Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Let's Talk Lets, an original podcast from the Lettings Hub. Hello and welcome to the latest episode of our podcast, let's Talk Let. I'm Heidi, the CEO of the Lettings Hub, the tenant referencing business that got good at tech. Let's Talk Lets is our regular roundup of news and views on a whole range of subjects spanning the private rented sector. On today's podcast, I am completely delighted to be joined by Danielle Nash and I think you're all in for a treat because she is a funny lady. She is also the Managing Director of the Property Academy, which is a specialist business improvement and events organisation for the UK housing sector. Danielle was also a keynote speaker at the recent Women in Estate Agency conference, speaking about achieving your true potential. After listening to Danielle's talk at the Women in Estate Agency conference, which was brilliant and as I mentioned, funny, I wanted to invite her on to talk more about public speaking and talk about her experience and for any top tips to get anybody else up on stage. So let's get started. Please introduce yourself and tell our listeners a little bit more about you.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Well, firstly, thank you for inviting me on. It's great to be here and to be able to talk to you about my experience and hopefully share some info that people might find helpful or interesting.
And you can call me Danny because Danielle's my told off by my mum name.
So I'm Dani Nash, I'm MD of Property Academy and I also look after EA Masters, which we are currently in throes of planning for for November. And I'm very lucky in that my job is spending my time doing the things that I like to do myself, which is learning, being better, growing and trying to find out just how far my tiny human mind will stretch once I pack it full of facts.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Excellent. And tell us all about the Property Academy because not everybody will know about it and not everybody will know exactly what you do.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: So Property Academy started in 2009 and it is a business whose primary function is to inspire business owners to be leaders. So we run a series of peer learning groups whereby people who are running estate agencies, lettings agencies and people who are running supplier businesses can get together in their group of 15 other agents or suppliers and talk about all the things that they are concerned about or are challenged by in their business. Because, you know, you all know this. If you're running a business and you're responsible for keeping the lights on, and especially if you don't have a business partner, it can be really lonely. So who do you talk to? And that's what we facilitate. So our members come to six meetings a year. They see a speaker for half a day in the morning and then in the afternoon they work with the chair and the rest of the group to work through any challenges, issues, opportunities they've got and they all help each other. Almost like a board of non execs.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Yeah, the board your company couldn't afford. I think that was kind of a saying actually that someone used the other day actually which is actually really helpful because just by having conversation it just sparks things that you didn't even know would spark something I guess. And I guess you must get great feedback from them in terms of they always look forward to the next session, they really do.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: And then I mean our original member is Richard Powell Freeman and he, he was the first ever member, he was member number one in 2009 and, and he sold Northfields to LRG a couple of years ago and he's now one of our chairs so we managed to keep him, which is great. But we've got people that are members that have been members 10, 15 years and in July we actually get everybody together and we, we run a day and a half conference which is the all member conference and it's everyone all together which is brilliant. And we, we give awards to our 10 year and, and I've just ordered the gifts for this year's event and I think we've got, I think it's 1110 year members this year, which is fantastic. It's really nice.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's a lot of meetings, you know, 10 times 6. I can work that out fairly quickly that they've attended and obviously clearly that they kind of see that, you know, they benefit from that, which is brilliant. So if somebody wants to get involved or someone wants to find out more information, how would they do that?
[00:04:22] Speaker B: The best thing is probably email me. So it's Danielle propertyacademy.co.uk and then we can have a conversation from there. Find me on LinkedIn and connect and we can just have a conversation about what we offer and how we might be able to help.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Brilliant. Okay, excellent. Now as I mentioned in my introduction, you were a speaker as well as doing all of that and you know, getting everybody together all of the time at the Women in a State Agency conference. And you were talking about the power of curiosity and achieving your true potential. Can you share for the benefit of our audience some of the things that you spoke about?
[00:04:58] Speaker B: So absolutely. I talked about my very squiggly career. So I started in a health club I then was a hairdresser. I then went to work for a marketing agency, a telecommunications multinational, and now I work for Property Academy. So that's quite a varied career path. So I talked about that. I talked about how I love learning, I've always loved learning. I loved school and for me it's really important to keep doing that. So I read loads, I consume content and how that kind of attitude and mindset towards being curious about everything has helped me in my career. I talked about the juggling. So what do you do when you know you've got your plan? Because I like a plan and I like a spreadsheet. But what happens when life throws something in your path that you weren't expecting? How do you fall back on your resilience to navigate that and keep going?
