How I landed my first Keynote Presentation | The Entire Process

Intro hi everyone my name is Chelsea I'm the host of The Becoming so podcast I'm a coach empowerment coach personal growth coach and I am also a public servant in the government sector I have this channel because I really like to share real and authentic stories and anything authenticity anything about honesty those are the things that I value and I want to start sharing a little bit more about who who I am like more things about me and besides the podcast I also would like to do different types of YouTube videos to share different things with you all so thank you for being here thank you for being on this journey if you Vibe with my energy Vibe with my podcast make sure to like And subscribe and let's get into today's topic so I figured this topic is pretty timely because I just did a keynote presentation or some might say like keynote speech keynote talk however you like to word it I went to Mountain View California and I just want to break it down like I guess after reflecting I think it's been about a month now um actually today is officially one month that's crazy um okay so after being about a month of having this keynote talk and doing like the prep work and honestly like talking myself into it I just want to talk about the process of what it looks like when you first get your you get your first keynote speech and I want to talk about how I got it I want to talk about what that prep process was and also what it looked like while I was there in the environment and then I'll also talk about the reflection afterwards how I got this How I Got the Keynote at Take Charge Lean In Latinas Conference keynote um opportunity is I saw that Lan in Latinas which is an organization nonprofit that is dedicated to advancing the work of women of color and Latinas in the workforce and they do that through networking workshops and community and one of their big things is also just really advocating for pay Equity so Leen in Latinas is an organization that I have known about for actually a few years but I never really took the time to look into it and in December of last year I added the founder Anna who actually was featured on one of my podcast episodes Anna delloo she's the founder of Le and Latinas and I connected with her last year in December and I looked back at my messages and she actually reached out to me just like hi I'd love to connect so we message each other other on LinkedIn scheduled some time to just speak and it was just such a beautiful energy she was just so great to talk to so easy to speak to and the conversation and energy just flowed so after that conversation she invited me to be on the LinkedIn kind of like podcast audio podcast so that was like networking so I like networked with her she invited me to be on her podcast and then I found out that Len and Latinas was having conference and they were looking for speakers and looking for panelists I decided to just shoot my shots so I was like you know I've never given a keynote or I've never been a panelist I've never really like done something at a conference I've done different types of speaking engagements but this would have been like a a bigger opportunity like a big conference with over 200 women all the way on the west coast so I just shot my shot I just put my application out there and um I think a few months later I get a call and when I put in my application I don't believe that I applied to be a keynote speaker I mean no but I get a call and I was told that I was going to be the keynote speaker the closing keynote speaker y'all I was so shocked because I had been like I have been going through a lot of different changes and transitions in my life right now so it was kind of like the the best news and the only great news that I've had in such a long time um but that's how I got my first keynote opportunity is shooting my shot applying networking and connecting with people I felt a little bit of imposter syndrome I will say um so some of the things that came up for me was just like can I do this is this real um do I have the capability all the things right but I was like you know what I'm going to do it I'm accepting it and I'm going to just do the damn thing so I ended up saying yes I will be the closing keynote speaker and I'm going to talk more now about what that process was like to prepare a speech prepare talking points a presentation and what process I went through to make sure I had all of that in order to be able to speak in front of 200 people okay so the prepping process The Preparation Process for My First Keynote so I think the first thing I did was really try to understand my audience as best as possible of course it's Len and Latina so it's a Latina conference predominantly mostly Latinas would be going here so making my speech relatable but also authentic to who I am and I think it took a lot of a balance of being able to speak about my journey but then being able to relate to the audience and being able to relate who was there in front of me I wrote about I'll say like five to six different drafts before I actually finalized something and I started my process was just the first thing I did was I didn't write anything down because I realized that I was struggling to actually write something down I was like I don't know what I want to say what is this going to look like so the first thing I did was I just put my um I just got my phone and hung it up not hung up I got my phone and put it on a tripod and click Start and I recorded myself I was like I'm just going to record and pretend like I am on stage saying hello welcoming myself like welcoming the group and that they've welcomed me on stage and just really Envision what that looked like so that's how I started I just recorded myself and said whatever came out of my mouth and even if I messed up stumbled over my words I just wanted something so that's my first thing that I did was randomly record myself with nothing written down so after I did that honestly I like a day later day or two I just let the video sit then I watched the video and I took some notes on the things that I said that stood out to me in that moment because for me I I guess obviously I have a YouTube and a podcast I like to talk a lot and sometimes I don't even know like what I'm saying I just speak so it was really helpful to see myself just speak um in the moment so I just spoke in the moment and I really just I took some notes I really liked what I said and then after that I went ahead and started drafting my speech and like what I did is I drafted it into about like four sections uh so like beginning like intro and remarks then um kind of like an introduction of like myself and then um kind of like that body piece and then a closing so that's how I organized it and the material that like went in those sections took some time I mean I started with bullet points then I actually wrote every single thing out or typed everything out of like what I will say just like hello my name is Chelsea and you know thank you so much for being here like just having all the words there so that way I could actually practice it and I wasn't the goal wasn't to memorize every single thing the goal was to have like a flow in mind and once I did that I was able to create my PowerPoint or you know canva presentation um or slide deck however you call it on um yeah I