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The program mentioned in this email has already passed, but you can learn more about Tom O’Brien here.

My favorite class in elementary school was art. 

Ms. Quintin, a middle-aged woman with cropped blond hair and deep brown eyes, struck the perfect balance of warmth, playfulness, and no-nonsense instruction. 

Was art class fun and silly? Yes, of course! But it was also serious business. 

Every year, the 3rd graders would present a still life painting for submission to the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo’s annual art competition. This competition pitted young artists against each other in a battle for artistic glory.

I’d count down the minutes until art class, eagerly awaiting my chance to paint a ceramic bowl full of plastic apples and oranges. I can hear my little voice in the recesses of my memory, “Give me a paintbrush and stand back, Ms. Quintin! I’m ready to PAINT!” 

My desire to make art flowed freely through my 8-year-old veins. It was as natural as breathing, a creative outlet that thrived on experimentation and spontaneity! 

That stopped the day my still life submission was DENIED by the Rodeo’s art competition. 😢

The message I received? Your art isn’t good enough because you are a bad artist.  

My inner critic shoved this belief into a Spacesaver vacuum bag and buried it deep in my psyche, where it would quietly haunt me for the rest of my life.

This weekend, I went to a painting class to reclaim my inner artist! 

I had fun painting a mediocre landscape that my husband, Jonathan, said was the best landscape I’ve ever painted! (To be clear, it is the only landscape I’ve ever painted. Bless him.) 

I went to the class to have fun and walked out criticizing my painting, pondering ways to shove it into the trashcan before anyone could see what I’d made.

Why did I care? 

Why was I criticizing the painting I’d made for fun?!

Why was this 3rd grade wound still oozing?!?! 

Because that’s what old wounds do, obviously. 

We all have old wounds that stop us from being our bravest grown-up selves. 

I see this daily with my clients—especially regarding public speaking. 

They have oozing wounds that make speaking to an audience terrifying. They don’t want to seem too bright, too opinionated, too shiny. They’re afraid they’ll be found out as frauds or laughed out of the room for presuming they had something interesting to say. 

Fear of public speaking is the #1 barrier holding my clients back from sharing their message with more people. 

It doesn’t matter if they’re leading a Zoom workshop, introducing themselves at a networking event, or delivering a keynote speech for a live audience—the fear of being seen holds them back from expanding their impact beyond one-on-one client work.

This fear is almost always rooted in something that happened in childhood. 

We all have some version of our painting being denied a place in the Rodeo’s art competition, a moment of vulnerability when something we made or said was rejected, dismissed, or mocked. 

That painful moment transforms into a belief we internalize so deeply that we barely recognize it’s there. 

I’m a lousy artist.
I can’t dance.
I’m not an athlete.
I’m bad at math.
I’m a terrible speller. 

👆Those are my noisiest beliefs (or “thought garbage”, as my therapist once referred to them), which I’m working hard to reclaim! 

If you have fears of public speaking, I bet a few of these noisy beliefs rattle around in your brain… 

I’m an awkward person.
I’m not good at public speaking.
I’m boring and uninteresting.
I’m foolish and dumb.
I don’t have anything special to say. 

These beliefs are wrong. I say that with complete confidence, even if we’ve never met! 

Public speaking and authentic performance are learnable skills. 

Just like I’m learning how to paint, you can learn how to perform. 

While I’m not the right person to teach you how to dance or do algebra, I have many gifts to share regarding developing unshakeable confidence in your performance abilities.

I’m collaborating with my friend Tom O’Brien (he’s a professional acting coach!) on a new program called Performance Alchemy. We’ve created a 10-week experience to help passionate and empathic professionals transform their fear of public speaking into powerful performance.

We’re opening applications in September. If you want early access to the details, click here to let me know you’re interested, and I’ll send you the information next week. 

If you have something important to say, Tom and I want to help you unravel the old beliefs holding you back from stepping into the spotlight with ease and confidence. 

Click here if you’re interested in learning more about Performance Alchemy. 

Here’s to rewriting old stories and reclaiming lost parts of ourselves!