So I covered off that as well. I talked about my children, talked about my dad, because again, because it was the Women in Estate Agency conference, I just wanted to kind of bring the men into the picture as well. So it's really important as women that we're all supporting each other, but equally, you know, we've got, we're lucky enough hopefully that we've got a great dad or a great brother or a great son or a great husband or whatever. You know, there's a lot of brilliant men that want to be part of that conversation. So how do we bring them in?
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Yeah, excellent. And did you put yourself forward for the event? Did you get invited to talk? How did it come about?
[00:06:29] Speaker B: So it came about in October last year, so we'd booked my. My little son loves wrestling. So we booked a couple of tickets for him to go and see WWE at Wembley or the O2. And my husband took him and I felt sad for my other son who was on half term, so I said, oh, come on, we're gonna, we'll go on a trip. So we went to Amsterdam for two nights. So we're in the hotel room and Amsterdam with an 11 year old is a little bit different to the Amsterdam trips I've done previously, but nonetheless making memories. And anyway, we're in the hotel room and I get a phone call from Amy Shields. So I picked the phone up and she asked me the question and said, we've just had a committee meeting and we're planning the speakers for Women in State Agency in March. And we'd like you to be part of an hour of Three Women with Vicky Barbieris and Ann Deckers. And we'd like you to be the third one with all three of you talking about your Kind of personal career journey. What do you think? And I just said yes straight away. Yeah, yeah.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: And. And because you really wanted to do it, thought you should do it, felt confident in doing it.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: So a couple of things I thought it was not, it was nice to be asked, so I said yes. If I'm honest, I didn't think about it, I just said yes.
But my default. So part of this whole learning and growing piece is that my default position tends to be yes. Yeah. I then did all the thinking bit after I'd said yes and started to get all hot and panicky, but I was excited. So my default position most of the time is yes.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: And you would say that, I guess you're a positive person and therefore actually, what's the harm in saying yes to things? Giving it a go. I guess that's part of who you are.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it really is. And I just think the more you say yes, the easier it becomes. There's a cumulative effect, I think, to it. So the more you say yes to things, the more you realize it's easier to say yes to things. So therefore you say yes to more things and it becomes whatever the opposite of a vicious circle is, it becomes that.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it just gives you confidence. And actually you kind of go, that was a brilliant experience. And if I hadn't said yes, I would never known that. And I guess that's kind of where some of your speech came from. So did you get to choose exactly what you wanted to talk about and did you kind of have to run it by the committee and practice in front of them, or was it very much kind of, you know, this is the kind of parameters that we want you to talk with them.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Exactly that. So I had a briefing call with Liana and a couple of the others and I got a very high level brief on, you know, we want you to talk for 18 minutes. We want you to talk about your personal journey and your career, and you're going to follow Vicky and Ann and they're going to be doing similar things. But what we want is we want you to talk to the audience about how you've got to, where you've got to.
Okay. And then they let me get on with it.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Okay. Fab. And just mentioning kind of the time timeline there that you did, you had from October to March. So you had a little bit of time, I guess, to think about it in terms of preparing for that kind of big moment on stage. Did you start doing stuff straight away in October or did you kind of go, we'll get Christmas out the way and then we'll kind of. And I'll have a think about it after that. How did it. How did it kind of. What was your kind of process over.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: That six months, I immediately reverted to what I was like when I did my A levels, where I thought, oh, I've got loads of time, I'll do it later. And so I immediately said, yes, thought, oh, do you know what? March is ages. I've got loads of time.
And then all of a sudden it got to kind of Christmas and I thought, oh, bugger, I better get my finger out.
But what was really lucky was in November, I went down to Swansea to Deseres, because they're one of our members.
