This book represents a desire to share everything I know about public speaking. My mission is to develop and instill confidence in our clients through the power of effective communication, and, ultimately, to achieve a lifetime full of happiness, significance and success. It wasn't until I focused on overcoming my communication barriers that I eventually joined a public speaking program. I never thought I could develop into a public speaker. Speaking in front of a large group was an enormous fear for me. Speaking to my friends and family was already difficult enough, and most of the time, I would shy away from speaking to anyone. In the beginning, I didn't think this was something I could do. It was completely outside of what I thought was possible for me to accomplish. Growing up with a shy attitude, being afraid to speak my mind, and always feeling nervous to talk in front of groups, I was fearful to take a chance on myself. My mentors pushed, encouraged and kept me involved in the program until I really started to be comfortable with it. If it was not for their support and the inspiration to step out of my comfort zone, I would not be the same person I am today. This program built my confidence up to an extremely high level, so much so that I'm now able to write this book. My ultimate goal is to provide tools for my fellow speakers to get an audience to take action, to take a chance on themselves and to improve their lives. As a speaker, when you persuade more, it means that people are believing in what you're saying and they're being encouraged to believe in themselves more, today, than what they believed in yesterday. This results in people taking action and making changes in their lives, for their family, their relationships and their careers. For me personally, public speaking has been the key ingredient in overcoming my life fears. Fears that were major hurdles in my life just started to disappear as I got more involved with speaking. What speaking does is build your confidence. It gave me the confidence that I never had before. And over time, I've not only become capable, but generally eager to handle any situation, to speak in front of any group and to help others build their confidence. Today, there are few choices in life I will hesitate to make a decision on. I truly jump into the water, feet first, because I have the confidence that no matter what happens, I can handle the situation. Though it may not work out the way I initially thought it would, I believe in myself, and in the end, things will work out. When the right opportunity is presented to me, I take hold of it and jump right in.