was able to create that and with creating that it helped guide my speech so I was able to look at my PowerPoint presentation and then also like read my speech while I was doing it so I in my brain could relate the different sections of what I was saying based off of that PowerPoint so that helped me have like a two visuals in front of me um so that was like the prep process and honestly just repetition over and over over and if I said anything brand new while I said it I just allowed it to be and if I had forgotten something I also allowed it to be and then just practice that again and then try to add it again um so it's just like repetition and really um yeah and then also having other people look at it so I had one of like my closest friends and I sat down and like read through it and I told her some of my ideas and she gave me some ideas so helping me you know do that and then also um connecting with the conference coordinators to make sure that I was actually speaking in a way that would be relatable to their actual audience because the Coordinator would know what the audience would expect and want so those are some of the things that happened behind the scenes before I could actually give the keynote so now I'm going to talk about what the prep looked like actually before getting on stage and like really saying the keynote presentation some of the things that I did to ground myself and prepare to give my remarks to give my remarks I think Pre-Speech Rituals and Mindset there's just a grounding piece for me I try to be as Zen as possible uh because I do have like anxiety like any other most people I guess um but I'm a very anxious person so I knew that I needed to to ground myself in nature ground myself in quiet and Stillness and prayer so the day before I actually did my Kino I spent about like 5 hours sitting in the grass under a tree honestly doing not doing much just like zening out listening to the wind listening to like conversations like being hyper aware of my surroundings and um just getting to a space where I truly was like okay I believe in myself I can do this and really affirming that I was I was going to kill it I was this was great this is what I was made for and that 5 hours was so special like it really helped me feel less anxious less nervous and I practiced as well while I was out there in a Zen setting so I found like correlating myself being in a Zen calm situation and practicing my um my talk really really helped while I actually gave it because all of that energy flowed together and another thing that I did was go to sleep early um drink a lot of water the night before hydrate myself um I did a face mask I just did a lot of self-care um and I tried to avoid as much social media as possible just so I could you know just be really present with myself and avoid any uh just external energies um so yeah so you know before you give a talk just like make sure you truly truly Zen and relax your nervous system I did breathing exercises everything then the morning of my actual talk I made sure to eat something I made sure to wake up early give myself plenty of time to do my makeup listen to music Vibe out I didn't look at my speech much I think I looked at it like once or twice and I just kept doing affirmations in the mirror while I was doing my makeup I got this I'm going to do so great I'm a keynote speaker I'm the closing keynote speaker at the lean in Latinas conference I have positive energy My Vibe is going to attract attract positive energy just like saying all the things um I'm not exactly sure what I said but I said all the things that I could in that moment and then I felt ready I felt ready and right before about maybe 30 minutes before I actually got on stage I did step outside one last time to just collect myself and relax and breathe and I did a 10minute uh meditation so I put my headphones in closed my eyes sat in the Sun and just grounded and I was like okay you know at this point I've practiced what I've practiced maybe I could have practiced more maybe I practiced too much at at this point you know there's no you're at that point you just got to do it so I just felt really ready and I did it then I got on stage and I felt so comfortable I felt like I felt really comfortable to just look at people in the eyes and see people's facial expressions and like look around I felt very confident and calm because I had done all the prep work had done so much before then and I I think that is what really really paid off um but now I'm going to talk about kind of like the aftermath and like reflection process after I gave my keyote speech and what types of things came up for me after I gave this this Decompressing After the Presentation, reflections and final thoughts Beech and like time went by like that same day what I did was I just chilled like I was like you know what I did it I feel good and I um got myself some good food I took a nice walk I um yeah I just didn't really do much I just like really enjoyed myself and I was just uh really happy how it came out and I didn't immediately go and watch the video to see how I did that I had someone to record um because I knew I immediately Fallen to judgment and I was like I'm not going to judge myself after I just did that like what what what type of thing am I like really U do what type of like I'm not going to go and watch this video right after what kind of love is that for myself to just be hypercritical like in that moment you're going to be hypercritical so don't ever do that the next day I went to the pool and like chilled out and relaxed had brunch with a friend and took care of myself and it wasn't until I will say like a week later that I actually sat and dissected and watched the video I mean mind you it took some time for um me to get the the video but it actually worked out because I was able to reflect a week like a week week a week and a half later and actually watched the video and some of the things that I did was I did I will say take notes on things that I thought I did really well and some of the things that I thought okay I'd like to improve for the next time because it was my first keynote I've never done this before and you are only going to get better you know as you go and I know that that's what's going to happen so I think that really helped me uh see the gaps and places that I wanted to grow in as a speaker and um how I wanted to convey my message in a better way but yeah I think those are those are the main that's like kind of like the whole process of getting the keynote preparing a keynote like some of the things I did um what I did right before I gave the keynote and then the aftermath kind of like decompressing and reflecting after uh the keynote presentation so I hope this helps you um maybe you are going to have a keynote speech sometime or this is something that you are preparing I can go into like deeper details of how I did it but I think this was my first one so this is as much information that I have on what that looks like and um yeah I hope this really helps someone out there if you're going to be a keynote speak speaker for the first time just remember it's your first time give yourself Grace you got this and you'll only get better from here so thank you if this is helpful to you again like subscribe and also you could find my podcast on Apple on Spotify um and also here on YouTube as well [Music]