Scwair One presents Speaking of Success (SÖS) – episode eight, solo.
It's the podcast for people who are crap at speaking but want to be better.

In this episode : a first-timer's visit to Toastmasters in Brighton, the one thing I said before sitting down, and what I'm doing back there in two weeks.

I joined a Toastmasters meeting for the first time. As a guest.
The plan was: sit at the back, watch, learn, leave.
I lasted 30 minutes before being asked a question.

But I'm going back. This time, to speak properly.

Wish me luck.

I'm Andy Greenhouse.
And I'm a creative evolutionist.
I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse

My video agency @ swhype.com

And if you're looking for your tribe...
Maybe I'll see you at Scwair1.

Scwair One presents Speaking of Success (SÖS) – episode seven, solo. A spoken word night in Brighton, a deliberate seat choice, and what going out on your own can feels like when it's something you avoid like the plague.

I don't really go out much these days. Haven't for a while.

We moved down to Brighton from London. Most of my friends stayed there. I stopped drinking on New Year's Eve 2019. Covid did the rest. So when I committed to 30 days of public speaking, I probably should've thought harder about how exactly I was going to pull that off.

Last week I went to a spoken word night at Brighton's Corn Exchange.
On my own.

Before booking, I noticed there were plenty of seats in the back row.
And a single seat in the row in front. I picked that one. On purpose.

That decision set off a small chain of things I didn't expect. One of them ended in a multi-storey car park at 11pm, writing something I'd never have written if I'd sat anywhere else.

I'm Andy Greenhouse.
And I'm a creative evolutionist.
I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse

My video agency @ swhype.com

And if you're looking for your tribe...
Maybe I'll see you at Scwair1.

Scwair One presents Speaking of Success (SÖS) – episode six with inclusion consultant and facilitator Helen Bazuaye, on discernment in a noisy world, why nerves never really leave, and why joy might be the most radical act available to us right now.

Helen Bazuaye has spent her career in rooms full of strong personalities – editing magazines, facilitating boardrooms, training corporate teams, and building a programme for care-experienced young people from the ground up. And yet, when it comes to standing on a stage and speaking for herself, she's deliberately held back.

In this conversation, Helen talks honestly about what it really means to use your voice, the difference between speaking at people and speaking with them, and why joy – not anger – might be the most radical act available to us right now.

We cover: the unexpected through-line from magazine editor to inclusion consultant, why being nervous never goes away (and why that's fine), the difference between performing and connecting, and what the We Are Here project means to her, and to the young people it reaches.

A rich, warm, and quietly urgent conversation.

I'm Andy Greenhouse. And I'm a creative evolutionist. I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse My video agency @ swhype.com And if you're looking for your tribe... maybe I'll see you at Scwair1 – https://scwair1.com

I'm Andy Greenhouse.
And I'm a creative evolutionist.
I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse

My video agency @ swhype.com

And if you're looking for your tribe...
Maybe I'll see you at Scwair1.

Scwair One presents Speaking of Success (SÖS) – episode five with executive coach Mark Carolan, on the power of the pause, public speaking nerves, and why getting out of your own way is the whole game.

My guest for episode five once stood on a bridge in Prague with a sign that said 'Conversation for Sale.' And people paid.

I've spent most of my life trying to get out of conversations. Mark Carolan sold them to strangers, by the topic, from a piece of cardboard.

Mark spent over twenty years in the corporate world. He was good at it. He knew it wasn't right. His epiphany: if he never changed, that would be his future — all the way to retirement. That scared him as much as changing did. So he changed.

He's now a personal, leadership and executive coach and does a lot of work in public speaking and corporate wellbeing. He's the person companies bring in when their people have to stand up and say something that matters. He's spent 20-odd years helping people get out of their own way.

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I'm Andy Greenhouse. And I'm a creative evolutionist. I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse My video agency @ swhype.com And if you're looking for your tribe… maybe I'll see you at Scwair1 — https://scwair1.com

I'm Andy Greenhouse.
And I'm a creative evolutionist.
I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse

My video agency @ swhype.com

And if you're looking for your tribe...
Maybe I'll see you at Scwair1.

Scwair One presents Speaking of Success (SÖS) – episode four, solo.
The sharpest public speaking advice I've had on this whole project, and the last person I expected it from.

So far I've spent this whole thing talking to people about how to speak.
Coaches. Broadcasters. People who do it for a living.

And some of the best advice so far came from a conversation I wasn't even really treating as one.

I asked casually... if she had any tips. She gave me three.
One of them I'd been getting wrong my entire life and had genuinely never noticed.

She spoke purposefully. Deadpan.
Like it was nothing. I just sat there nodding like a student.

One thing though.
I'm proud.

She's sixteen. She's my daughter.

And there's a lot more wisdom to come.

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I'm Andy Greenhouse. And I'm a creative evolutionist. I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse My video agency @ swhype.com And if you're looking for your tribe… maybe I'll see you at Scwair1 — https://scwair1.com

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why sharp, sudden hand gestures can give the wrong impression.
• The problem with rising inflections – when the technique becomes too visible, the audience stops listening to what you're saying and starts watching how you're saying it.
• Why public speaking is harder than acting – a distinction that makes a lot of sense once you hear it explained properly.

