Life is About Storytelling and When Anxiety Attacks with Monique Bradley

The Public Speaking Horror Show

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6d ago 47:28

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Host Laura Reid welcomes Monique Bradley, keynote speaker and former TV shopping host, to the show to talk about her storied life. From being bullied in childhood through acting, magic, and live TV, Monique has made public speaking her entire life journey. Laura finds out how Monique would sell an item spontaneously, what scares (or more accurately doesn’t scare) her, and why we need to reserve judgement about people when things go awry. Monique shares the highs and lows of a life in public speaking.

Monique Bradley survives Laura Reid’s Killer 13 rapid-fire questions with some impressive spontaneity and revelatory insights. She then shares her life story which is one of discovering herself and her true power of connecting with people through storytelling. At one point in life she says she became a magician “because you’ve got to keep earning money somehow”. Monique pulls speaking inspiration from her combined pakeha and Maori roots, talks about attending theatre school with Jemaine Clement, sings the praises of New Zealand, and divulges a public speaking horror story that ends in an important epiphany.

About Monique Bradley:

Monique spent my life studying and playing with words and stories, exploring their power and potential. Her training as an actor, speaker and singer began at the age of 8. As the youngest of 7 and born into a loud, theatrical, Radio and TV family, it was no surprise that she would end up either in leadership, sales, TV or the creative arts. In fact, she’s worked in all of them.

She has a degree in theatre and film from Victoria University, a certificate in film and TV production from the TV training school previously attached to TVNZ in Wellington, qualifications with Trinity College of London and the NZ Speech Board and is a Board member of the Professional Speakers Association of NZ. Monique is also currently doing a Masters in Creative Practice at Unitec, exploring the impact of speaking and storytelling.

Monique has been in multiple national and international films, TV commercials, MC'd and hosted numerous online and in real life events, worked as a voiceover artist for documentaries, commercials, animated films and games, recorded albums of music, worked as a TV shopping presenter, digital content creator and live streamer, educator, coach and even ran her own performing arts school. She has now clocked up more than 25 years of a creative career and the common thread running through it all is storytelling. Even working in retail and banking (of which she’s also done) was all about storytelling.

Contact Monique Bradley:

Contact Laura Reid | The Speech Slayer:

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Transcript

Laura Reid: [00:00:02] Welcome to The Public Speaking Horror Show, where we dive into the terrifying, cringeworthy, and downright bloodcurdling moments of public speaking. I am your host, Laura Reid. Our guest today is a master of persuasion, a high impact storyteller and if public speaking were a battle, she'd be wielding the one ring of influence. She spent over 25 years captivating audiences, from TV shopping to the keynote stage. But has she ever had a moment where things went completely off the rails? You're about to find out. Please welcome all the way from New Zealand, Monique Bradley. Welcome.

Monique Bradley: [00:00:49] Thank you so much. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to be on your podcast. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's an absolute honor and a privilege.

Laura Reid: [00:00:59] Oh, it's such, such a thrill to have you here. Monique and I met in Oahu back in November, and I had the opportunity to be in the audience for her talk, and it was just hilarious. Meaningful. Impactful. Like, all the things. It was so, so good. And I planted a seed then, I've got to reach out to her to be on this podcast. So I'm so glad it worked out.

Monique Bradley: [00:01:23] Yeah, so am I. This is such a buzz for me. Thank you.

Laura Reid: [00:01:27] Oh, good. So we're going to start out with what I'm calling the killer 13. 13 rapid fire questions, just so our audience knows, she did not receive these in advance. So we're just putting you to the test here.

Monique Bradley: [00:01:41] I'm on.

Laura Reid: [00:01:42] Are you ready?

Monique Bradley: [00:01:42] Let's do this.

Laura Reid: [00:01:43] You're ready.

Monique Bradley: [00:01:43] Let's do it.

Laura Reid: [00:01:44] Okay. Number one. What's scarier? Forgetting your lines on stage or losing a live audience's attention.

Monique Bradley: [00:01:52] Losing a live audience's attention. 100%.

Laura Reid: [00:01:55] Yeah, Absolutely. Number two, would you rather sell a haunted doll or a cursed mirror on live TV?

Monique Bradley: [00:02:04] A haunted doll.

Laura Reid: [00:02:06] All right, I'm going off script. I'm going to test your powers of TV promotion. All right, here we go. In about 30 sec, could you please sell me the haunted doll?

Monique Bradley: [00:02:19] I need a prop. It's in my hand. Okay.

Laura Reid: [00:02:21] Perfect.

Monique Bradley: [00:02:22] Have you ever had one of those moments where you've wanted something so desperately? You've been haunted by that image of that product? Well, this is possibly the thing you've been looking for. I'd like to introduce you to this amazing haunted doll, which is actually from the set of that classic hit film, The Exorcist. So if you remember those days of watching that film and feeling terrified, now you can enjoy that terror every single day. But it's not just for you, my friends. It's actually for the people around you that you want to terrify. So if you know you want to make an impact, if you want to drive away those people who annoy you at dinner parties, this is the doll for you. But wait, there's more. If you buy one now, we'll also give you a set of Ginsu knives at no extra cost. Just give us a call and this doll can be yours.

Laura Reid: [00:03:08] Oh my God. Okay. Yeah. We'll put the number up later to order your haunted doll. Order now.

Monique Bradley: [00:03:14] There you go.

5 episodes