(Photo: Cathedral of learning by Always Shooting)

Come by to our FREE EVENT to learn some new tips on how to handle your fears, get involved in some breathing exercises, speaking games and impromptu speaking. This event is for newcomers who haven’t been to any of our workshops.

We are all about getting rid of our fears and practicing public speaking. We have a very friendly, supportive and non-judgmental environment, which means we encourage people to make mistakes here and learn from them.

In this workshop we will be practicing some of the pillars of a confident public speaker.

Confident public speaking is comprised of the following 8 elements:

·  Breath and pace

·  Voice projection

·  Physicality (body language and eye contact)

·  Content (structure)

·  Intention and congruency

·  Emotions and tone variety

Public speaking is a very useful skill to develop in life. It not only helps you to do things such as presentations at work and university but also develops your inner qualities in other areas of life allowing you also to improve your social relationships with people, as you learn how to express yourself better.

Even if you are not interested particularly in public speaking, we guarantee that by attending this session you will build confidence.

What to expect from this drop-in class

The workshop follows the structure of first having warm up’s and stress diffusing exercises, after which public speaking exercises will be conducted. These exercises will increase in difficulty (subject to the speakers comfort zone), as the event progresses. At the end of each exercise/speech, the class will, primarily, discuss the strengths of the speaker, followed by potential areas for improvement.

The structure will follow a session of relaxation and meditation exercises, warm up and energy building games, as the evening progress we do speaking exercises and impromptu speeches.

Should you prepare or bring anything

No. Just bring is a willingness to grow and challenge yourself! That is the best to overcome your fears. Refreshments will be provided.

If you have a speech you want to practice, feel free to prepare it beforehand and deliver it in class (this is optional).

Our Philosophy

A note about our philosophy on how we approach in helping people to overcome their fears; We do not mould our speakers into a one fits all model, where we try to shape you into someone who you are not. Our principles are grounded in authenticity, where we encourage our attendees to get in touch with themselves on a deeper level, which as a result enhances their communication skills and delivery. In the class we aim to identify what is authentic and natural to our speakers and we focus on brining more of that out, which enables our attendees to identify their natural speaking style. The way we achieve this is by encouraging our participants to explore being vulnerable and experiment with how it feels to have ‘your guard’ down. We believe being vulnerable = strength and not weakness. Instead of always attempting to be someone who we are not, which forces us to hide certain qualities from the public we encourage our attendees to be themselves, because what we are is already as great and ‘full’ as we can be. When we aim to be more, or change/hide our weaknesses we allow our fear of public speaking, alongside other socially-derived anxieties to prosper. Hence, our goal is to help people reach a place of self-worth, self-love and self acceptance and VULNERABILITY is a big theme underlying our philosophy.

Background about the facilitator

Michael Sokolin holds a BA in Entrepreneurship and Management and a MA in Consultancy and Coaching. He has previously worked as a management consultant in A.T. Kearney and managed an international team in the strategy department of Groupon.

Training as an actor, Michael has constructed a strategic step-by-step approach for gaining more confidence in public speaking. His training draws from actor’s training in drama schools, various public speaking methodologies, improvised comedy training.

Michael’s goal is to identify your weakest areas, and focus mainly on them, so you can grow your confidence in the most proven and practical way.