So they had their supplier group meeting, their partnership group meeting, and the speaker was a guy called Dave Thomas, who I've known for years because he's spoken at Property Academy for years. And it was his session on presentation skills. So I sat there with, you know, people like Simon Whale and Richard Price and Richard Megson and Sam Jones from Moneypenny, all in this room, all learning about these presentation skills. And Dave was brilliant. And I hadn't seen that session. I've seen his other session, but not that one. And I thought, oh, I'm missing a trick here. So I said to him, can I book you and can I come? And I said, you do one to one. He was like, absolutely. So we arranged it and I went up there before Christmas and I had. I spent the day with him at his house in Halifax. And we. We did presenting and we did presenting skills. So at this point, I had no content.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: But he taught me. He spent six or seven hours teaching me how to present. And what was really funny, we worked out that I can walk and use my hands really well, so I can talk and use my hands really well. I can't walk on stage because there's an etiquette to walking on stage. And he was like, you can't do that. Just stand still. Yeah, just stand still and be flowery with your hands. I was like, okay.
So I did that and then I went away and I got Christmas out the way and then I started writing the content and then I booked in another session with him to go up and actually learn it. So the process was. So I spoke to. So I booked in this session with Dave and I went up to his house in Halifax and I spent the day with him. And he was very direct around the physicality and the logistics of presenting, whether to use slides, tone of voice, how to Walk, all that stuff. Then I went away, I wrote it. I spent four hours on a zoom with him, finessing the script, if you like. And then once we felt it was okay, I went back up to his house, spent the day with him and we practiced it. We practiced the 18 minutes over and over again and again, tightened it, changed it, moved it around and then he. Then I came home and I learned it. And it was brilliant, actually, because a friend of ours, one of my school mum friends, her and her husband are actors. So I messaged her with about two weeks to go and I was like, michelle, Michelle, how do you and Ollie learn lines? And she gave me about three or four tips of how her and her husband do it, because they. They're stage actors, so obviously, yeah, you have to know what you can say.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: And she said, record it and listen to it. And she said, also, Ollie always does it before he goes to bed because then when you're asleep, it goes in. So that's what I did. So I read it every night before I went to sleep and I recorded it. So when I went to pick the kids up from school in the car, I had it on Bluetooth. I had it on while I was working, just instead of the radio, trying to absorb it through osmosis.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: And it worked. You know, by the time I came to do it, I knew it.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Wow. Now, Dave seems like my kind of guy in the fact that he was obviously decisive, told you straight what was good and bad. How important was that in that journey? And did that, I guess, give you the confidence when he was giving you the feedback that yet you're on the right lines.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Brilliant.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Kick on, carry on.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: It was massively important. And then, because I've known him for quite a long time, I felt that was really nice because I felt confident. His brutality, if you like. And I said to him, I would rather you tore it apart. And I went on stage and I was great. Than you spare my feelings. And I go on stage and I'm average. I don't want that. And he was like. And he was like, I can't. I'm not going to do the accent. But he's proper Northern. And he just. And he just said, that's not going to happen. Yeah. He said, you know, it's not terrible, it just needs tightening up. And he said, and just don't be afraid. He said, too many people go on stage and they're beige because they're worried about upsetting someone. And he said, as long as you're not deliberately Offensive. He said, it's your story, you can't.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it's yours to own. Yeah, say it as it is.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: And now, obviously a couple of months on, how do you feel now about the experience and would you have changed anything?
[00:14:13] Speaker B: I love the experience. I thought it was brilliant standing backstage listening to Vicky and then Anne thinking, I've got a follow. That was a little bit sweaty, but I know myself and I thought as long as I can walk on and get the first sentence out, then I'll be fine. Yeah, I was. No, I don't think I changed anything. I was pleased with how it went. People laughed in all the right places, which was the key thing.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: And do you think that kind of really then, you know, I guess expressed your personality? Because obviously that's how it felt as being in the audience. I was there, I thought it was just really upbeat, it was so funny and it kind of definitely made it feel really real, which I guess is when you talk about your story, that's got. How it's got to be.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. And thank you. I'm glad, I'm really, really glad you enjoyed it. And I think that's probably what I like the most, is that people came up to me and have come up to me since actually, or messaged me on social and said that they really liked it. And, you know, that's a lovely thing to hear, it's nice. And hopefully if every, if people took one thing from it, then that's great.
So. No, it was great that everyone enjoyed it.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: I guess you're kind of on that, that kind of hamster wheel again. Like, you know, you said yes to something, it was a fairly big challenge and then that went really well and you got some really positive work, so you're going to say yes to the next thing. But there's obviously lots of discussion about the gender balance on panels, industry events, webinars, LinkedIn, etc. Etc. How did it feel knowing that your talk was at the Women in the State Agency Conference and, you know, sitting in a mainly female dominated audience. Do you think your experience or confidence level would have been different if it was at a different event or would you have tackled it exactly the same?
