One thing I love on the telly is The Apprentice – watching the candidates squirming under the watchful eye of Alan Sugar makes for great entertainment.

It must be terrifying living under the threat of being fired by Lord Sugar with so much at stake. To succeed in this sort of process, and in the world of business, you need confidence and lots of it. Something that doesn’t always come naturally.

As a kid I was very shy and being bullied probably didn't help with my self-esteem. Into my adult life shyness and confidence issues were still a problem.

Thankfully now I'm older I feel more confident, but despite presenting radio shows there are still tricky situations.

Sometimes making phone calls to companies or organisations makes me nervous – hard to explain but maybe some over thinking going on, wondering what the person on the other end of the phone will think of me.

That shouldn’t matter but in practice we do often get hung up on these things and it becomes an issue.

For me, presenting radio shows since the age of 17 has helped my confidence a lot. As a teenager at hospital radio walking round wards speaking to patients pushed me, in a positive way, out of my comfort zone.

Public speaking is another thing people find hard – I'm OK with this if I know the topic I am talking about and I can appear confident even if underneath I'm anything but.

A very small part of how we come across comes from what we actually say. Most of it is from body language. In my head I wonder is my body language engaging? Am I standing there looking awkward?

Recently on Surrey Hills Community Radio Emma and I spoke to Jo Merrett, who helps people with confidence.

She does a lot of work in schools, an area where she believes there needs to be more focus in the curriculum to get young people confident for the big adult world. She also works with businesses where she empowers staff to have the confidence around public speaking and presentations.

One area she specialises in is helping people who need to make a speech at a wedding! Jo told me this was something she accidentally fell into after finding a demand for support from terrified wedding speakers.

It was interesting hearing about Project Words which she set up to help people. You can find out more on her Instagram page @Projectwords_ .

I am fascinated by the guests I have on the radio and seeing how terrified many of them are as they come into the studio and have a microphone shoved in front of them.

Sometimes it’s good to push yourself out of that comfort zone even if it can be scary!

Listen to my radio shows on Radio Woking: Sunday 9am – noon, Wednesday 7-9am.

You can hear Emma and I on Surrey Hills Community Radio every second Monday at 9pm and Life on the Edge with Edge Disability Consultancy airs every first Monday at 10am.

Send me a voice note – www.speakpipe.com/jonandrews or email [email protected]