A week ago, I was fortunate enough to be invited to be a guest on Empowered 4x’s Bizgrams podcast. Through the referral of Crystal, our friend and the Founder of LIOHAN Inc, we were introduced to Chris-Beth Cowie, the founder of Empowered 4x. Empowered 4x is a business centre located in Brampton, Ontario, that helps create spaces to enable entrepreneurs to be top performance leaders and exponentially amplify the difference they can make. They aspire to make the business landscape equitable, so they will help build capacity as a business owner by providing access to training, resources, mentors, networks and funding opportunities.
Honestly, I have to admit; I was skeptical about being on a live show. I wondered what part of our startup Tenatch or I, could contribute to a podcast like Bizgrams. Nevertheless, I still entered the live call. Being on Bizgrams live interview made this opportunity my first time to be on a live platform to talk about my entrepreneurial journey with Tenatch. I entered the video call nervous because I had never been on a live call; with a short 15 minute warm-up before going live, I was worried whether it would all go according to plan. I think Chris-Beth could tell I was a bit nervous; therefore, she calmed me down and told me to treat it like a chat. Moreover, she said that there was nothing to worry about since I would be talking about my passion. Even though I gave the topic that we would be talking about, I was still nervous – nervous I may not be able to present myself and Tenatch most effectively.
It turns out I was overthinking as it ended up exactly like what Chris-Beth had said – a chat (She’s right!!!). As I talked about my reasoning and love of launching Tenatch, the anxiousness disappeared. Moreover, Chris-Beth is a fantastic interviewer; she was able to answer my questions and come up with questions that could make me expand on my discussion points even further. I honestly forgot that I was in a live video call. I was so into my passion for connecting urban resilience, sustainable urban development, and Tenatch I felt like I even ended up talking more than I should have.
II have this theory of presentation where I never memorize a set script because I believe memorizing a set script would make the display too structured and therefore less genuine. This is not to say I go into a presentation with nothing prepared, as this would result in an unstructured presentation all over the place. The audience could definitely tell if the speaker did their homework and prepared for the presentation. Since the audience respected the speaker by being present, the presenter will also need to do their homework and come prepared as a way to show respect to the audience. That being said, because I never have a set script, I have this other funny theory about how much I remember after the presentation. The more details I remember about the presentation, the less likely the presentation went well. Because if I remember specific details after the presentation, it means that something significant happened during that moment in time.
I do remember certain details about the live interview that could have been done better including more pauses and less filler word I remember specific details about the live interview that could have been better, including more pauses and fewer filler words such as “like” and “uhms”. Other than that I honestly do not remember much about what I said in the live call. I had to go back and look at where I could improve for future interviews.
Live Interview could be found here