Two-time Academy Award winner needs an acting coach?

Billboard Daily Blog

Are you a fan of "Grace and Frankie," the hot Netflix series starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin? My husband and I arrived late to the party, but are now all caught up and attempting to savor season 3 instead of bingeing, like some of my friends have done.

If you don't know the show, it's about two women in their seventies whose lives are turned upside down when their husbands divorce them to marry each other. The premise is unusual, and the story is at times hilarious and at other times quite touching and emotional.

You might think that someone like Jane Fonda who, at 78, has been in the movie industry longer than many of us have been alive (not to mention her movie-star family members), would feel completely comfortable in her skin and with her abilities at this point in her career. Not so! After the first season, she hired an acting coach.

In an interview with Netflix, she said "I’ve never done episodic television before."

"I got an acting coach, that’s the extent to which I was insecure, and I sat down with her and we watched every episode together. And then we began working. And that was a revelation."

She felt that she was getting rusty. "I also didn’t think I was very good, and I’m a big believer that you can always do better. And just because you’re 78 years old, and you’ve won some awards, doesn’t mean that you’ve got a lock on it."

"An acting coach worked with me and helped me understand my character better."

I like to remind my audiences (and myself!) that just because you have a lot of experience speaking, or just because you love speaking and have no anxiety, that doesn't mean you're doing it as well as you could be.

Are you impacting your audience the way you want to? Are you leaving them feeling motivated and ready to take action? Are you getting all the results you want?

If Jane Fonda, two-time Academy Award winner (and three-time Golden Globe winner) uses a coach; if Usain Bolt, eight-time Olympic gold medalist, uses a coach; if Misty Copeland, American Ballet Theater's principal dancer, still goes to ballet class every morning before seven hours of rehearsal—why do we think, as average Joes in the speaking world, that we don't need to keep training, learning and growing?

I work with several coaches; I've been with my business coach for five years. At other times, I've hired a coach or joined a program for the short term if there was something specific I wanted to work on.

In the past several years, I've had coaches for the virtual parts of my business, for my retreats, for my YouTube presence (still working on that one!) and to express my core message better. I also attend my industry's conferences and mastermind sessions several times a year to stay fresh on my speaking and training skills.

What are you doing to keep your skills fresh, your content current, and your message up-to-date?

If the answer is "not much" or "nothing," please consider joining me for my upcoming program Speak to Engage Mentoring and Mastery.

Registration opens today!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!

Presenting for Humans: Insights for Speakers on Ditching Perfection and Creating Connection

It's coming, it's coming!

I'm expecting my book, Presenting For Humans: Insights for Speakers on Ditching Perfection and Creating Connection, to be available on Amazon by the end of March, and hopefully to have some hard copies in hand to sign for my VIP supporters!

• If you’re looking to make a significant impact on your audiences by offering a transformative growth experience… 
• If you’re ready to share the complex unabridged version of yourself onstage… 
• If you’re tired of trying to impress people and fit yourself into a cookie-cutter mold of “speaker” that doesn’t even exist, this book is the resource to help get you there.

When you look inside this book, you might be surprised to discover that it's not a public speaking “how-to” book. It’s certainly not an academic tome. There’s no step-by-step formula or system to follow, and you won’t learn what to do with your hands or how to write a keynote.

What you will learn is how striving for perfection gets in the way of making the connection you crave. You’ll learn how letting go of your need to impress your audiences frees you up to stop taking yourself so seriously and to have fun on stage.

You’ll learn how you can break the habit of hiding behind a rigid façade of “professionalism” that creates an emotional barrier between you and the audience. And you’ll learn how being real, transparent and genuine is a gift of connection you give to your audience that brings them into your world and allows you to access theirs.

My philosophy is that public speaking is fun, it's an awesome way to express yourself creatively, and that connection and engagement are worth more than a thousand techniques.

And that’s why Presenting for Humans: Insights for Speakers on Ditching Perfection and Creating Connection focuses on upgrading your mindset around how you perceive and create your relationship with the audience.

Through short essays based on everyday encounters and experiences, and reflection questions at the end of each section, the book asks you to question what you already know about speaking.

Presenting for Humans encourages you to create a meaningful and memorable experience with every presentation. It prompts you to come from a place of service, of doing what’s best for your audience rather than what’s easiest for you. It suggests that you step back and take a break from techniques and rules, instead focusing on boldly revealing your true self on stage, being present, and creating connection.

If you'd like to be the first to know when I start taking pre-orders (for signed copies), you can join my book launch advance notice list here.

This book has been ten years in the making, and I can't believe it's almost here!

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On The Everything Page you'll find everything you need to build visibility, credibility and influence through engaging presentations that move your participants into action: freebies, low-cost products and courses, and 1:1 coaching!