I wasn’t always a full-time speech coach.
But the seeds were planted long ago, starting in …
High school
When I participated in a national debate league—an experience that sparked my enthusiasm for both presenting and teaching. In my senior year, my debate partner and I were the top-ranked team at the end of tournament season.
While still in high school, my siblings and I organized & taught camps for novice debaters, as evidenced here by these very professional promo videos. 😛
I returned to my old debate club several times as a guest lecturer, primarily teaching rhetoric & refutation.
At UC Berkeley
I joined the sports radio broadcast team, announcing baseball, basketball and football games on Cal’s flagship station, KALX.
After graduating, I picked up stand-up comedy …
It was fun, in a very stressful sort of way. Great nerves training!
… and started a podcast about language.
Specifically, about fun & interesting words that I don’t hear nearly enough in ordinary conversation.
You can listen to the show on iTunes or Spotify! Many episodes (like this one and this one) feature guests—friends of mine with no prior voiceover experience who I coached on how to read a script in a natural, authentic manner.
(avatar design credit: Emily Pelletier—find more of her work on Instagram via @tier_designs!)
Meanwhile, at work ...
During my 4+ years at Fisher Investments as a financial writer, I taught two internal public speaking classes and won a company-wide presentation competition with this speech.
The beard is for extra credibility.
Then in fall 2020, I decided to turn my passion into a career and teach public speaking full-time!
It’s going very well so far if I may say so. 😀