From: The Desk of Melanie Spring
To: My friends and industry leaders
My entire year's worth of speaking fees disappeared.
Every keynote.
Every workshop.
Every contract.
Half a million dollars in booked revenue—gone in less than two weeks.
It wasn't supposed to happen, but then again, neither was a global pandemic.
It felt like watching the life I’d built crumble in real time.
Not because of the money…
but because the one thing I had built my career and purpose around—speaking—no longer existed.
There were no stages.
No audiences.
No rooms to light up.
Nothing.
Not even the certainty that things would return to normal.
And for the first time in my career, I asked myself a question I had spent years avoiding:
I sat with that question for days.
Then weeks.
Then one morning, I woke up and a different question entered my mind:
"What if the stage isn't the point?"
I was a speaker trainer, after all. I'd been teaching entrepreneurs and executives how to give talks from stage for years. Why not extend the skillset beyond the stage and see what happens? I thought to myself:
So I invited a handful of people to join me live every day for what was supposed to be a short experiment for my speaker training program, SPEAK With Confidence.
Dozens of people showed up daily—not to be polished, or perfect, or impressive—but to find their voice and build their signature talk from scratch… in front of strangers… during a global crisis.
And this wild thing happened:
They went above and beyond.
They didn't just show up—they were invested in the other participants' talks.
They stayed engaged for 90 days straight—even when the world was falling apart.
And that’s when I got super clear on something I had never seen so clearly in all my years on stage:
Audiences don’t stay for performance.
They stay for presence.
They stay for humanity.
They stay for truth.
Not one person came because they wanted to “look like a speaker.”
That part wasn't important anymore.
They came because they wanted to finally sound like themselves.
And the best part?
Once the pandemic was over, those same people had killer talks that got them on stage, won money, and built their reputation while everyone else in their line of work was just getting back to work.
Yeah, I lost an entire year of speaking revenue. But…
It forced me to consider what keeps an audience’s attention—even through a screen, even in chaos, even when everything else is broken:
Authenticity cuts through anything.
Honesty is magnetic.
Your real voice is irresistible.
And once I saw that truth, I rebuilt SPEAK With Confidence from the ground up.
Not as a “public speaking program,”
not as a “presentation skills course,”
but as a transformational process that helps you create the talk of your career—the one that finally earns you the respect, income, and impact you’ve been feeling inside you for years.
The world is louder than ever.
The safe, scripted, cookie-cutter voices are getting drowned out.
But the ones who speak with clarity, courage, and authenticity?
They’re the ones the world remembers.
If you've felt invisible, forgettable, or held back as a speaker…
You have been taught the wrong things.
The Performative Speaking Industry has trained you to:
Polish yourself into sameness.
Memorize instead of embody.
Hide behind templates instead of telling the truth.
“Look like a speaker” instead of being one.
Traditional speaker trainings weren’t designed to help you be unforgettable. They were designed to help you be acceptable.
And acceptable is not what gets you booked. Acceptable is not what gets you paid. Acceptable is not what gets you remembered.
No wonder you’ve felt stuck. No wonder you’ve felt small. No wonder your message hasn’t broken through.
You’ve been trying to shine through a system built to dim you.
There’s a reason your talk hasn’t worked in the past.
A reason it’s felt like pushing a boulder uphill every time you try to articulate your message.
And once you see what it is…
You’ll finally understand why your past speaking attempts fell flat —
and why your next talk could be the most powerful, memorable, career-changing message you’ve ever delivered.
See, here's the reality:
We're living in the noisiest era in human history.
AI is cranking out endless content.
Influencers are flooding social media with new content every second.
Algorithms change the rules of the game every few months.
And meanwhile, Performative Speaking Coaches are still teaching people how to “look polished” instead of how to connect…
Cookie-Cutter Speaker Templates are still the go-to solution to getting a talk accepted at TED or the industry conference…
And Corporate Communication Culture continues to reward blandness, sameness, and safety.
Not dying.
Not declining.
Dead.
They don’t buy it.
They don’t believe it.
They don’t stay for it.
They want one thing:
A speaker brave enough to be fully themselves.
When you speak from your true identity — your stories, your perspective, your presence — you become the most magnetic person in the room.
And yet the speaking industry — stuck in its outdated, performative, 2005 playbook — is STILL teaching speakers how to:
✔️ memorize scripts
✔️ follow rigid templates
✔️ “look polished” instead of actually connect
If you’ve ever felt like the traditional speaking world forces you to shrink, flatten, or contort yourself…
You’re not imagining it.
The industry is built that way.
