If you work with others in an organization, seek out opportunities to use your talents. Let people around you know that you’d love to use your knowledge and skills to help them. Take a chance at stretching beyond your job description or specific department. If you hear of an upcoming project that requires your strengths, offer your services immediately. Or if you see a colleague struggling with a task that would be easy for you, gently offer assistance. Build on your successes by leveraging them to next project or new customer.

If you’re in a supervisory or management position, how about having this conversation with your work group? Bring them together and ask them:

What knowledge do you have that isn’t being used here? Are there skills you’d like to use that aren’t being recognized? What are your interests? What do you really care about? Can we bring some of this into your current work?

You may find that people are a bit taken aback when asked these questions. There’s a good chance that no one has ever taken this kind of interest in them before. You may have to open up and reveal your answers first. Well go ahead, be brave and start this dialogue with yourself and with others to create a more meaningful workplace.

Ann Ronan, Ph.D., Career & Business Coach, works with professionals in career transition and with self-employed professionals who are working for a lunatic! She offers a FREE e-course on the Top Ten Ways To Live Authentically. To learn more about this step-by-step program and to sign up for FREE how-to articles and FREE teleclasses, visit http://www.authenticlifeinstitute.com.

2. Acknowledge and utilize your prime time (Chronobiology). Use your peak working hours to develop and collect your material, listen to tapes, hear other speakers, view videos, etc.

3. Visualize your speech and break through your nervousness. See it. Feel it. Allow it to happen.

4. Get away from “woulda, coulda, shoulda” thinking. Don’t wait for perfect time – just DO IT!! Remember: There is no right time to begin your speaking career.

5. Take one step at a time – first step is hardest. Then – do what is needed to package yourself and improve your delivery constantly.

6. Set time limits – you don’t have to do it all in one month…or even one year.

7. Don’t do it alone – company makes it more fun!! Hire a Coach now and cut your learning curve.