Presentation Skills Masterclass Pittsburgh

Your voice can be heard above the crowd.

Your stories can connect with the crowd.

Your message can inspire the crowd.

Learning how to speak from a stage is one of the most powerful ways to make a difference to people’s lives and advance an important cause.

The great leaders of history have all found the courage to speak up for what is right, even when they were nervous, insecure, and doubted themselves. You can find that courage too.

You can tell stories that have your audience on the edge of their seats, moved to tears, or bursting out laughing with equal measure.

You can express yourself in a way that feels natural and authentic to you, whilst still delivering effective speeches that hit home for your audience.

Speeches can be put together in a way that feels creative and fun and makes you want to jump back on stage again and again.

Speaking helps us to bring our vision for a better world into reality.

The feeling of being on stage, seeing your words landing, and hearing the interaction of the audience is intoxicating. It’s an intense sense of connection you will not experience anywhere else in life.

It’s a reward for all the hard work that goes into developing your speaking skills and crafting your speeches.

At the moment it feels like no one can hear your voice.

You’re shouting from the sidelines and getting lost in the noise.

As you try harder and harder to get the result you want, you feel your confidence getting knocked with each failed attempt, or perceived failed attempt.

In all the time leading up to the speech, you stress about putting it all together. What should you say? How should you structure it? What should you put on your slides?

You feel the pressure each time you are on stage. Pressure to get it right. Pressure to remember what you are going to say. Pressure to achieve a certain outcome.

You worry about what the audience thinks of you and your speech. You might feel frozen to the spot on stage. Or you wander around it like a nervous animal in a cage.

After your speeches, you wonder how it went. Did you get the message across? Did the audience learn anything? Was it even worth bothering?

When I first started speaking, I was a young, dumb 22-year-old who didn't know what he was doing.

I was filming videos on my webcam in the bedroom of my student apartment to try and get better at speaking on camera.

I was phoning up anyone who I thought might give me a speaking opportunity, even though I didn't have a clue how to pitch myself.

I was running workshops in noisy bars, cramped coffee shops, and draughty community centres to try and hone my craft.

It was messy, but it was a glorious mess.

It was the hard graft I needed to learn the tricks of the trade.

It led to me winning my first national public speaking competition at age 26, and winning seven more since.

It led to me becoming a TEDx coach for two universities, and getting to speak in their great halls and lecture theatres.

It led to me being able to work with clients from sixteen countries.

There is one thing I have learned that turns people into great speakers.

That there is no “one thing” when it comes to public speaking.

There are a host of different factors to work on, and the most important thing is to learn how to bring them together in your own style.

I never prescribe a “correct” way of speaking. It’s about exploring and experimenting with the options to find the combination that works best for you.

Once you’ve learned the foundational skills, you choose how to build on those foundations.

There is a science and an art to speaking. Once you learn the science, the rest is creating your own art with how you deliver your speeches.

In this masterclass, you will learn the foundations of how you employ the science and develop the art of public speaking.

You'll learn how to deliver captivating content so that you grab your audience's attention from your very first word, can effectively package your content into the small time window you are given to speak, and finish your speeches with a flourish that sends your audience away on an energetic high.

You'll learn how to deliver dyanmically so that you feel more bold and confident expressing yourself, build fast rapport and connection with your audience, and ensure your speeches live long in their memory.

The journey of becoming a great public speaker is not a short one.

Even after ten years, I still don’t consider myself a great speaker. The more you learn, the more you realise you have to learn.

What I do believe is that you can become a good speaker in a year of hard work, but you have to get started.

You don’t build the hours if you don’t start with hour one.

You don’t inspire hundreds or thousands from stage until you inspire one person.

There are stages you could be standing on now, but aren’t.

There could be audiences hearing your message right now, who aren’t.

How long are you going to make them wait?

You're time is now, click the button to the right to sign up for your next step of the journey.

Host or Publisher David McCrae