And it’s why the next generation of booked, paid, unforgettable speakers won’t come from that system.
They’ll be the ones who learn to speak with presence, humanity, and Embodiment — meaning, being present and in your body rather than stuck in your head — and that's the ONE thing you can’t fake and AI can’t generate.
The speakers who are getting booked right now — and the ones who will dominate the next decade — aren’t the most polished.
They’re the most Embodied.
Take this guy for example. His name is Benjamin Zander:
Benjamin totally broke the mold of the typical TED talk because he was embodied.
I use this video in the SPEAK With Confidence training to show an example of real embodiment. If you watch the video above, you can see that Benjamin constantly and incessantly moves forward in his talk, yet you never have trouble keeping up.
He's moving ALL over the place and keeping the audience's attention. He never loses his spot.
Most importantly, he's showing incredible passion for what he's sharing.
Now, does this kind of presence and embodiment simply come from practicing over and over?
No, of course not.
Otherwise, we'd see veteran professional speakers who haven't changed their topic in a decade dominating the speaking circuits.
But we don't see that—because those speakers aren't embodied. They're just going through the motions.
Embodied speakers are the ones who stand on a stage and don’t go through the motions and don't pretend.
They speak like humans.
Not performers.
Not templates.
Not perfectly-packaged brand characters.
Just humans with presence, clarity, and authority.
And audiences can feel the difference instantly.
So can event organizers.
So can decision-makers.
So can investors.
Just watch the video of Benjamin Zander to know what that feeling is.
And once you understand why embodiment outperforms performance every single time, the entire speaking world starts to look very, very different.
Embodied Expertise is a state you reach when you don't just know what you're going to say in your head, but you also feel it in your body.
Signs that you have Embodied Expertise are:
You never get lost in your talk
If something happens that interrupts your flow, you can pick back up immediately without getting worried or feeling lost
You can go on relevant tangents and ad-lib on demand without losing your place
You take questions in the middle of your talk to help keep audiences up to speed
You modify your talk structure on the fly to account for audience limitations or specific areas of need
You can crack off-hand jokes and the audience will genuinely laugh
Again, and I need to stress this point: most people think that to get to this point, you just need to practice your face off.
That's what the Performative Speaking Coaches, the Cookie-Cutter Talk Templates, and Corporate Communication Culture will tell you.
But "just more practicing" doesn't get you to Embodied Expertise.
Most experts, leaders, and professionals don’t fail at speaking because they lack expertise.
They fail because they’ve been taught to perform a persona instead of delivering an embodied talk.
You were told to:
memorize your script
perfect your gestures
use a “speaker voice”
imitate TED
follow someone else’s templates
“look professional”
hide emotion
hide personality
hide YOU
And every time you tried to follow those rules, something felt off.
You could feel yourself disconnecting.
Your audience could feel it too.
Because the real problem is this:
Not because you aren’t a good speaker.
Not because your idea isn’t strong enough.
Not because you’re nervous.
But because you were never taught the ONE thing that makes a talk unforgettable:
How to embody your expertise — not perform it.
And that is exactly what changes inside…
This is not performative speaker training.
This is not corporate presentation practice.
This is not memorization.
This is an 8-week guided experience and companion course that teaches you the Embodied Expertise Method — a framework designed to help you:
clarify your personal brand
define the message only YOU can deliver
structure your talk around your natural speaking style
select stories that make your message unforgettable
create a narrative that lives “in your bones”
speak with confidence, presence, and authenticity
deliver a talk people quote, remember, and share
✔ give a career-defining keynote
✔ deliver a TED/TEDx-style talk
✔ land bigger speaking gigs
✔ establish thought leadership in your industry
✔ grow your business with a signature talk
✔ communicate your idea clearly and powerfully
✔ or simply stop hearing “crickets”…
SPEAK With Confidence shows you how to write a talk that helps you effortlessly stand out with your own style.
Alumni Dayna giving her new talk from stage for the first time
Build A Talk That Keeps Audiences On The Edges Of Their Seats—In Just 8 Weeks
You’ll have everything you need — not just to write your talk,
but to deliver it with the kind of presence audiences never forget.
A performative speaker:
An embodied speaker:
SPEAK With Confidence begins from the real foundations of speaking: not your stage presence, not what you're doing with your hands, and not how your talk is organized, but who you are—and then we build from there.
Clarify Your Personal Brand
At the beginning of the program, you’ll discover the unique combination of:
your expertise
your personality
your worldview
your lived experience
your natural speaking style
…that defines YOU as a speaker.
