Overcome your public speaking anxiety and fear with our in-person and online courses
A fear of public speaking is real. In fact, it’s so real it’s been given a medical term - glossophobia. 73% of people worldwide have glossophobia. So, if you’ve arrived here feeling frustrated or concerned about your anxiety, don’t worry, you’re not alone. And…we’re here to help.
School of Connection provides public speaking courses for a variety of people with a variety of goals for seeking our help. Some of these include:
Progressing your career at work
Improving your confidence with friends and family
Overcoming your social anxiety disorder
Or for actors and actresses, feeling more confident with their performances
Click below to discover more about our courses, or keep reading for more details.
In-Person Public Speaking Courses & Online Public Speaking Courses.
Why do we feel fear and anxiety when it comes to public speaking?
Why do many of us get a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, sweaty palms and hot flushes when in public speaking situations? The answer? It’s all to do with your ‘fight or flight’ reaction. Your adrenaline and cortisol hormones kick in, and suddenly you have a strong fear and intense anxiety symptoms.
This is a completely normal reaction, considering it’s a very common fear. People who appear to be confident speakers are highly likely to be experiencing the same adrenaline rush, they’ve just learnt how to control these feelings.
With our students, we help them embrace these vulnerable feelings and support them with techniques to control and lessen them. The result? You start feeling more relaxed in these situations - and dare we say it - enjoy speaking in public.
Can you overcome public speaking fear and anxiety?
The only way to really overcome your public speaking fear and anxiety is by seeking support. Fear and anxiety come from the mind. The brain sends a message to the body saying, “Danger, danger. Run. Get yourself out of this situation!” When in reality there is no danger, it’s just our minds making us see things differently. An irrational fear.
Seeking support for your fear and anxiety will help you work on your mindset and challenge any negative thoughts with more positive, realistic ones. We also teach our students how to use breathing exercises to control adrenaline and cortisol spikes. Our breath affects a lot of hormones in our body. Therefore, if you can learn how to take deep breaths using your diaphragm you can be in complete control of how your body feels - not the other way around.
What do our public speaking courses include?
Our In-Person Public Speaking Courses and Online Public Speaking Courses include:
Embracing anxiety
We’ll introduce you to our philosophy on confidence and vulnerability. In this session, we’ll also teach you a series of unique techniques which means you’ll walk away equipped to deal with anxiety, fear and nerves when speaking in public.
How to have a confident, steady voice
Nerves can leave our voices sounding shaky, which can make you feel even more nervous. In this session, we’ll show you how to project your voice with vocal exercises designed to get you speaking in public with passion and energy; transforming nervous energy into confidence.
Honest expression and body language
It can feel odd standing up in front of an audience, leaving you thinking, “Where do I put my hands? Where do I look? Do I walk about?” Body language however reveals a lot, which is why we teach you five fundamental principles to help you express yourself naturally when speaking in public. Not just through words, but with your entire body.
How to engage your audience
No audience remembers what you say, they remember how you make them feel. We share with you a series of exercises to help you harness emotion in your public speaking to make an audience and your peers walk away engaged and inspired by your performance.
Click here for our: In-Person Public Speaking Courses or Online Public Speaking Courses.
What public speaking skills will you walk away with?
So, if you were to join one of our public speaking courses, what skills will you walk away with? Here’s a list. You can also listen to one of our students talk about the new-learned skills she found most useful.
Just some of the skills you’ll walk away with.
You’ll be able to embrace anxiety and overcome your fear of public speaking
You’ll be able to speak more confidently in work and social situations
You’ll be a better communicator, at work and at home
You’ll be able to structure and write a compelling speech
You’ll understand how to use breathing techniques, vocal exercises, body language and eye contact to be a better speaker
You’ll develop negotiating skills to get the outcomes you want
You’ll be able to deliver improvised talks using your intuition
You’ll be able to speak authentically without the need to perform or act confident
You’ll boost your self-esteem
You’ll walk away with new friends and new connections
Public speaking course options
We have four ways in which you can learn the art of public speaking and overcome your fears and anxiety. They are:
In-Person Course, held in London
Our In-person courses are held in London at The Old Diorama Arts Centre on Regents Place. The course takes place with a group of like-minded people and consists of four sessions. In the sessions, you’ll learn about building confidence, harnessing your natural speaking style and how to use mindset and breathing to overcome your public speaking fears.
Online course, live video-call sessions
Our Online course is a 4-week live online training via Zoom. Each session is 3 hours long and limited to a maximum of 14 people to ensure you can learn in a safe and supportive environment. You’ll walk away with tools that boost your confidence and perfect your natural speaking style, plus you’ll also get a video recording of a speech emailed to you directly after each session so you can see your progress.
Private Public Speaking Training, in-person and online
Our One to One Public Speaking Training consists of 10 x private coaching sessions providing the opportunity for you to focus on your specific goals and fast-track your development. These can be held in-person or online, whatever you prefer. We can also provide our private coaching clients with opportunities to speak in front of real audiences so you can have the practical experience you need to grow.
Public Speaking Training for Business, for you and your peers
Being able to communicate well is the most important skill any employee, executive, leader or business owner can possess. Our Public Speaking Training for Business sessions not only teach people how to express themselves honestly but also how to form meaningful relationships with others. If you think your business needs more support with public speaking skills, get in touch and we’ll create a bespoke package for you.
How our public speaking courses helped people overcome their fears
It’s always good to understand the impact courses and training have on real people. So here are some of our students expressing how attending our public speaking courses helped them.
Joseph Woodland, Founder of Workit
Course attended: Public Speaking Training for Business
“We worked with School of Connection because we were looking for some help with improving the communication skills of our team. The session was so much more than we expected - we did mediation, improv games, energy speaking exercises, learnt practical speaking techniques, and lots more. It’s totally different from any other training we’ve done, in a really good way. The focus on building trust and confidence based around vulnerability and honesty, we found it really unique and it really helped us bond as a team.”
Helen Spooner
Course attended: In-Person Course
“I’d really, really recommend this course! I was apprehensive about spending the money at first, but if you commit to the course, it is absolutely worth it. I felt that the focus on vulnerability and authenticity was really important in getting to the root of what causes my public speaking anxieties. Rather than teaching us to put on a mask and pretend to be someone else/hide our fear, Adam taught us to embrace them - and reframing my perspective like this I've found really useful.
This course really gets to the core of what makes us feel anxious about public speaking, rather than just giving us techniques to fake it. I would wholeheartedly recommend it!”
Tanya Korobka
Course attended: In-Person Course
“I attended Mike’s taster session and in the first five minutes of listening to him, I was sold! His life philosophy and public speaking techniques are so authentic and playful, you just totally lose yourself in them. Having just finished the course, I can honestly assure you that it was the best thing I did for myself this year. Worth every penny and more!
We were vulnerable, passionate, authoritative, spontaneous, and with each session I found myself dropping my mask, becoming less self-conscious and most importantly - actually connecting with the audience (which has been difficult before).
Mike’s course is more than just a public speaking course, it’s a form of therapy. It helps you find yourself, own yourself and become more honest and present with all your communications - be it with friends, acquaintances or colleagues.”
Interested to find out more?
Click here for our: In-Person Public Speaking Courses or Online Public Speaking Courses.