Hey Reader,

Quick one today.

I want to tell you about a presentation I gave a few years ago, at a conference. The last time I'd given a talk on this exact topic, barely anyone showed up, one person left halfway through, another fell asleep. It went terribly.

So this time, I over-prepared. I rehearsed obsessively, I was proud of my slides, and I turned up dressed to the nines, white top, black pencil skirt, feeling more ready than I'd ever felt.

I was expecting maybe four people in the room. I opened the door to thirty.

I remember opening my slides, catching the look on a few of their faces, and realizing, somewhere in my gut, that I'd badly misjudged this.

That's the exact moment my stomach went into overdrive. Not nerves I could talk myself out of. A full, churning, "I might need to run for the bathroom" kind of twist.

Not the confident, polished version of me I'd rehearsed being. The version that could barely remember her own name. Needless to say, this presentation also crashed and burned.

For a long time after this, my only tool was practicing harder. More rehearsal, more run-throughs, tell myself to calm down. It got me through my presentations. But I still froze, went blank, or walked off stage replaying every mistake for days.

And to be honest, I didn't want to just get through it. I wanted to walk away from a talk with people remembering my name, wanting to stay in touch, sending me "you explained that so well" emails.

What actually changed things was learning to work with what was happening in my body, not just focusing on remembering my script. That's what I walked you through last week, naming the sensation the moment you feel it. That one shift did more for me in the moment than a hundred run-throughs ever did.

But here's the honest truth: knowing the technique and being able to do it, live, in the room, when your voice is starting to climb and your stomach is in knots, are two different things. Reading about it isn't the same as having someone map your exact speaking pattern with you and tell you what to do with it in that exact moment.

That's exactly what a (newly revamped) Steady Speaker Power Hour is for. One session, just you and me, where we map your specific pattern, your body, your breath, the story your mind tells you, and build the exact tools for the moment it shows up for you.

You've probably tried the generic advice already:

• Deep breathing.
• Standing a certain way to look confident.
• A three-step framework for handling questions.

And none of it fully stuck, because it's one-size-fits-all, built for a much broader audience than just you.

This is bespoke, because nervous systems are like fingerprints, each one needs to be understood and worked with differently. The background and life-experiences that you bring to the session are completely different to the next woman I work with, and that's exactly what makes it so powerful.

I've got 3 spots open right now. Grab yours before they go: Steady Speaker Power Hour​

Steady together

Ellie