Speaking with Confidence with Cat Matson

Rosie Shilo is the Virtual Assistant Advocate. She coaches, teaches and supports Australian Virtual Assistants while teaching other business owners about the reality of outsourcing. Rosie owns and runs ‘Virtually Yours’, a network which has supported thousands of Australian Virtual Assistants since in 2004. She is Australia's loudest VA advocate bringing her no-filter approach to business. Recently Rosie launched a new podcast with...

How do you impact 100,000 small business owners from a farm in regional NSW? That’s the question that drove Jenn Donovan of Social Media & Marketing to start speaking, first through her podcast and then from stages. 

Now she’s working towards impacting one million small business owners through her no-nonsense, fluff-free marketing advice. 

In this conversation Jenn and I discuss: 

• The importance of NOT underestimating y...

Would you like to successfully secure grant funding for your business or community group? 

Have you ever wondered what makes for a successful grant application? 

Liz Fleming, from The Grants Club is a grant expert and is so passionate about supporting people to access money to help them make a bigger impact. 

Listen in to hear 

• How to get ‘grant ready’ (it’s easier than you think) 
• Why aligning your business objectives with the...

Do you have a fear of being ‘seen’? Are you tired of ‘playing small?’    This has been a common theme across many conversations I’ve been having lately … and when I realised I was bumping into myself I wanted to share with you my process for understanding and then managing my fear of being seen. 

Listen in to hear 

• How the fear of being seen is closely linked to ‘playing small’ 
• My process for uncovering what is REALLY behind t...

Are you making this speaking mistake? 

In this special episode where I share part 1 of my recent 3-part Speaking with Impact workshop, I share one of the biggest mistakes people make when speaking. 

Chances are you, you’re making it too! 

Listen in to hear: 

• Why speaking powerfully is a key to professional success 
• The number one mistake people make when speaking …  
• A simple way to STOP making this mistake … TODAY 
• Why authent...

Where does confidence come from? 

Confidence generally comes from experience, training, results … but when you’re a service-based professional, our results are ephemeral. It’s not like we can see our work hanging on the walls like art, or a beautiful, bountiful garden. 

In the absence of ‘tangible evidence’, confidence comes from the stories we tell ourselves. And, let’s face it, most of the stories we tell ourselves aren’t confide...

Tracy Harris, aka Mums with Hustle on Instagram, has created a multi-million dollar business using Instagram as her primary audience building tool. 

In this episode, we explore the power of short-form video content to build an audience of your soulmate customers and HOW to speak impactfully in 30, 60 and 90 second reels. 

Listen in to hear: 

• Tracy’s motivation for helping others create a life by design 
• How Tracy overcame her f...

In this episode I chat with sales expert Frances Pratt, about overcoming the discomfort associated sales. We explore the importance of mindset and understanding the process of selling. Frances encourages me, and listeners to be ourselves and how to get over our fear of rejection and we discuss how authentic selling is a selfless act, focused on providing value to customers. I love Frances’s concept of the minimum lovable product an...

In this episode, I chat with Erica Webb, a registered counsellor and somatic exercise coach, about the importance of self-kindness and nervous system regulation. We chat about the importance of finding a safe home in our own skin and how learning to be kind and compassionate towards ourselves can change our speaking … and our life. We chat about nervous system regulation and how our bodies respond to perceived threats AND we discus...

In corporate environments, why do we speak in ‘stiff, robotic, corporate speak’ in our workplaces? 

That’s the very conversation I’m having with Louise Davis, Creator of the Speaking Human Strategy, in this episode. 

Louise specialises in building leadership capability in frontline managers and is a master facilitator. In this episode we explore: 

• How to speak ‘human’ instead of corporate-speak 
• The HUMAN acronym that Lou...

Season Finale! This is an ‘out-of-character’ episode to finish up the year with a reflection on the year that’s been. No speaking tips as such, instead though a casual reflection and some questions for you to wrap up your year with presence and satisfaction. 

Listen in to hear: 

• The most popular 3 episodes of the year 
• My biggest highlights of the year 
• My biggest lessons of the year (I’m quite sure you can’t guess what they ar...

How do you effectively introduce yourself when you wear many professional hats?    That’s the question I asked Laura Elkaslassy, owner of FOUR different business and mum of two! 

We also discussed how to find that common thread through all those hats and roles. 

Listen in to hear: 

• How Laura introduces herself even when her approach doesn’t ‘fit’ the box that people are expecting 
• Why Laura is such a passionate advocate f...

What would you tell your 20-something self about life and business? 

Somehow that’s the question that Jen Jeavons and I ended up answering in this discussion. 

Jen is a storyteller and a story-crafter … creating brands and stories for her clients that connect, drive recognition and growth. 

Her early career though was as a pop star. A true pop star!  

In this episode we explored: 

• Why storytelling in business is so important 
• W...

When we think of highly impactful speakers the image we conjure in our minds is often the most rarefied of all speakers – the keynote speaker or performer. A good keynote ‘performer’ is amazing … and that’s not where most of us mere mortals ‘sit’. 

In this episode I talk about the distinctions between a keynote performer, a ‘presenter’, a ‘pitcher’ or a conversationalist. 

Which one do you want to be ‘more’ of? Let me know in the S...

Have you ever had to negotiate a pay rise? Or are you like me … and just cross your fingers and hope you’ll get one? 

Alex Hanlon from Fair Pay Negotiations is determined to bridge the gender pay gap by teaching women how to negotiate for themselves … authentically. 

Even if you’re not about to negotiate a pay rise you’re going to love this episode. You’ll learn: 

• Why women find negotiating so much harder than men (spoiler aler...

One of the biggest barriers to speaking confidence is thinking we’re not good enough, not interesting enough or not ‘smart/experienced/focused/specialised’ enough 😊 

To overcome this barrier I talk A LOT about the Earn The Right Framework (listen to episodes 4 and 7 for more on this) … and finding the gold in your own professional and personal history. 

In this episode I talk about how to find that gold in your stories … how to go...

As an industry expert, Julia found herself frustrated that people with less experience and less knowledge were speaking at industry events. She also recognised that, as an industry expert with extensive knowledge, she often drowned her listeners in ALL THE THINGS, leaving them more confused. 

Julia Van Der Sommen runs The Pattern Room, Australia’s first end-to-end development and production house for the fashion industry. She is pa...

In personal relationships there’s a massive focus on effective communication. 

But what about in workplace relationships … especially when you’re leading a team? 

In this episode of Speaking with Confidence I chat with Kristy-Lee Billet of People Powered HR, about the speaking challenges that are all too familiar to anyone leading a team, and especially small business owners. 

Listen in to hear: 

• How not to run team meetings th...

One of THE BEST ways you can build your professional profile is to speak at industry events and conferences. 

But how do you get those opportunities? 

This week I talk to Nadine Zrinzo, Co-Founder and chief content curator at Bright Humans, who has been bringing conference experiences to life for over 20 years across Australia, Asia, Europe and the US. Nadine’s superpower is curating the most outstanding speakers on the planet to p...