SCABs

Mr Osborne, so lovely to see you. By @ethanbennett94

Ethan Bennett

By Ethan Bennett

 

 

Mr Osborne, so lovely to see you.

 

Those who know me know I struggle in front of a big crowd.

Public speaking has never been a strength of mine. I never fear the idea of it, but inevitably no matter how much preparation has gone into it, the moment I stand up and see all the eyes looking at me, my chest gets a lot heavier.

The school has been great over the year for helping to over-coming it.

We have reflections every Friday where we go and stand up to present a slide to our peers and reflect on something that’s happened to us or something we’ve learnt that week. At the start of the year I couldn’t think of anything worse, but now it’s become normal. So that, along with all the idea pitching and little workshops of improv, has transformed me quite a bit.

However, that was almost all but forgotten on Wednesday night.

I was given the incredible opportunity to host a reception at George Osborne’s place to try and rally up more support for the Ideas Foundation, the charity that gave me my first leg up in advertising and opened my eyes to the industry back in college. It was also to celebrate their new partnerships with the Evening Standard and D&AD who represented a reasonable body of people in the room.

In the room were also CEOs and representatives from Ogilvy, VCCP, Saatchi & Saatchi, BBC creative, Unilever, 20th century fox, Publicis, Mullen Lowe, etc etc the list goes on. Around 100 I think.

So of course, my heart is in my throat. Having to look confident in front of all these people I’d love to work for, and introduce Mr Osborne and the other great speakers of the evening.

It started a little wobbly, but over the 20 minutes getting up and down it got better and I was almost there by the end.

What I found difficult though was to talk about my success having not reached my own personal goals yet. I know there’s still a ways to go before I’m truly ready to step into the offices of all those people standing in the audience, and smash it out the park. My book isn’t up to the standard that I want it to be, and I’m currently looking down the final stretch of the year with New Blood briefs and Cannes Future Lions first on the hit list.

That said, seeing all the friendly faces in the crowd (shout out Nicole and Shannon, and Sophie), and thinking back just how quickly everything has happened over the last couple of years, I couldn’t help but be proud of the position I’m in and so hugely grateful to all those who helped me along the way. You’re only as good as those you surround yourself by, and I’ve been fortunate to surround myself with the very best.

So thank you first to Richard Mitchell, my college tutor who inspired my first interests in advertising. A massive thank you to everyone at the Ideas Foundation, I’m not sure where I’d be otherwise. Finally thank you SCA and all the mentors, I don’t think I need to say how amazing it is to be here.

Enough of the soppy Oscars speech, you’ve not won anything yet Bennett.

You may not here from me for a while now, as I have a lot of paper to get through, and pencils to win.

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