Last Saturday, I got invited to share my entrepreneurship journey with the strong 300 crowd of MBA students from PBS. I thought it'd be a good idea to pen down the entire process, after all it's my virgin experience to talk in such a huge crowd, and I strongly believe that this is one of the many to come.
When I first gotten a cold mail invitation from Dr Brian, I thought it's a scam, really! Then he called my shop number. "Hi, is this Tai Hau?"
The conversation brought us to a short meet up. We met at Cosan few days later. I was then briefed about the event, and why I was invited.
After the meeting, I went on to draft my script. It's super duper hard to come out with some informative and credible speech. I adopted the 7 steps method learnt from Steve, and eventually came out with something presentable.
I was initially stuck with the concept of Human Governance but after talking with few other mastermind members, it seems like everything I do in Pott Glasses embodies the conscience element. Especially for the One For One campaign, human governance plays a major part.
And so I practiced and practiced. I really wanted to nail it. If I were one of the crowd, spending my Saturday to listen to talk and sharing, I'd expect nothing less than a perfect sharing. Indirectly I'm giving myself a lot of pressure. I remembered a story from a TED speaker where she practiced the speech for more than 30 times. That's the kind of commitment and responsibility one should have should one be given a chance to speak on stage.
Final rehearsal was to present in front of 7 mastermind member : Steve, Ryan, Carol, Dr Sam, Artus, Sky and Anne. I gave myself 8 out of 10 and glad to receive good feedback.
That last rehearsal
On the day itself, I woke up pretty early to have breakfast. I don't know if I'm fortunate to sit in the earlier session of the talk (CEO of Kenaga was speaking in the first session) or unfortunate. It's good to meet and chit chat with other speakers, Alex from WordMatters and Amir from AisKosong app.
Time flew, but at the same time it's feel kinda slower than snail (you see when you're nervous you lose conscious). Eventually we were invited to up to stage.
"We have Tai Hau from Pott Glasses...."
Couldn't remember how Dr Brian introduced me, all I was thinking was whether I want to sit or stand, how to look at the crowd, how to ask my 2 questions.
Then I got the mic. Being the first one to speak gave me some advantages. I got their full attention. And slowly, I relied less on my notes. Of course I missed out some points, but I guessed in earned the stage in return. Things got pretty smooth. It all ended with great ovation. Q&A session was more interesting. Everything was unexpected.
One of the question : how do you compete with big player?
If I haven't read the book blue ocean strategy, I think I wouldn't know how to put it in words. Thankfully I've read it, studied and applied the strategies.
"In blue ocean strategy, we talked about profiling, analyse how other companies do and pull down some points for our company at the same time provide other values ..."
And that was pretty awesome too!
They served us very nice nasi briani and that concluded my virgin stage sharing experience.
I give myself 9 out of 10. Being comfortable and knowing what you're talking on stage is very important. You really don't want to rush through everything for the sake of finishing the "prepared" speech. What's more important is to engage the crowd from time to time, putting more emotions and make them stay curious. More room to improve.
I'm very grateful to have a chance to speak and Dr Brian, if you're reading this, thank you for inviting me, once again.
Till the next one.
From the left : Dr Brian, Alexandra, Amir
In action!
In action!
After all this is the selfie era :)
