Q: When was Speaking Truthfully created and what was the impetus to do so?

Speaking Truthfully was created in late 2005, in Melbourne, Australia. During the time I lived in Australia, it was called RealTime Speaking and I provided programs throughout that lovely country. In 2010, I created The 5 Principles of Authentic Living, the fourth principle of which is “speak truthfully.” I felt that putting RealTime Speaking into the larger context of living an authentic life was a better place for this work. When I moved back to the U.S. in 2011, I rebranded RealTime Speaking to the current Speaking Truthfully. After spending most of the past four years on a professional hiatus, due to stage 4 lung cancer, I am again featuring this work.

The impetus to create Speaking Truthfully was my response to a question posed to me by Mary Delaney, a Melbourne-based interior designer. Mary attended one of my two-day meditative inquiry seminars. At the conclusion of the workshop, Mary told me that she was very impressed with my style and manner of speaking. She asked if I could teach her to speak with the same ease, confidence, and clarity; with the same presence and humor and comfort with silence.

I spent a few days thinking about how I spoke, making a few notes. I had taken for granted the things Mary had noticed, as I’ve always been a good speaker, not in the polished and mannered way of professional motivational speakers and ministers, but in my own natural way, with comfort, confidence, humor, connection, presence, and shakti. I have to use this word, because it’s the best word to use. It’s a Sanskrit word that can mean several things. I use it here to stand for energy, spirit, life force. Not adrenalin or testosterone! The juice that powers the universe. My teacher, Swami Muktananda, was the embodiment of speaking with shakti. Maybe some of his embodied mastery found its way into my DNA.

After I deconstructed my speaking style, looking not just at my visible behaviors, but my internal state of being and the quality of my awareness while speaking — which includes continuous listening as I speak — and how I functioned well with spontaneity and self-trust, and how I spoke quickly and clearly to a point, or bewitch people with colorful stories that I swore were true, I called Mary to say let’s get together. Mary and I spent a day together, during which time I presented to her the principles I came up with. We worked on those for the day; I videotaped her and played it back with my feedback.

A few days later, she called and said that she had a group of people who wanted to learn what I had taught her. The rest, as they say, is history. RealTime Speaking was born soon thereafter, and I spent six years teaching these principles to hundreds of people in every major city and from virtually every strata of society. It was a truly beautiful, remarkable time. I witnessed so many people grow and transform in powerful and practical ways in the two days of the workshop. Many took more than one workshop.

I’ve spent most of my adult life involved with some aspect of personal growth and spiritual development. It is my view that this work of getting people up in front of others to show themselves honestly, to speak authentically, to see and be seen without discomfort or hiding — this is the most powerful work I’ve ever done, or seen. I think two things make it so: the exposure and, thus, the risk. Being in front of a room or hall or church or stadium full of people, seeing and being seen, standing and speaking with no hiding, no defense, no pretense, with everything on the line, skin in the game, risking every kind of criticism, judgment, condemnation, looking into eyes with full presence and saying to that person what is in your heart to say, putting self-doubt and fear to the side, calling forth from the tremendous depth of your being the truth, your truth, in front of experts and authorities, in front of family and friends, in front of strangers and window-shoppers — well, there is a freedom in this that is both transcendent and embodied.

I write in Speak Truthfully that my lifelong search for self-realization morphed into a desire for full, free, and authentic self-expression! It is to my mind a higher summit and a steeper climb. Far fewer flags are planted there. The view is, well, you’ll just have to see for yourself!

Q: What is the essence of Speaking Truthfully?

The French novelist Emile Zola said, “If you ask me what I came to this world to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.” So have I, and so, I believe, have you. If we can agree on anything, we can agree that Nature is a thrilling wonderland of expression, a showcase of numberless artworks large and small, each and all beautiful, strange, and compelling in their essence and form. As we are. Each and all of us are expressions of Nature; each and all beautiful, strange, and compelling in our nature and form.

Speaking Truthfully is all about learning to freely and authentically express our unique and gorgeous nature and form — with honesty and transparency, with courage and confidence, with presence and power. Speaking Truthfully programs ignite our innate capacity for authentic self-expression in all areas and aspects of one’s life.

Q: Why is it so hard to do that?


