If you surf the internet for sites about public speaking or fear of public speaking or stage fright, you keep coming up with sites hammering away at concepts designed to help you with a big “speech.”

That’s not what my typical client is struggling with. 

My typical client feels the fear in every day communication situations – a departmental meeting, a job interview, introducing themselves in class or to a group of people they don’t know.

They’re not necessarily behind a lectern in front of a big room of people. They’re across a conference table, standing in a small group, or at the front of a small room. Or even alone in a room with a speaker phone.

But what about presentations?  Yes, many of my clients also need to do (but try to avoid!) talks and presentations. Usually it’s a regular meeting, like a monthly departmental update, or a quarterly sales meeting. Situations where they already know the other people in the room, but they feel very uncomfortable when the focus of all those eyes is on them. 

And yes, I also help when you’re facing “the biggest presentation of my career,” or that Best Man’s speech — those situations that don’t come up very often. Or maybe you have a new job (or are vying for one) and you’ll have to speak much more often and you need to get comfortable in order to do that.  When you’re not comfortable with speaking to begin with, these situations are even harder, aren’t they?

In the past you’ve probably spent time on those sites designed to help you become a better public speaker, or taken public presentations trainings or read books on the topic. Maybe you tried Toastmasters.  Maybe those approaches helped some, but you’re still having problems, amiright? That’s because they’re generic, they’re usually taught to a group, and they’re designed more for people who already do at least “OK” with public speaking and just want to improve. They are not designed to directly target and eliminate your subconscious fears. 

When people use public speaking skills training to overcome their fear, the assumption is that if you have some training, and then get some experience, that over time your comfort with presenting will increase.  Yes, sometimes that happens, for some people.  But not for everyone. And sometimes it backfires entirely and makes your fear worse.  And it’s much slower work, taking months and even years to really show significant improvement, and it’s much more emotionally painful work. I do this work differently. You won’t be standing up in front of a group. It will just be you and me, working with my process, which is gentle.  When you go back to work and start speaking, you’ll feel the difference right away, and it will just keep getting better from there.

 The work I do is one-on-one, individualized, client centered and targeted to you. It starts with identifying your specific fear triggers, and we desensitize your mind to those fears. “How do you do that?” is a complicated question but there’s more info about that on the Methods page. The point is because we start working exactly where you need it most, you see results right away.  Most of my clients reach their goal in just 5 sessions with me.

If this sounds like what’s going on in your life, you’re in (finally!) in the right place. These are the people I work with every day, and help every day. My process helps you feel better very quickly — it only gets better from here!