Speaking with Confidence

How to use this course

Sixteen short lessons on using your voice well, wherever you use it. Most lessons take 10 to 15 minutes to read and end with one small thing to try, usually in a conversation or meeting you already have that week.

This is not a course about giving keynotes. Most of us rarely stand on a stage, but we speak all day: the update in a team meeting, the question you nearly didn’t ask, the phone call to a tradie, running a committee, a video call with a client, a toast at a family dinner. How you sound in those moments shapes how much people hear, trust and remember. A prepared talk is just the same skills with more warning.

The course comes from years of practice in Toastmasters clubs, where you speak, get evaluated and try again every couple of weeks. It borrows the habits that make clubs work (short regular practice, impromptu Table Topics, timed speaking, honest and kind evaluation, mentoring) and explains why they work, so you can use them with or without a club.

This is an independent course. It is not a Toastmasters course and is not endorsed by, sponsored by or affiliated with Toastmasters International. Toastmasters International, Toastmasters and Table Topics are trademarks of Toastmasters International. It also draws on research into speaking anxiety, voice, meetings and listening. Each lesson lists its sources. Where an idea is a well-tested finding, a practitioner rule of thumb or just a popular tip, the lesson says which:

Good evidence: several solid studies or a meta-analysis agree
Some evidence: a few studies, or effects that are real but small
Early evidence: promising, not yet well replicated
Practitioner tip: what experienced speakers and facilitators do; sensible, but not tested as such

How to work through it

Lessons 1 to 4 are the foundations: why your voice matters everywhere, working with nerves, your voice itself, and your body.
Lessons 5 to 7 are about what you say: answering off the cuff, giving it a shape, and telling a story.
Lessons 8 to 12 are speaking at work and in groups: speaking up in meetings, running a small meeting, leading with your voice, feedback and evaluation, and calls and video.
Lessons 13 and 14 are for prepared talks: notes, slides, rehearsal, and handling questions and things going wrong.
Lesson 15 is your practice plan.
Lesson 16 is where to go next: speaking clubs and how their meetings work, mentors (and mentoring others), voice coaches, contests and paid speaking.

You can read in order or jump to the lesson you need this week. If you have a meeting to run on Thursday, read Lesson 9 first.

What you need

Your phone, to record yourself (audio is enough for most exercises)
A notebook or notes app for a short speaking log
Everyday speaking situations: meetings, calls and conversations you already have

Exercise 0

Record a 60-second voice memo answering this question: “What do you do, and what do you enjoy about it?” Don’t prepare and don’t redo it. Save it without listening. You will come back to it in Lesson 3 and again in Lesson 15.