[00:15:56] Speaker B: I'd have tackled it exactly the same because for me I know that if I, if I know I've done the work, then I'm confident. And I think if you've done the work and, and it doesn't work, you know, you couldn't have done anything else, which I think is fine. I think the Key thing at Women in Estate Agency and any industry event, whether it's EA Masters or something like that, if you're. I, you know, I'm very fortunate and I know I knew a lot of people in that room either very well or an acquaintance level or to kind of nod to. And I think the key thing for anybody thinking about doing public speaking is no one is sitting in that audience thinking, I hope she really messes this up. No one is. Everyone wants to be entertained and every. Whatever that entertainment looks like. And everyone just wants you to say something interesting. So that's the first thing. The first thing is no one is sitting there hoping that you mess it up. If anyone is sitting there thinking that, which I would be really surprised about, they're not on stage and you are. So if you're up there doing it, it's not fair of anybody to sneer or be unkind when they're not willing to do it. So that's the other thing. And the third thing is what I came to realize, I wasn't up there doing Hamlet.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: No.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: If I was up there doing To Be or Not To Be and then got to like to Sleep, A Chance to Dream and then drifted off, people in the audience are going to know that I messed it. But I'm telling my story in the same way that Vicky told hers and Anne told hers. And people, if you're telling your own story, people will never know whether you messed it up. If I'd messed mine up, but I knew it really well and I just moved on, no one would have been any the wiser because no one knew what I was going to say. No, 100%, it was all those things that made me feel much more confident in what I was doing. So I think, to answer your question, I don't think it would have been necessarily any different within the industry, whether it was a more male or female audience. I think it might have been different if I'd been in an industry where I didn't know anybody. Because you don't get that warm feeling from the crowd of people that know you and think, oh, come on, Dan, you know, smash it. And I think that perhaps the only difference might have been if it had been a more male audience, was whether or not some of the jokes would have landed and the funny bits. Because if you're sitting there and you are like me and you're in your mid-40s and you've got kids and you're trying to juggle a career, they land because you have that in common. And you can create that connection. Whereas if I was doing it to a predominantly male audience or a predominantly younger audience that perhaps aren't at that stage of their life yet, I think it would have landed differently because you don't have that commonality.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And I thought the actual event, like I've been twice now, so the last two years. And I think the one thing that is really obvious, if that's. That's the wrong word, but really obvious, is how supportive everybody is of each other. There's. And actually how friendly and encouraging, I guess, the audience are because, you know, it is quite raw, some of the content and it is very real and it is very personal. So you've got to kind of feel like in safe hands, I guess.
And in terms of parking the Women in a State Agency conference, have you been kind of involved too much in kind of discussions on are women more fairly represented these days compared to how it was before?
And do. Do you think things are changing?
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I haven't really been involved in any discussion. I mean, Property Academy is all female, apart from Peter, so we are massively overrepresented in our business because we're all women. It's a. It's a big question. I think I can only answer it in terms of my own experience and what I see. And I think it is becoming easier for. I don't think we can ever have it all.
I think that's a myth and I think you're just going to put yourself under massive stress and press if you try and have it all. But for me, the key has always been to do whatever I am doing well at that point. So if I am at work, I try and be at work. If I'm at home with the boys or if I'm at a sports day or a football match, I try and be their mum at that football match or at that sports day. And I think that's the best you can do because I think otherwise you're just going to drive yourself mad. So that's. That's my personal experience. But where I think it's getting easier, you know, I've got two sons and they've grown up with a mum that works full time. So when they go on to have relationships, you know, if they choose, if they have relationships with women, it will be entirely normal and routine that she would have a job and a career in her own right that wouldn't necessarily get given up if she chooses to have children. And I think it's with, you know, with every generation, it is becoming more and more normalized. So I think it is getting easier, but I think it's just what we can't unpick is how much pressure we still put on ourselves.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: To be all, to be all perfect in every realm that we operate in, which is a shame.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: And it was kind of positioned to me once and it's kind of played on my mind and I don't know whether I agree or disagree with it, but it was like, look, it's easier for events when they're put on or panels to be formed or speakers to find men because they are more likely to put themselves forward. And actually women hold back a little bit and kind of try and get all the preparation and be, you know, 90 perfect before they're willing to consider that. Obviously, you know, you, you are a yes person, which is great. And I, I'm a positive person as well. And actually nothing bad has happened to me by saying yes. So you gain confidence from that. And I guess you have to do some of the things that you don't want to do anyway, you know, in, in life. Do you think that that is a thing and that's how we can help women, Other women really kind of go for it and make that bolder step sooner than they normally would until all those kind of tick boxes are in place.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: I think there's a couple of things. I think it depends on where you're trying to find women who are willing to speak. So, you know, we know that just generally speaking in lettings it tends to be more 50 50, whereas value is it tends to be more male heavy. So I think it depends on kind of what pond you're fishing in as to the ratio of men's women in that particular pond to then extrapolate that out to get a speaker quotient.
