About our public speaking courses.
Our Mission
Our mission is more significant than just helping people become better at public speaking by reducing their anxiety. It’s to help create a more self-accepting, transparent and better-connected society. Modern day culture celebrates the smooth, slick, sophisticated, and charismatic. The conventional way of building confidence proposes an approach of ‘faking it till you make it’. We believe this can lead us to neglect parts of our personality and hide who we truly are in pursuit of becoming what society deems as confident. The risk of this approach is that we become less human and more like well-rehearsed robots. Our aim is to help our students embrace insecurities, imperfections and self-doubt and develop a deeper sense of self-belief that allows for honest, open communication without the need for a mask.
Our History
In 2014, Michael Sokolin founded the School of Connection (formerly Public Speaking London) when he uncovered a different approach to public speaking. Having attended courses that taught ‘a formula’ for reducing anxiety and acting with confidence, Michael realised that the real magic was to be found in bringing out our true, human selves. Since then, the School of Connection has taught hundreds of public speaking courses and trained over 10,000 students in the art of authenticity. Along the way, we’ve learnt a lot about what makes us humans so anxious when speaking in front of others, and we’ve looked long and hard at the best methods for transforming fear and self-doubt into deep connection.
“Mike wants us to be who we really are on stage. He works with us so that we let our real selves shine through because, as he says, "it's not a fear of public speaking, it's a fear of being yourself". That's the greatness of his teaching.”
— Berta Franco