\u201cI have definitely experienced lots of nerves all the way through, right up until very, very recently. I would say in the last five years, MCing an event still wound me up. <\/p>\n
\u200a\u201dYour confidence isn\u2019t the same on any given day,\u201d Street says. \u201cSome days you feel like you can take on the world and nothing will crush your confidence. And other days, for no explicit reason, you\u2019re anxious and it\u2019s really hard to shake that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Street says hosting the New Zealander of the Year event is a good example of that confidence rollercoaster ride. <\/p>\n
\u200a\u201cSome years I\u2019ve felt really good about it, and other years it scared me again \u2026 I\u2019ve been doing it for years, and I still have those moments. Imagine what it\u2019s like for the person that didn\u2019t like it in the first place, hasn\u2019t chosen it as a career.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was during a period when Street had a number of MC gigs in quick succession that she discovered what she believes to be the secret to building confidence. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe first job that I said yes to, I felt really nervous about it because I hadn\u2019t done it for a while. Then I did it, and then I had to do it again a couple of weeks later, and then a couple of weeks later, and I realised I just hadn\u2019t exercised the muscle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that you actually have to keep working at, and then it makes it way less terrifying and way more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
After realising what she needed to do to combat her nerves, Street felt compelled to share her experience with others. <\/p>\n
That led to the launch of Street\u2019s latest venture, Confident Communication, an online course designed to help participants improve their confidence around public speaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think about it, how many people have to do this? They have to do it all the time, in all walks of life, in every job. And I just, I\u2019m actually shocked at the lack of help people get in that space,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Along with being intentional about taking public speaking opportunities, Street suggests dialling down the pressure to be perfect. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you give yourself permission to just connect and just speak conversationally, and you don\u2019t have to be this perfect speaker … it\u2019s actually okay to make a few mistakes and the world\u2019s not going to end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we speak on the radio, when we speak on the telly, nothing is ever perfect, but no one cares. It\u2019s just, \u2018did they connect with me or not? Did they make me feel something?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen to the full episode of The Little Things<\/a> for more from Toni Street on:<\/p>\n How changing the way you think about public speaking can change how you perform Why putting yourself out there can lead to opportunities you never expected What she has learned coaching everyone from Black Ferns to financial advisers<\/p>\n The Little Things is available on iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. The series is hosted by broadcaster Francesca Rudkin and health researcher Louise Ayrey. New episodes are available every second Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI have definitely experienced lots of nerves all the way through, right up until very, very recently. I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1665,16717,4611,156,2082,75115,685,6093,130,111,139,69,3109,17426,49954,5412,86844,223,4468,6035,49953,4524,197],"class_list":["post-583534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-advice","tag-becoming","tag-confident","tag-entertainment","tag-for","tag-hear","tag-last","tag-little","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-public","tag-speaker","tag-speaking","tag-streets","tag-terrifies","tag-the","tag-thing","tag-things","tag-toni","tag-want","tag-you"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}