I think women should say yes more. But I think the other thing to it is as well, if you decided tomorrow you wanted to swim the channel, you wouldn't just swim or you, you quite like swimming, you wouldn't just go straight out and swim the Channel. You, you'd start small. And that's what I did. I didn't go straight from never having done it to yeah, I'd love to go on stage at Women Estate agency and do an 18 minute keynote. Because that would be ridiculous and arrogant. You know, I started off, I mean, years and years ago, I was head girl at school. I went to a state school in Epsom in Surrey and I was head girl and I had to do speeches at parents evenings and stuff. So I did that and then I didn't do anything for years, but I would get up and I might do like a couple of introductions, a property academy roadshow, or you know, I do five minutes on stage EA Masters, which is, it's only five minutes, but it is in front of a thousand people, so there'd be that. And you just, do you just push yourself a little bit more out of your comfort zone every time until it becomes natural. You know, you don't go straight from A to Z, you just, just push yourself 5, 10 each time and, and it gets less and less scary. Then it goes back to what we said earlier. The sort of cumulative effect of it is that you think, oh, I did five minutes and nothing scary happened. What if I did 10? What if I did it without an auto cue? What if I did it with slides and, and that's how I've done it and that's how I feel. And I think that's how people can start doing it. You know, find. Where can you present for two or three minutes? You know, can you change how you present to your team on a Friday morning meeting, for example? That's public speaking. It might only be to five people, but you've got to be motivational, you've got to be interesting. And you are public speaking every time you walk into someone's house to value it. And you, you value it and you present and you talk about your business. That's presenting people. I think possibly for women think about presenting in everything you do. You know, you go to a parents evening and you advocate for your children. That's a form of presenting. It doesn't have to be standing on stage doing a TED Talk.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: And you're right, it's about practice, isn't it? And training and coaching and taking the, not even the baby steps, but just taking the steps forward to kind of get to where you want to be. And I think that that is really important. And you've obviously given us and our listeners some kind of, you know, little kind of nuggets, I guess, of insight or information or to try and get people to think about it differently. But you also put a lot of training in. We obviously talked about, Dave talked about what you did and I think you said even on stage that you'd spent about 32 hours kind of preparing for an 18 minute, you know, talk. And I bet actually in addition to all the time it's been going around your brain and actually thinking about it over that kind of six month period, it was also way more than that. So do you have any other kind of top tips or anything that you would give people in terms of what really did work for you and that you're so glad that you did that level of practice or training to get on there and actually go in there with a certain level of confidence and at the end feel really proud.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: So the key thing for me was working with Dave and having those one to ones with him because he was just brilliant and he could absolutely tailor it to me. You're talking too fast. Speed that bit up. Go up at the end of that sentence. I mean, that's how granular we went. You're going down. You're killing the joke at the end. Go up. We were really, really granular and like. But I understand that's not for everyone. And I think it's, again, what we want to avoid is as women putting more and more pressure on ourselves. So, you know, I did those chunky pieces of work and then, like I said, I just fitted it in. I would. I'd have it on the side and I'd do it while I was cooking the dinner or I'd listen to it in the car. And I think the key to any sort of learning is find out, you know, look at what you enjoy and do it that way. I like reading, so I've got a room. You obviously, yeah, the listeners can't see them. There's loads of books behind me, you know, and I try and read 50 books a year. That's my aim every year. And I keep a listing, Goodreads, because I like a little. I like a list and a spreadsheet.