This unlocks the authenticity your audiences have been waiting for. With this personal brand clarified, you'll have critical context with which you can enter the next step.
Use the DISH Framework to Craft a Narrative Only YOU Can Tell
Most talks fail because they’re built backwards — content first, story second.
But the research has shown over and over: people don't remember facts and figures. They remember stories.
The DISH Framework flips the typical talk narrative to account for this—and make your talk more memorable for you when you're standing on stage:
You will choose deeply personal, highly memorable stories that anchor your message.
Stories that reveal your truth.
Stories that make audiences sit forward.
Stories that only you could tell.
And, most importantly, stories that reveal the Impact and Humanity behind your message.
Once we've captured the essence of your message through impact-driven, human-oriented storytelling, we can move on to the final element of DISH, Data.
Now that your talk’s emotional resonance is established, we use data to capture attention and add credibility to your message.
Structure Your Talk Around Your Own Speaking Style
Throw out the templates that make you sound like someone else.
No more cookie-cutter talks or frameworks.
Just get rid of them.
In this step of the Embodied Expertise Method, you’ll throw out the old models to create a talk that matches:
your rhythm
your tone
your natural flow
your personality
your presence
This is why people who complete the program never get “lost” on stage.
They’re simply expressing what they already know.
Practice in a Way That Builds Embodiment, Not Anxiety
Because your talk is built from your stories, your truth, and your lived experiences…
You don’t need to memorize.
You don’t need to script every line.
Your talk becomes:
intuitive
natural
embodied
alive
And you learn how to do that inside the training modules and on our coaching calls inside the 8-Week Sprint. This is the gold—the part that helps you go from “I get nervous” to “I feel at home on stage.”)
How a Sassy Health Genius Stopped Trying to Sound Like a Doctor—and Became the Expert Her Patients Love
Dr. Julie Lopez
Dr. Julie Lopez is the kind of health expert people instantly trust—
not just because she’s brilliant,
but because she’s the rare combination of fun-loving, sassy, and scary-smart in a way that makes you actually want to learn about your own wellness.
But even with all that natural charisma, Julie was facing a challenge most experts don’t talk about:
How do you keep patients engaged in a world where attention is shrinking by the second?
She had deep knowledge.
She had decades of experience.
She had a patient base that adored her…
But she didn’t yet have a unified message—
a signature narrative that tied her expertise, her personality, and her impact together in a way that felt unforgettable.
She realized that if she wanted to educate her patients more effectively and grow her platform to reach new ones, she had to answer two major questions:
What do my patients really need from me?
And what’s unique about my voice that keeps them listening?
That’s when she joined SPEAK With Confidence.
Inside the program, Julie discovered the DISH Framework—
the storytelling framework that helps experts turn their knowledge into narratives that actually stick.
And for Julie, the DISH Framework didn’t just give her structure.
It gave her permission.
Permission to weave in her own stories.
Permission to show her personality.
Permission to be the “sassy health genius” her patients already loved—
instead of the version she thought a medical expert should be on camera.
As she practiced, something incredible happened:
Her content became clearer.
Her stories became richer.
Her message became unmistakably Julie.
Her patients didn’t just stay engaged—they stayed loyal.
And new patients started discovering her through the magnetic content she was creating.
Because now, she wasn’t simply sharing information.
She was sharing herself.
Julie transformed patient education into an experience—
one where people felt seen, supported, and excited to learn.
And in the process, she built a platform that reflects exactly who she is:
a powerhouse expert who makes wellness feel approachable, lively, and genuinely fun.
SPEAK With Confidence didn’t just help Julie communicate.
It helped her captivate.
And that made all the difference.
How Embodied Expertise Helped Colin Step Out of the Wings and Onto the Front Page
Colin Q. Potts
Colin Potts isn’t the kind of person who seeks the spotlight.
He’s an amputee, a writer, a former professional chef, and now the COO of a regenerative sports medicine clinic.
He’s lived five lifetimes of experience most people never come close to.
But when he joined SPEAK With Confidence, he was struggling with something he didn’t expect:
He didn’t want to be the center of attention—even though his story absolutely deserved to be heard.
Colin had a message—one built on resilience, humor, persistence, and positivity—but he had never found a way to share it with the power it deserved.
His instinct was to stay small. To stay safe.
To “not make it about him.”
That’s where the Embodied Expertise Method changed everything.
During an in-person workshop, there was a moment I will never forget:
Colin was standing on stage, telling a story that moved every person in the room…
but his body still communicated “I’m not sure I belong here.”
