Creating Uncommonly Confident Speakers 

Hey - I'm Kirsten. My entire career has been about communicating effectively - from my time as a journalist, a spokesperson, and a corporate comms strategist for some pretty big companies around the world.
 

For the last 15 years I've run PrepTalk Consulting, helping keynoters, podcasters, panelists, TEDTalkers, nervous CEOs and tech geniuses communicate more effectively - whether that's been onstage, on camera or in important meetings.

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What that means is that I've had a few decades to create training programs that *actually change behavior*.  There is no rinse and repeat training here - everything is customized to the individual learning need.

 

What *that* means is that this is a training you will not find anywhere else.

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Uncommon/Confidence was born in 2023, when I took a group of amazing women speakers to Verona Italy, to test-drive the idea of what would happen if we let them get away from their real worlds with the time, space and supportive community to work on their speaking skills in an intensive and challenging way. Their work over that week and the deep connections they made with each other informed this program in a deep way. 

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To be truly effective, presentation practice requires three things:

1) Repeated practice...

2) Over time... 

3) Applied to your real-world

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(There's even a formula!)

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Unfortunately, for most, that practice ends up having to occur "onstage" in some form - whether on a literal stage, sweating through your blouse... or just in front of colleagues, dealing with all the politics & power dynamics while just trying to say what it is you want to say.  

 

It's like everyone is Julia Roberts, trying like hell to get Hugh Grant to go out with her again.

 

"I'm just a girl, standing in front of a group

of people, asking them to understand her."

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It's a less cinematic moment when it's in a conference room, though.

And it's not... the greatest way to get better at something.

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I created this program because although many of my PrepTalk clients were asking for increasingly shorter sessions (anyone else notice how much our attention spans are collectively shrinking?), I saw again and again that the one-time practice they were settling for didn't get them a chance to build the mental muscle memory needed to be a confident public speaker anytime, anywhere.

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You can read my qualifications below, but I think perhaps more important is understanding the way I work with those wanting to become kickass public speakers:

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1) The golden rule is right in the name: Uncommon.  You Are Uniquely Human. You are not expected to be great at everything. You have your own story about what works for you and what doesn't. From the perspective of this program, that means that the cohort size is limited because every.single.person who joins this cohort - even if they all say it's for the same reason - has their own uncommon path to success. We offer two distinct cohort levels: One specifically for those with some speaking experience who want to learn the ins and outs of how to own their stage. Another is for speakers who are already highly experienced and confident, but who want to take that skill and/or their content to the next level. 

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2) Safety and Room are paramount: NO ONE gets better at this overnight, and EVERYONE gets better when they get a chance to "fail". Or, to use another term, everyone gets to suck at this, and I'll go down swinging to ensure that those moments are not only made safe, but that we celebrate that moment of failure. What any great speaker can tell you is that just on the other side of that moment is a strength and confidence rooted in experience.

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3) The Right Community Matters: There's some magic that happens when people working on the same skillset are able to see each other work on these skills. You learn more than you would have on your own, and you get to hear the *informed truth* from those you've come to trust. For the Uncommon/Cohort, that means a curated group comprised of those who sign on as a supportive and judgement-free resource to their fellow cohort members. That experience and feedback - seeing your skills through the eyes of those who have gotten to KNOW YOUR VIBE - does something to your Speaker DNA long after you leave the program.

 

And that, my friend, is how

your Confidence becomes Uncommon.