audience. So really be clear on how you want to leave the audience feeling when you are finished.

1. Tell us more about what you do and what led you to speak on this platform.

I am a Business and Mindset coach for women. I started my career working for global consumer companies in marketing, and thanks to this career have lived and worked all over the world.

However, after 20+ years I decided that I wanted a different balance in my life, including looking after my young children.

Through a series of challenges and personal tragedies, I discovered the power of the mind and decided to study mindset as I believe it is such a powerful tool that we can all tap into.

In addition to my university degree I gained my masters certification in neuro-linguistic programming as well as certification in mindfulness.

I now help aspiring female entrepreneurs launch their own businesses, and also help women who have already started their own business but are not yet seeing the traction or results that they want. 

Wee work on creating the right vision for their business, understanding what drives them, we set up strong business foundations and create and achieve goals that bring them enormous success.

2. How do you chose and prepare for a talk?

The first thing I do when preparing to give a talk or presentation, is to think about the audience in terms of their needs and the feeling I would like to leave them with.

The points I consider are:

1. how knowledgeable are they about the subject I’m going to talk about?
2. why are they here to hear me speak?

But the key difference between an average talk and a life-changing one is not just about the words you use or the stories you tell, it is about the feelings you evoke in your audience. So really be clear on how you want to leave the audience feeling when you are finished.

Next I get more technical in my preparation and think about how long I have, do I need to allow time for questions, and how invested in my talk the audience is. That will determine the flow of the talk.

Finally, it is all about preparation. As I have been speaking to large audiences for many years now my preparation is perhaps different to someone who is new to this. But preparation is where the confidence comes from, so it is not a step to miss.

3. How can one become a public speaker?

I believe anyone can be a public speaker, but if one is inexperienced it never hurts to get some professional help.

Start small and work your way up to bigger speaking engagements. What opportunities are you currently surrounded by to practice your speaking skills? Can you use live opportunities on social media to get comfortable with thinking on your feet?

The best piece of advice I can give is to film yourself doing a practice presentation. It may be uncomfortable to watch back but you will learn a lot about how you come across to your audience.

Watching professional presenters and speakers on the Internet can also help as you can learn from how they hold themselves and how they speak to their audience.

4. Where does your inspiration lie?

I find inspiration all around me. I am always looking for wisdom to share with others and so my brain is alert to any experiences or learning opportunities that I can then share on my various platforms.

I read a lot of books, particularly personal development books, and I am always interested in the latest neuroscience. This provides a lot of material as well as new points of view I can share with others. 

5. Which is your favourite talk ever and how did it change your life?

I have been inspired by many people and speakers over the years and so did choose one talk that is my favorite it’s a very tough question! But one that really stood out for me, and changed my life in a positive way, is The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown. 

She is such an inspirational speaker and coming from a society where vulnerability is seen as a negative thing, her talk really opened my mind to a new way of thinking.

6. What are the best public speaking tips that have worked for you?

There are three tips I would like to share that have really worked well for me as a public speaker.

The first tip is to practice practice practice. Once I have prepared my presentation, I always do a timed practice run to ensure it fits within the time slot I’ve been allocated. There is nothing worse than a presentation running way over as it always has a knock-on effect on the other presenters and on the audience’s own time.

The second tip is to visualize the outcome you want to achieve. In most circumstances this would be a truly engaged audience who is focused on what you are presenting, is being moved emotionally by what you are saying and who comes away feeling better for having experienced your presentation. 

Imagining this, and playing it over and over again in your mind before you give your presentation is a very powerful technique to build confidence and ensure that your talk goes smoothly.

The third tip is what I call the superman pose, or power pose. This involves standing with legs apart, feet planted firmly on the ground, back straight and hands on hips. Standing like this for two minutes before a potentially stressful situation such as giving a talk or having a job interview, changes the chemical composition in the brain which instantly boosts confidence. 

I always recommend to clients that they go somewhere private, such as a bathroom, and practice this pose as close to the actual event as possible. It may feel strange but it really works!

7. What impact do you want to make in the world?

I am on a mission to help people live more conscious lives. I want to teach and inspire the world to realise that life is a gift and that it is truly what we make of it. 

Our thoughts create our reality and I am now in a very blessed position to teach people how to create the right mindset that will create the life they have always dreamed of for themselves. Anybody can do it, no exceptions.

This has been the basis for all the books I have written, including my latest novel A Lifetime of Goodbyes.

8. Which is your favourite book and why?

I have so many favourite books that it is really hard to choose one. However, a book that really helped me in understanding my own mindset and in the initial days of building my business is called Taming Tigers by Jim Lawless. 

He is a great storyteller and uses a unique way to teach his readers to do things they never thought they could.

- Samantha Touchais

- LinkedIn: Samantha Touchais

- Instagram: Samantha Touchais

- Interviewed By Kusum Jha