But, you know, if you want to listen to podcasts, listen to podcasts. If you, if you've got five, ten minutes, just try and fit something in. But I think find out the. The best way of consuming stuff for you and just try and do that.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: And you, you mentioned that you recorded yourself and kind of played it in the car. Was that uncomfortable to listen to or did that become, you know, you got used to it pretty quickly.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: It was horrifying. It was absolutely awful.
But I just listened to it. You know, you get used to it and it was necessary. You know, I thought if you said, would you like to record yourself and listen to yourself? It'd be like, well, no, because that would be monstrous. But it was necessary for me to kind of get to the point I wanted to get to. So I. I just did it.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Colleen reminded me when we were going through the scripts for this podcast, she reminded me many, many, many Years ago in our last company that we worked for, we went on this training day and at the beginning of the day they gave you something to read out or whatever and you had not long to practice it, but then they videoed you straight away and it was on literally a camcorder type thing back then.
And then they trained you for the day and then you did exactly the same at the end of the day. And it was so stark, like the difference between, you know, just what you could achieve in one day, like on every level.
And although it was completely uncomfortable and you're given the disc, it was then at the end of the day, which I think, you know, I personally just like binned it because it was like, I never ever want to listen to that again. But actually until you saw it yourself, you couldn't really ever appreciate how far you could get to, in, in a period of time, I guess.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: Exactly that. And there's videos, there's a video of Barack Obama doing a speech years ago when he was, I think he was a professor at university. And it's not great. And then you watch him when he did his, when he was, you know, trying to president and it is off. You know, his ability as an orator is off the chart and he's fantastic. And you think that has to be trained. So I think you can train anybody. But even if you don't want to work one to one with someone, there is so much out there now on LinkedIn, on Udemy though, you can find like masterclass, you can find content where someone can help you present better and then it's just a practice. But the key thing is if you don't want to do it, don't do it. But if you do want to do it, don't not do it because you're frightened of it.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess one of the things that definitely stood out with you and actually a lot of the guests at Women in the stage agency was, I guess, the uniqueness of the person and that no one was trying to fit in or be average or be the same. Actually, I think one of the important things is let your personality like don't change yourself. Isn't it like that's actually really important still be you. Because that's way easier to get out there and be you than it is to try and be someone completely that you're not exactly that.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: And that was kind of one of the things that came out from working with Dave. You know, don't. If I tried to present, I mean, I've seen Peter Knight present loads over the years. If I tried to do it like he does it, it would have been a disaster. If I tried to do it like Vicki Barbieris did it, it would have been a disaster. You know, and exactly what you've just said, it works. And I mean the word authentic. I don't love the word authentic, so I think it's overused. But just be authentic, you know, and, and, and, you know, your accent is your accent. Your, Your experience is your experience. Your. What you find funny is what you find funny. I mean, I laugh at myself all the time, but I walked out on that stage and thought, God, if no one laughs, this is going to be horrendous, because I'll be chuckling away to myself on the stage, looking out at a sea of blank faces. But luckily it worked. So I think it's just. It's just be yourself. And the other thing that I learned as well is, you know, kind of moving on from that. What you have to remember is you are responsible to the audience. You are not responsible for them. So it's like you with your, you know, your podcast, you are responsible to your guest and to your listeners to prepare, turn up on time and. And generate good, interesting content.
It's up to them whether they want to listen or not. And it's the same with presenting on stage. You know, I was responsible for making sure that I was responsible to the women in the State agency committee for choosing me and giving me a slot. I was responsible to make sure I wrote what I felt was interesting content, and I'd practiced it and I'd learned it, and I presented it with nice slides and I turned up in an appropriate outfit to present on stage. I am responsible for all of those things. I am not responsible for people that sat in the audience and looked at their phone. That's down to them. You know, I'm not. That's not my problem. If you want to come to a conference and sit in the audience and look at your phone and not listen to anybody, that's. That's up to you. But I, like I said in my. My talk, I think that's an absolute wasted opportunity.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. And I didn't see anyone looking at their phone when you were talking.
Is there a kind of any plans next? Do you have any kind of other ambition for things that you would really like to do or help other people become good at it, or are you just kind of going to wait for the next opportunity that comes along and probably say yes again?
