Dunkirk (BBC Films)

I understand high-stakes situations…

…and I know exactly what it’s like to feel insecure in front of an audience. If you’re anything like me, your career or business means the world to you. And since your work involves making presentations, you’ve probably had enough of not feeling good enough in front of an audience.

Maybe you’ve tried some of the things I have. Perhaps like me, you bought all the books on improving your public speaking and that didn’t work because they didn’t give actual practical how to’s.

Perhaps you’ve had a presentation skills training day at work, but you didn’t really learn anything because you felt so self conscious with your peers.

Maybe you’ve tried going to a local speaking group like Toastmasters and again unfortunately, it just didn’t work.

It all felt too technical, and resulted in you speaking in a way that sounded forced, unnatural and insincere. Perhaps you’ve even bought one of those super cheap online courses. But of course, you were quickly reminded that you get what you pay for.

After doing many of these things myself, spending money, and wasting time trying things that didn’t work I still didn’t get rid of the insecurity. In fact, it just got worse. And what was especially frustrating for me was I was working as a professional actor – not ideal for someone suffering stage fright.

I’ve worked as a professional actor for over 20 years and had huge success playing lead roles in movies like Angela’s Ashes and in TV shows like Shameless.

I’ve played leading roles in West End theaters opposite incredible actors like Michael Gambon. I’ve been in projects with Tom Hardy, James Corden, Benedict Cumberbatch and Michelle Dockery.

I’ve been truly lucky to work with and learn from some of the best Oscar winning actors and directors in the world.

After taking a short break from acting, I set about studying everything I could about how we can control the mind successfully through stressful situations.

I built a thriving coaching business, the MindHealth Coach, helping senior level executives deal with stress, work through complex decisions, and get unstuck.

More recently, I put aside some time to work on a new venture to help business professionals with public speaking and overcoming nerves.

I set about modelling and documenting everything I’d learned behind the scenes from the best actors I’d worked with.

Once I documented all these secrets, I blended them with all the best mindset secrets I’d learned, and it led me to an incredible understanding of why people find public speaking so difficult.

 And how they can turn it around and make speaking in front of an audience as easy as brushing their teeth.

And it all comes down to one thing – Focus.

For most of my 20 year career as an actor, I worked very successfully.

Audiences didn’t scare me and my work didn’t suffer.

But when the stakes got high and I became more well known, I became self conscious.

In my head, The Focus became about ME rather than the audience.

See, somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that as an actor the performance is never about you. It’s all about the audience

I’d become so nervous and angsty all because of a simple shift of focus.

Discovering this was a huge WOW moment for me.

I finally understood why I’d gone from super confident on stage to super insecure.

The anxiety suddenly made sense. I didn’t have a condition. I hadn’t lost my abilities.

I’d simply let the everyday stress and strain of my work, along with an unhealthy dose of perfectionism shift my focus in the wrong direction to self rather than audience.

You see, most good actors and performers develop an ability to forget about themselves and so switch off self consciousness.

They become completely involved in their character’s message and in expressing these messages to an audience as clearly as possible.

Most public speaking training puts far too much emphasis on you instead of where the emphasis needs to be – your message and the audience.

Once I realized what the real problem was, it was time to test my solution.

I created The Audience Based Communication Method  and shared it with a small group of clients

The results were incredible.

I pushed ahead and developed an entire public speaking program based on the ABC method called Nail Your Presentations to show how anyone can become confident and captivate even the most difficult of audiences.

And I think you’ll love it..

Interested?

Let’s talk and see if I can help you or your business reap the rewards of fearless and effective public speaking.

My signature blend of powerful mindset techniques, presentation skills and years of acting experience will ensure you shine in all the high-pressure spotlight moments of your life.

I look forward to connecting with you,

Michael