Claire was voted Judges Choice and People’s Choice award winner at our 11th Gala Finale.
How did she do it? By ‘bringing out the naughty pixie’.
Claire (as you’ll see from her talk) described herself as ‘not perfect enough to be a perfectionist’ and this was certainly true of her public speaking. She, like so many of us who really are perfectionists, do all our homework and tell ourselves it’s rubbish. We get up and impress everyone, but sit down and do nothing but criticise ourselves. We kick the fun out of it all, because we’re just not doing it well enough.
Something magical happened to Claire when, a week before this talk, she stepped up to speak at London’s famous Speakers Corner, where anyone can say anything. On a step ladder. Rather than trying to do it right, Claire thought her topic up only a few moments before getting up to speak and used her brilliant humour to convince the audience of general public (and nutters) that all parents-to-be should have a license. What came out there was a revelation!`
That humour + public speaking + Claire really was a winning combination.
Later we labelled this tendency the ‘naughty pixie’ and affirmed in Claire how engaging it is when she speaks from that place.
Spurred from her Speakers Corner victory, Claire brought all of her spice and pixieness to the stage andwell and truly won us over with her ‘grab-it-by-the-balls’ approach. What confidence and presence; even when things went a bit wrong, they only added to her message.
Best bits: We particularly enjoyed her repetition of ‘perfectionist’, mixed with vivid scenes like ‘pushing out one more email as I was pushing out my baby’.and I still thought I wasn’t perfect enough to be a pe
Classic stuff, well done Claire!