At some point in our life, we have all had our exuberant, free, creative powers of self-expression criticized, judged, condemned — even punished. It is a common experience at some point in our early years to have compromised what we wanted to say in the face of a strong, authoritative challenge. From these threatening experiences, we created survival-based decisions to repress our true feelings and voice, our authentic self-expression. Speaking Truthfully is a means to recover our original freedom, joy, and fearlessness of authentic self-expression. This comes first, because without this return to wholeness, we will never become truly great speakers. Then, we learn to be effective, how to create a conscious, intentional, and purposeful effect through our speaking. Speaking Truthfully, as an expression of your self-awareness, is about “self.” Speaking Truthfully, as effective speaking, is about “other.” The three interdependent aspects of Speaking Truthfully are: who you are, what you say, and how you say it.

Speaking Truthfully requires that we truly show our self in front of our audience, that we be real, genuine, and sincere. In other words, we can’t hide, we can’t pretend, we can’t deceive — from our own self and from our audience. This is difficult for most people, because we are so used to presenting a facade, an image, a facsimile of who we really are. We may think transmitting information is communicating: it is not. We may think that reading from a prepared text or pointing to a PowerPoint is speaking: it is not. We may think we can be credible by standing behind our title, credentials, or the quantity of our content, but in actuality we cannot.

The subtext of the Speaking Truthfully philosophy and principles, and of all its programs, is: YOU are the message.

Q: What’s the difference between Speaking Truthfully and conventional presentation skills training programs?

Perhaps the best way to answer that question is to let the people who have participated in Speaking Truthfully programs respond. You can read their comments here, and watch them speak here, at the bottom of page.

Of course, I can’t speak to the quality of all presentation skills training companies. However, I can speak to my personal experience. In the early ’90s, a corporate client asked me to recommend a presentation skills company for their people. In order to make an informed recommendation, I participated in three executive level public speaking courses, among the most prestigious in the U. S. They were all similar in content, methodology, and goals. While those courses could certainly help poor speakers get better, they did not really touch on the person. The person remained essentially the same, though equipped with some behavioral strategies to ward off nervousness, appear more confident, and generate “credibility.”

For me, that is not enough, not even close. Conventional presentation skills seem to me to be another hiding place, another way in which we can disguise who we really are and what we really think. We learn to calm our nerves, okay. We learn to move this way, and gesture that way. We learn to structure a talk in this way, and pause for three seconds from time to time. Smile, show your teeth. Fine. But that is not at all what I’m interested in or after.

Even the word training has always bothered me when applied to people. Maybe training is best suited for seals and bears. Human beings need something altogether more and different than being trained to replicate and imitate some random set of conventions.

One of the programs I took was from what was widely recognized as among the top three communication companies in the U.S. The founder of that company and creator of the programs said that no one should ever use the word “intimate” — let alone be intimate — in a business presentation. Intimacy is a core principle of Speaking Truthfully. I believe that public speaking is first and foremost an act of self-revelation: the speaker must reveal, not conceal, their true character, motives, and purpose. This requires the speaker be intimate with him- or herself (knowing oneself and one’s message), and vulnerable with their audience (honestly showing yourself and your message). We don’t see much of this in the public arena. The bar is set so low by most politicians, corporate executives, product pitchmen, and news anchors pretending to be genuine and truthful. Unless we live off the grid, we are likely to be pounded on a daily basis by all manner of talking heads, live and recorded, on the internet and television and in the movies. And how many of these talking heads are real people saying truthful things in an authentic manner? It’s hard to tell, unless we have a point of comparison. Speaking Truthfully offers that point of comparison.

(By the way, I was offered a job by one of the companies whose program I took. They said I could become a top facilitator, that I was already as good as their trainers! That was in about 1992. I said no, but I said it politely and with good eye contact!)

Public speaking is so “high wire, no net” — full of risk, exposure, and potential calamity. Perhaps that’s why so many fear it. I do not. I love it. I adore it. I come more awake, aware, and alive in public speaking than anywhere else in life. This is the experience I like to transmit through Speaking Truthfully. In order to find this freedom in front of others, one must transform the part of the self that is afraid of being seen, afraid of speaking the truth, afraid of deep connection, afraid of vulnerability and intimacy, paralyzed by self-doubt. I’ve never heard of a presentation skills training program that does this. Speaking Truthfully does.

Speaking Truthfully is an intensely transformative experience, which liberates the full measure of one’s expressive power from self-doubt and fear of criticism and judgment. Speaking Truthfully is about authentic self-expression, about the courage and confidence to speak one’s truth and deliver one’s message with power and feeling as well as with clarity and purpose. Speaking Truthfully is about creating credibility through authenticity, presence, and connection.