So I walked up to him gently, placed my hands near his arms, and invited him to open them wide—to literally expand into the truth of his presence.
As he did, something extraordinary happened:
The entire room erupted into thunderous applause.
It was the moment everyone saw the full power of who Colin really was—
and, more importantly,
the moment he finally saw it too.
From that breakthrough forward, Colin didn’t just gain clarity on his message—
he found the confidence to share it boldly.
He leaned into his natural style.
He honed the stories that only he could tell.
And he discovered what it meant to embody his expertise instead of merely describing it.
And then?
(Drumroll, please…)
Colin launched his personal brand and landed on the front pages of national magazines—
— sharing his message of resilience, positivity, and what it truly means to keep going when life hands you more than most people could bear.
His story didn’t just inspire thousands.
It showed what becomes possible when someone who’s been hiding in the wings finally decides to step fully into the light.
Colin didn’t become a speaker because he wanted a stage.
He became a speaker because he finally realized he was one.
A Renowned CEO Rediscovers Her Voice: Linda’s Journey to Becoming a Guide for the Next Generation
Linda LoRe
Linda LoRe has spent her entire career doing what most leaders only dream about.
She became the youngest female CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
She built brands, shaped industries, and made decisions that moved entire markets.
She was the one in the boardroom whom everyone looked to for direction.
But even with a résumé that radiates power, Linda sensed she was entering a new chapter —
one where her role wasn’t to be the decision-maker anymore…
It was to help other women become the leaders they were meant to be.
That transition sounds simple. It wasn’t.
Because shifting from “the one who leads” to “the one who mentors leaders” requires something few executives ever invest in:
Reclaiming your voice.
Reframing your identity.
Reimagining how you show up in the world.
Linda joined SPEAK With Confidence not because she needed help standing on stage — she already knew how to command a boardroom.
She joined because she wanted to build a personal brand that reflected this next evolution of her leadership:
the mentor, the guide, the force behind the next generation of female executives.
Inside the program, she found exactly what she needed:
A process that helped her strip away the identity she had mastered for decades —
the powerhouse CEO, the decisive authority, the unstoppable executive —
and rebuild a brand grounded in her new purpose:
Teaching other women how to own their power.
Through SPEAK With Confidence’s personal branding work, Linda redefined her voice, her positioning, and her presence in a way that aligned with this new era of influence.
And the impact?
You can feel it today.
Linda now coaches high-profile CEOs and senior executives at companies around the world.
She serves on multiple Boards of Directors.
She mentors global leaders.
And she is the chair of the Board of Trustees for the International Women’s Forum, shaping the future of women in leadership on a global scale.
Her story is proof that speaking isn’t just about giving a talk.
It’s about stepping fully into the identity your next chapter requires —
and using your voice to open doors for the people who come after you.
The Framework That Helped a CEO Understand His Presence — And Lead With It
Tyler Valentine
Tyler Valentine became a CEO at just 25 years old.
Most people spend decades climbing toward that title —
Tyler walked into it before many of his peers had even figured out what they wanted to do with their lives.
But with that title came a pressure he didn’t expect:
How do you lead people older than you, more experienced than you, and in some cases… more confident than you?
When Tyler joined SPEAK With Confidence, he wasn’t just looking to “be a better speaker.”
He wanted to understand himself —
the energy he carried into a room,
the way he shifted the space around him,
and the way the space shifted him.
At the beginning, he wasn’t even aware of how his presence affected the people he led.
He didn’t know his own impact, his own authority, or the power he already possessed.
That lack of awareness wasn’t a flaw —
it was simply unclaimed leadership.
Inside the program, Tyler learned something far more important than talk structure or stage mechanics:
He learned how to embody audacity.
Not arrogance.
Not bravado.
But the grounded boldness of someone who knows who they are and knows they belong in the room.
As he refined his message — a message about leading audaciously — his own leadership transformed in real time.
His talk wasn’t just a “presentation.”
It was a demonstration of the shift he had undergone:
From uncertainty to presence.
From doubt to embodiment.
From youthful inexperience to grounded authority.
His team felt it.
His audience felt it.
Everyone around him felt it.
And most importantly — he felt it.
Today, Tyler leads with a depth of embodiment and awareness that most leaders never cultivate.
He understands how his energy influences others —
and how to use that influence to strengthen, support, and elevate the people he leads.
Tyler didn’t just learn how to speak with confidence.
He learned how to lead audaciously —
and it changed everything.
They’re what happen when people stop performing…
and start embodying.
“I’ve tried writing a talk before. I’m just not a speaker.”
“I’m not a good presenter.”
