Lights, Camera, Confidence: A Theatrical Approach to Building Your Personal Brand

Have you ever battled an inner voice or outside force that makes you doubt yourself, your work, or your capabilities? Unfortunately this is a nearly-universal experience for women. Nearly 80% of us regularly lack confidence in ourselves when it comes to our careers and speaking up at work. And sadder still, women are nearly 30% more likely to have these feelings than men.

This #PersonalBrand Workshop Offers a Solution

Last month, I had the chance to explore my own relationship with self-confidence and how I present myself at work and in my personal life while attending a personal branding workshop hosted by Dramatic Resources. This workshop was designed and delivered by women, for women, and created an incredibly fun and supportive environment to step outside our comfort zones and put our best foot forward (sometimes literally).

Dramatic Resources is a UK-based organization that uses theater techniques to help individuals harness the power of theater techniques to develop their communication and presentation skills. My session was facilitated by two incredible award-winning actors, Lara King and Joanna Burnett, who demonstrated a strong personal brand from the get-go and encouraged us to do the same.

For 90 minutes we were on our feet doing fast-paced, theater-informed exercises to develop our personal brand. We explored how to use our body language, voice, and personality to create a strong impact on an audience, and got to know our colleagues better along the way. It was an incredibly fun way to recognize my own development areas and try new communication skills.

My Biggest #Learnings

Here were my three biggest takeaways for building a strong personal brand:

• Body language speaks volumes: Our facilitators demonstrated how to command a room with a confident entrance from the start, showed us the key elements of confident body language, and taught us how to have a presence that projects confidence and credibility.

  
  

• Storytelling is a superpower: Stories are a powerful tool for connecting with an audience. The workshop helped us build deeper connections with our audiences, develop strong storytelling skills, and use these to communicate our ideas in the most engaging, impactful way way.

  
  

• Speaking up gets you heard: The way we speak has a huge impact on how we are perceived and how our message is received. This workshop showed us how to couple vocal variety and confident statements with our newly-honed body language to keep our audience engaged from start to finish.

Take #Action to Build #Confidence

This interactive session was the perfect balance of action and impact, and the former theater kid in me couldn’t get enough. So if you want to bridge that confidence gap and build a personal brand that breeds meaningful relationships and impactful conversations, I highly recommend exploring Dramatic Resources' workshops as a unique approach to personal and professional development.

Share Your #Confidence Tips

What strategies have you learned to boost your confidence at work or in your personal life? Leave them in the comments below to help other women build their confidence too.