At RiverWays, you will overcome your fear of public speaking.

And you’ll go beyond that. You’ll learn strong communication skills. The kind that lead to connection and rapport.
Imagine:

Delivering presentations, both inside and outside your organization, that accomplish your goals and inspire your audience.
Leading more productive meetings, where everyone’s voice is heard and all are committed to reaching a common goal.
Creating a strong, genuine rapport, not just with your audience, but with clients, employees, supervisors, students, even your family and friends.
Developing an authentic leadership presence.
Feeling relaxed all the while - even enjoying speaking!

How can I be so confident that RiverWays programs are that effective? Because I’ve watched my clients make huge shifts. I’ve received many lengthy letters describing the significant improvements they’ve experienced.

But before we get to that, let me introduce myself. My name is Carla Kimball, and I’m the developer and trainer of the RiverWays programs. My programs gently address your fears from the inside out, in a safe, friendly environment, with others who feel much the way you feel.

Oddly enough, the method I use to reduce your anxiety is also what makes you a better speaker. My “trick”?

I teach you to develop a sense of presence.

You’ll work with three levels of presence:

Staying centered and grounded with yourself;
Engaging and connecting with your audience authentically; and
Speaking about your content with purpose, passion and enthusiasm.

As you develop this sense of presence, public speaking becomes increasingly easy. You feel more calm and relaxed. Your words don’t come from a pre-planned script. They come from the relationship you establish with your audience.

The usual pressures of public speaking are lifted as you focus on the fundamentals of presence and public speaking. You speak naturally and conversationally, and you experience a sense of real discovery as you speak authentically from the connection you make with each person.

This level of communication is invaluable for establishing trust, facilitating teamwork, and persuading your audience.

“I have sent many of my executive clients to Carla's Speaking Circles to develop presence and comfort in presenting to top management audiences, leading challenging meetings, and acting as highly credible contributors in any forum. What has amazed me is that this method really works and gets results quickly. Within a few sessions, each client has made improvements noticeable to himself and others in the organization. Any manager or executive would benefit from this unique program.” - Jane Hodgetts, Principal of Hodgetts Associates, Executive & Career Coaching

“I think that a lot of public speaking programs focus on tricks or techniques that would make people effective. Carla assumes that people know what they have to talk about. She allows them to eliminate the barriers so that they can do the best of what they are already capable of doing. What they end up getting is not a checklist of 10 things that they have to be really nervous about remembering, but rather, it's easy access to what's already there.” - Elizabeth Liebow, Sr. Director of Business Development for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Programs

I offer several programs to the public and they all have one thing in common: they’ve helped hundreds of my clients advance their communication skills; develop a strong, vital sense of presence; and conquer their public speaking fears. You will too.

Small groups are essential to your success, and none of my public programs allow more than eight participants.

The most comprehensive RiverWays program, Speaking with Confidence for Results, runs 12 weeks and allows you to master all the elements of becoming an effective, confident speaker.

If you can’t commit to a 12-week program, RiverWays offers monthly Wednesday evening SpeakingPresence^sm classses, as well two-day Friday and Saturday Successfully Speaking intensives.

Private coaching is always available.

More details about each program can be found in the Programs section of this site.

I can also come to you.

Organizations are increasingly recognizing just how essential it is to develop the leadership presence of mid- and senior level execs. Several success stories on this website illustrate how organizations that have identified presence as a crucial leaderhip competency, have found that RiverWays' customized programs are perfect for helping people uncover their leadership potential by developing an effective speaking presence.

All my programs can be customized for the specific needs of your workplace for groups of four to twenty people. I can travel to your location whether you are located in Massachusetts or elsewhere.

You’ll use your new skills every day whenever you communicate with anyone.

You’ll find the tools you learn at RiverWays can be used every day, whenever you communicate with anyone.

Through this frequent practice in ordinary, non-stressful situations, your new skills will become integrated into your normal responses. You will find yourself able to call upon them more readily when a stressful (public speaking or other) opportunity presents itself.

This creates a significant shift. Rather than feeling as though you have to remember a long list of things to do to be a better speaker, you instead find that you can just be yourself.

I think of the changes my clients experience as happening on a cellular level. They begin to own this new way of being, rather than making changes because someone told them how to be.

“Perhaps most importantly to me, this change feels permanent, like I've stepped over some kind of line — a threshold — and I'll never revert back to the way I used to be.

“I no longer feel like I'm just getting by. Instead I feel like I'm pretty good at public speaking and I can now work on getting better. I now have faith in myself and my abilities. The things I perceived as negative I now see as relatively small and fixable.

“It feels like I have overcome a large personal stumbling block and that I've moved to a different plane. It's incredible!” - David Wolf, director of a financial firm in Boston

You owe it to yourself to develop fearless communication skills. These skills will give you a competitive edge. And they’re skills you’ll use every day in every relationship – skills you’ll use your whole life long.

To enroll in any class or program, email us or call my assistant, Anne Braudy, at 617-232-3644 with the name of the program and she’ll let you know its availability and help you schedule your session(s).

Warm wishes,

Carla Kimball, M.A., M.B.A.

P.S. Check out the rest of our Testimonials and Success Stories. You’ll find stories from many more clients whose marked improvements in their communication skills have made a real difference in their lives.

P.S.S. Can’t wait to improve your public speaking skills? Here are some public speaking tips from our Elemental Speaking^sm model:

Public Speaking Tips
Air	Remember to breathe.
Space	Pause and return to center.
Fire	Remember your purpose. Be yourself. Tell relevant stories.
Earth	Find your physical, emotional and audience support.
Water	Stay soft, fluid and trust yourself in the moment.

P.S.S.S. This web site has a great deal of helpful information about speaking and presence, as well as a calendar of classes, registration forms and directions to our office at 185 Alewife Brook Parkway, Suite 407, Cambridge, MA.

For $19.95 you might also want to purchase a subscription to the 26 week article email series entitled The ABCs of Presence in Public Speaking Toolkit. If you'd like to be on our mailing list to receive public speaking tips and succcess stories as well as announcements of our programs, products and services to support your public speaking, please subscribe to our free monthly RiverWays News.