[00:31:02] Speaker B: Exactly. That I'M not out looking for anything. But it's interesting because on the back of it, you know, I've obviously been invited to come and talk to you.
I've been invited to go and I went and spoke to Ben Madden with Amy Shields on his podcast and, and I think that's the thing, you know, if you're frightened of saying yes and again, it's a bit woo woo, but if you put yourself out there and you put yourself out to the universe more, you're expanding your circle of people that you know and opportunities that are going to come your way because people think, oh, she's quite jolly and she says yes to things and we'll ask her to come on. And. And it goes, yet again, we're back at that compound cumulative effect. You know, the more you say yes, the more you get to say yes too, which is brilliant. So I'm not, I'm not out looking for anything because I'm, you know, we've got loads on at Property Academy with roadshows and EA Masters and the groups.
But, you know, if anyone asks, then I would say yes. And equally, if anyone wanted help with anything, I'm more than happy to do that. So I think it's nice to share. Part of the fun of knowing things is sharing it.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
And I think, you know, definitely some people would get a lot of confidence from listening to this and hopefully there'll be some people that would have said no before, may say yes or would say yes now, and that's. That would be brilliant. Danny, thank you so much for coming to talk to us today. But before you go, all of our regular listeners of let's Talk, let's know that at the end of every podcast, we ask our guests if they have a funny story or anecdote to share with us.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: When I was 27, my uncle, well, my uncle was in the Navy and he was a commander and he was my godfather as well. So when I was born, he was on the. He was serving on the HMS Eurealis. And they sent a telegram because it was 1981 to say that I've been born and I was toasted in the officer's mess on board the HMS Eurealis. And when I was 27, he was out working in San Diego and I was single and he, he rang me and he said, would you like to come out and see me for three weeks and obviously party with the US Navy? So I was on the plane like a. Whipped.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Honestly, you've never seen anybody pack a move so Fast. And so I went out to San Diego and stayed with him and met a lot of American sailors, which was tremendous. And we decided we would take a road trip to la. So San Diego to LA is about a three hour drive. So we went up to LA for the night and we went for dinner in a restaurant on, I think it was on Sunset, called Il Soleil. And we went in and Brad Pitt had been in there the night before, which was very exciting. And I had to go for a comfort break while we were there. So I was when, you know, I came out of the loo and I walked straight into David Arquette, who isn't that famous, but he was in all the Scream films and he was married to Courtney Cox. And I'm tall. I'm about 5 foot 9 and I had high heels on, so I was probably about 6 foot, and I reckon he's about 6 foot 4. He's enormous. And I knew.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: I didn't know that.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah, he's really tall. And I literally like cannoned into him, stared up at him and thought, did that thing where you stare at someone for 30 seconds because you think, I know you. Where do I know you from?
And then I realized who it was and I went, oh, God, I'm so sorry. I love your work.
Right. Which is absolute nonsense because the only thing that I know he's been in is Scream. And then he was like, well, thank you. Thank you very much. You know, you hear, oh, you're British. And I was like, yes, I'm British. And then I said, oh, I'm here on holiday. And we had this whole conversation about Scream. And he was in the restaurant with Courtney Cox and he managed to let me go without any further embarrassment about the most awful sentence ever uttered, which is, David Arquette, I love your work. Horrendous.
I told him I loved his suit because the more it went on, the more panic stricken I got. And I just started saying words, saying things.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: Yeah, but what a great experience at 27 to do that and go on the road trip. That's what I'm thinking about. That didn't happen to me at 27.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Also on the same trip I got, we went to the Viper Room afterwards and I fell down the stairs.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: Oh, wow, what a day.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: So that was great. Having nicked a tea light holder which I'd stuffed down my top. And when I. Just as a memento, I fell to the bottom of the stairs and it fell out at the feet of the bouncer.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So I stood up and dusted myself off and went full Lady Mary Crawley.
And I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. I appear to have fallen over my trousers.
And then you've got the thing where he goes, oh, my God, you're British. And I was like, yes, yes, I am. And they'll forgive you anything. Forgive you?
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I was going to say, it's like, okay, please pass on, Mom. Yes, Danny, thank you so much. And for all of our listeners, to ensure you never miss an episode of let's Talk, let's please follow us on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. Leave us a review if you like what you hear, and thank you so much for listening. Let's Talk. Let's an original podcast from the Lettings Hub.