Great speakers aren’t performers.
They’re truth-tellers.
“My idea isn’t unique enough.”
Your story makes your idea unforgettable.
The DISH Method proves that every time.
“I get nervous on stage.”
Nerves come from performing.
Embodiment dissolves them and makes it feel as natural as catching up with a friend over drinks.
“It’s not the right time.”
The world is getting louder.
Standing out is getting harder.
Waiting only widens the gap.
If any of these feel familiar, you are exactly who this program was created for.
Every single person you admire once felt exactly the same way.
The difference is that they said yes anyway.
And once you learn to embody your voice — not perform it — these fears don’t disappear.
They become irrelevant.
If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to step into your voice,
your message,
your authority —
this is it.
Because the people who will book 95% of the gigs in the coming years will not be the most polished.
They’ll be the most authentic. The most embodied. The most themselves.
No algorithm can replicate that. No template can mimic it. No coach can steal it.
It’s yours. And the world is waiting for it.
You can either learn to become a well-paid, fully-embodied speaker… OR… grind it out on the speaking circuit for the next ten years
Don't be surprised if you start seeing terms like "embodiment" and "authenticity" more and more in speaker training circles.
(They'll eventually catch on)
But also don't be fooled into thinking that all of them know how to teach this stuff.
The real magic of embodiment lies in the proper layering of talk elements that are true to YOU—and that's exactly what SPEAK With Confidence has been built around.
Finding your authentic voice, no BS, no fluff, and definitely no templates.
But here's the catch…
I only take on 25 students in each Live Sprint that I host.
That helps me make sure I'm supporting each and every person with my "Melanie Magic" (I didn't come up with that term, for the record).
It's this small-group support that makes SPEAK With Confidence work so well.
Sure, you can take the course.
Sure, you can extrapolate what you can from what I shared in this page.
And you may get far!
But the real results—the real speakers who are committed to crushing it in their career, stepping fearlessly on stage, and sharing a message that matters—know the value of having the right guidance.
Especially when you're learning such an abstract concept as embodiment.
First option: You can walk away and forget all about this.
You have every ability to stop reading this, close out your browser or put down your phone, and never hear from me again.
You'll miss out on the extra-juicy opportunity I'm about to share, and you'll likely go through the same long, stressful learning curve that I've already completed.
Second option: You can try to do it on your own.
I've had people do this before. I've spoken to them about it, and they decided to slog it out on their own and try to get to a high level of embodiment by themselves.
You can take what I shared on this page and infer new lessons, drop it in to Chat GPT, and come up with your own curriculum to practice Embodied Expertise.
Only problem with that is…
The best stuff is inside, and I haven't even told you about it yet.
The Embodied Expertise Method, the DISH Framework, and all the other stuff I've mentioned are all part of a multi-layered training experience that can only be… well, experienced.
So while you could go ahead and do it on your own, why would you?
Do you try to fix your car after your mechanic tells you what's broken? Of course not. I wouldn't recommend doing that here, either—or else the ensuing frustration is on you.
Third option: We can do this—together.
You, me, and 24 other students jump onto live Zoom calls every week for 8 weeks while you complete training lessons and homework in your workbook in your free time.
By the time we're done, you'll be lightyears ahead of your peers who are still trying to slog it out with outdated training programs and stuffy templates.
But in order for us to work together, I have to help you make sure this is right for you—because frankly, it might not be.
SPEAK With Confidence isn't for everyone. My job right now is to help you decide for yourself whether this is worth the time and financial investment. So I have a few sections below which will help you determine whether this is right for you:
If You've Read This Far…
Important
SPEAK With Confidence is not a beginner’s guide to your subject matter nor is it a quick fix. I don't recommend signing up if:
Enrolling in SPEAK With Confidence doesn't just mean that you get a bunch of videos and exercises.
It means joining a community and support system that's dedicated to your success.
Here's how my crew and I have got your back:
Satisfied Customers
Real Results from Real People
What's Included In The Live Sprint?
The Time for Hiding Your Expertise Is Over
Every day you wait is another day someone else is building the thought leadership that should be yours. Every postponement is another opportunity missed. Every "maybe someday" is another step backward while others sprint ahead.
Your expertise matters. Your perspective is needed. Your voice deserves to be heard.
The question isn't whether you have something valuable to share — you do. The question is whether you'll develop the skills and confidence to share it effectively.
Thought leadership isn't created overnight, but it starts with a single step. It starts with deciding that your ideas are too important to keep locked away in your head.
Your expertise has been patient long enough. It's time to give it the voice it deserves.