I'm Andy Greenhouse.
And I'm a creative evolutionist.
I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse

My video agency @ swhype.com

And if you're looking for your tribe...
Maybe I'll see you at Scwair1.

Scwair One presents Speaking of Success (SÖS) — episode three, solo.
A week of forced conversations, one question asked in public, and what an hour with YMCA volunteers at Victoria Station taught me about the habit of speaking.

The week before, I'd bottled it.
I was at a talk, had a question ready, and didn't ask it.

So this week I went back – to a media trade show at Olympia – with one specific goal. Ask a question. Out loud. In a room full of people.

I did. Last one up. To Alexis, the principal product manager for colour at Adobe Premiere. Felt slightly negative the second it left my mouth. He was gracious about it. And afterwards I cornered him just as he was leaving – which felt awkward and slightly selfish – and asked him how he'd got so comfortable on stage. His answer was less complicated than I expected.

Then I bumped into Adam, a motion designer I used to know. Got him on camera. Then went on a mission to talk to as many strangers as possible – surreptitiously sloping up to people on stands and asking them about their thing.

Then, on the way back to Victoria, I said 'I'll be back' to a YMCA fundraiser I was walking past. And ended up in a conversation that lasted an hour.

I would never have had that conversation if I hadn't made a decision earlier that day.

That's the thing about making a habit of it. It gets easier. And you feel better than you expect.

I'm Andy Greenhouse. And I'm a creative evolutionist. I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse My video agency @ swhype.com And if you're looking for your tribe… maybe I'll see you at Scwair1 — https://scwair1.com

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The week before: having a question ready and not asking it – and deciding that wasn't happening again
• Asking a question at an Adobe talk at a media trade show in Kensington, what it felt like to finally do it, and why it came out slightly more negative than intended
• What Alexis, Adobe's principal product manager for colour on Premiere, said about getting comfortable with public speaking – and why the answer is simpler than most people think
• Getting motion designer Adam on camera talking about his own first public speaking experience at the same show
• What it actually feels like to make yourself talk to strangers on exhibition stands when you'd normally slope past
• The YMCA conversation at Victoria Station that lasted an hour – and why it only happened because of a conscious decision made earlier that day
• Why making a habit of putting yourself in situations is the thing, and how quickly it starts to feel less terrifying and more like something you actually want to do

I'm Andy Greenhouse.
And I'm a creative evolutionist.
I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse

My video agency @ swhype.com

And if you're looking for your tribe...
Maybe I'll see you at Scwair1.

Scwair One presents Speaking of Success (SÖS) – episode two with voice artist and former BBC broadcaster Sara Starling, on finding your voice, public speaking nerves, and why voice notes are a communication tool most people are ignoring.

My guest for episode two has spent almost 40 years doing the thing I've spent my whole life avoiding.

Sara Starling is a voice artist, broadcaster, and storyteller. She started with a drama degree, spent nearly 20 years at the BBC as a studio manager, announcer and newsreader – including the World Service... then left to build her own voice studio from scratch. She's been doing that for 20 years too.

She also, it turns out, was quite shy.

In this conversation we talk about the one mindset shift that makes speaking to a room feel manageable, why a bad experience reading aloud in class can follow you for decades, how voice notes are quietly one of the most powerful communication tools most people are ignoring, and what it actually looks like to stay calm on air when everything around you is falling apart.

The line that stayed with me: "It starts as a pencil mark. Then it gets inked in. Then it's a marker pen. And then you just believe it."

That's about the story we tell ourselves when we stumble. Worth hearing the rest.

I'm Andy Greenhouse.
And I'm a creative evolutionist.
I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse

My video agency @ swhype.com

And if you're looking for your tribe...
Maybe I'll see you at Scwair1.

Scwair One presents Speaking of Success (SÖS) — a podcast about public speaking and finding your voice, by someone who's spent his whole life avoiding it. Episode one, solo: why I started this.

I've had a lifelong aversion to speaking.

It started when I was a kid.
Friends took the piss out of me for stuttering.
People finished my sentences.

I went through periods where I couldn't listen back to my own voice – it was so monotone, so flat.

I put people to sleep. I still do.
My wife nodded off last week as I talked about work.

And yet I've spent 20 years helping other people communicate.
Behind the camera. Behind the brand. Very comfortable back there.

This podcast exists because I finally got uncomfortable.

Speaking of Success / SÖS – is for people who are crap at speaking but want to be better. Not a masterclass. Not a performance coach telling you to stand up straight. Just honest conversations about what it actually takes to find your voice – from people who've done it, and one person who's still figuring it out.

That person is me.

Episode one I'm flying solo.
Or at least... crawling to the start line on my own.
Where this started, why now, and what I'm hoping this becomes.

The guests start from episode two.

If you feel like me about speaking... let's talk.
We just might get along.

I'm Andy Greenhouse.
And I'm a creative evolutionist.
I help people, brands and businesses evolve in an ever-changing landscape.

Find me writing daily on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygreenhouse

My video agency @ swhype.com

And if you're looking for your tribe...
Maybe I'll see you at Scwair1.