Speaking Truthfully uses intimacy with self and vulnerability with others to create the authentic connection without which true communication cannot occur. Speaking Truthfully is a way of speaking in which words, tone, gestures, emotion, and spirit are used to reveal, rather than to conceal, one’s authentic self, purpose, and motivation. In Speaking Truthfully, one must feel connected to what one is saying: one must feel a true and meaningful synergy between who one is, what one is saying, and how one says it. This integrity is essential in Speaking Truthfully, and it comes from this alignment of self, message, and purpose. The internal life of the speaker is as important as the message delivered to the external audience.

Yes, I do work with specific behavioral practices and principles of effective speaking — but always as a subset of authentic self-expression.


Q: What will I learn in the masterclasses?

Jimmy Cagney, the American actor famed for his tough guy roles, offered a novice actor his essential teaching about the art of acting. “It’s simple. You walk in the room, plant your feet, look me in the eye, and tell the truth.”

This advice is a good place to begin in terms of authentic self-expression and public speaking. We are all public speakers, if you will accept the definition of public speaking as speaking with anyone other than oneself. And every public speaking event is an opportunity for us to authentically express our self, to show who we are, to say what is true, and to affect our audience in a conscious, intentional, and purposeful way.

Who are we? Do we show our true face, or do we show a mask behind which we live, perhaps hiding beneath fear, doubt, or insecurity? Do we speak with our own voice, or do we say what others have said, what others expect, what others approve? Do we know what we really want to say, is our message clear, sharp, and focused? In what ways do we want to effect our audience: what do we want them to think, feel, and do as a result of our speaking?

Where is our untamed and authentic self and voice? Where is our courage to stand before others and to speak truthfully, with honesty and transparency, with confidence and connection, with presence and power? Where is the undisguised truth of our message? Where are the spirit and energy to inspire and impact an audience — whether of one or five thousand?

Speaking Truthfully masterclasses are the place to answer these questions. Masterclasses are dynamic, intense, improvisational, and playful environments for people who truly want to develop and refine their ability to speak truthfully and effectively — with confidence, credibility, and authentic connection. In these masterclasses, people learn to express their authentic self and to inspire others with who they are and what they stand for.

Q: Is Speaking Truthfully more applicable to business or personal life?

Is there a difference? Are we not always trying to make an impact or produce a specific outcome through the integrity of our being and quality of our speaking? I think you’ll agree that everything we do involves speaking, and all our speaking has some kind of purpose — whether it be to nurture intimacy with our partner, demonstrate tenderness with our children, motivate our staff, teach a class or give a workshop, make a good first impression, or sell our product or service to a new customer. Everything in life is dependent on the quality of our communication, which is wholly dependent on the authenticity of our speaking.

I think that in all communication situations, the one question everyone has that must be answered before any others is: Are you for real? People are always trying to see if we are believable, if we are for real. They want to know this about us. We need to believe someone to trust them. We need to trust them to listen to them. We need to listen to them to understand them and consider what they are saying. If you want people to consider what you are saying, then you’d better be believable, and that cannot be faked. There is no strategy or technique in the world to fool the intuitive radar of someone who is sincerely asking, Are you for real?

The only acceptable answer is your authenticity. This answer is valid whoever you are, wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing! If you’re not consistently generating the results you want through your speaking, look first to your level of authenticity, the degree to which you are being real with yourself and others.

I know that many people think credibility is generated through content. Not really. If you don’t know how to generate credibility through authenticity and connection, people won’t listen long enough to hear your content.

Q: Do you work with people on specific events, like keynotes and media interviews?

Yes! Mentoring for individuals or teams in preparation for a specific event is a very effective way to learn and integrate Speaking Truthfully principles. I work with clients to create clear, concise, compelling content, as well as to prepare them to stand in front of others with comfort, confidence, and connection. I’ve worked with authors who were about to embark on book tours and media interviews; marketing execs preparing new product launches; IT and manufacturing sales teams; institutional investment executives sharpening their presentations; entrepreneurs creating and refining their mission, vision, and values statements for internal and external audiences; a holistic healer developing content and confidence for a national TV interview. I am currently helping a solar energy expert prepare a lecture for a Los Angeles-area college; I’m working with a dancer to create and deliver a leadership presentation on her way to a teaching accreditation. Once, while I was still in Melbourne, a client of mine was in Singapore getting ready to be interviewed on a CNN segment. We hooked up by Skype and did a last-minute tune-up — so working at a distance is also feasible and impactful.