Imagine feeling...

• Excited to share your opinion or experience because you know it has value.
• Enjoyment at seeing an engaged audience listening to you.
• Gratified that you can influence others with your words.
• Proud of yourself after speaking and eager to speak again.  

Introducing

Say it with Confidence

A four-week online course starting Tuesday, March 15

Online Zoom classes 12 noon to 1 pm (EST) Tuesdays 3/15, 3/22, 3/29, 4/5.

After 20 years of helping thousands of people become better communicators, I've learned what works and what doesn't. I've discovered the three crucial things people must do to become effective and confident speakers. That's why I created Say it with Confidence: To show you how to do all three.

1. Learn the RIGHT speaking skills

You don't have to spend your precious time learning everything about speaking, but you do need to master the few key skills that will help you succeed.

But skills aren't all you need. You've also got to deal with the self-doubt that stole your confidence in the first place. And to do that, you'll want to....

2. Develop a mindset that's an encouraging friend, not a backbiting enemy.
You're going to need a positive mindset to do two big things: identify your personal right to speak, even if you don't have a degree or fancy titles, and to stop the tsunami of self-criticism that arrives when you speak up, and then stops you from speaking up the next time.

And doing those things is easier and more productive if you don't have to go it alone, so in Say it with Confidence, you'll be able to...

3. Share support and positive feedback with the class community.

In Say it with Confidence, you'll be part of a community of people, who like you, are working to be more confident and who want to help each other reach that goal. And the bonus is that paying attention to others' speaking makes you a better speaker.

Say it with Confidence will give you lots of ways to get those three essential elements: skills, mindset help, and support:

Then one day in a college Psych class, I was giving a presentation on Children and Fairy Tales. It was the usual disaster. Me: hands shaking, seeing two of everything (anxiety- induced double vision), reciting dry concepts while berating myself internally. Them: bored.  

But at the end of my presentation, I told the story of Hansel and Gretel. Instantly, my audience transformed, and those "over it all" college kids fell under a spell, their eyes intent, like little kids at story hour.

And I changed too. My hands stopped shaking. My vision cleared. I was stunned. And also enthralled. I had stumbled on a way to spin a web between me and the audience.

That began my quest to learn what else I could do (besides tell a Grimm's Fairy Tale) to spin a web like I had done that day. I read everything I could about persuasion, watched countless TED talks, delivered a TEDx talk of my own, did stand up and improv comedy.

Eventually, I became a communications trainer and coach.  And for the past twenty years, I've taught thousands of people, from the CEO Suite to the call center, from software engineers to sales people, how to speak, present, and write more powerfully, more authentically, and more persuasively. 

But I didn't just work with corporate types. I taught students at Boston University. I worked with women in jail, with activists and nonprofit staff. And everyone I worked with wanted the same thing: more confidence. 

Over time, I learned how to help them to build that confidence, to know what to say and how to say it so that they could be effective, engaging speakers.

I created my "SAY IT WITH CONFIDENCE" course for people who aren't in the organizations that hire me. For individual people who want to become more confident speakers, who want to express themselves comfortably and skillfully, and maybe even have fun doing it! 

And by the way, I was wrong. I know now that no one is born knowing how to create a TED talk or captivate the accounting department with a PowerPoint presentation.  

You can learn to be a confident speaker. You can learn to spin your own webs. 

Because if I could do it, so can you.