We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Matthew Cossolotto a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Matthew, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

I think it’s fair to say that my path to my current focus on personal empowerment books and related programs was rather circuitous. I knew early on that my mission would involve writing in some capacity. I also felt that my mission would involve teaching or coaching. I wasn’t quite sure what I would be teaching. That level of specificity would come later.

For various reasons — some based on kismet or serendipity — I gravitated toward speechwriting as a professional focus. Some speech coaching opportunities soon followed. Early in my speechwriting and speech coaching career, I began to explore ways to empower my clients to enhance what I call their PodiumPower! I soon created The Power of SPEECH—The Six-Point Checklist for Powerful Presentations. I began to use that handy checklist as part of my executive speech coaching services. One of my creative principles is to try to keep things as simple and as memorable as I can. The Power of SPEECH is a prime example.

My focus as a speech coach has evolved over time. I didn’t start out thinking about personal empowerment speech coaching. I always tell audiences there are three main reasons to get better at public speaking. One is to advance your career. Another is to enhance your leadership skills. And the third has to do with personal empowerment, with reaching your peak potential, on and off the podium.

Opinion surveys confirm that most people rank public speaking as one of their top fears, along with spiders, snakes, and death itself. The fear of public speaking is reputed to negatively affect roughly 75% of the population, in the United States and around the world. That’s something like five billion people! And I’m trying to reach out to that vast potential market.

To be clear, I’ve been curious for many years about the causes of stage fright and the potential remedies. Your readers are probably familiar with various prescriptions for “curing” stage fright—everything from looking out over the heads of audience members (thus avoiding eye contact) to imagining members of the audience naked (thus presumably rendering them unthreatening).

Yikes! These purported remedies are supposed to increase the speaker’s level of self-confidence. I think they all miss the mark. Indeed, they truly are self-defeating because they attempt to camouflage—rather than authentically eliminate—fear and uneasiness.

I had a nagging feeling that something important was missing in the standard approach to giving speeches and presentations, which piqued my interest in speech coaching and my mission to spread the word about the joy of public speaking far and wide. The way I see it, joy does not stop at the podium’s edge. It spills over into all facets of your life. I believe there is joy—and personal empowerment—in finding your voice, sharing your story, and reaching your peak potential.

Truth be told, my personal journey to the joy of public speaking has been a long and winding road. As a kid, I never heard anything about public speaking that involved joy. Public speaking certainly wasn’t viewed as I view it today—as an opportunity to joyfully connect with others,
to convey a heartfelt message, to motivate positive action, to underscore our shared humanity, and to empower ourselves through enhanced self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-expression.

That’s why I talk about turning stage fright into stage delight. I found over time that those who learn to enjoy public speaking tend to be better at it than those hobbled by anxiety, trepidation, or outright terror. Makes sense, right?

I ask readers and audiences to join me as I unveil what I call “the gentle art of mental joyjitsu” – powerful mindset shifts that encourage participants to replace fright with delight. I want them to bring a natural, authentic joy to every speaking opportunity. At the center of my approach are the seven steps to joy. I won’t go into those right now. Suffice it to say that when people make those seven key mindset shifts, they’re able to give their careers, their leadership skills, and their self-confidence a big boost.

I write about all of this in The Joy of Public Speaking. In the book, I distill many years of high-profile speechwriting and speech coaching experience into a comprehensive, how-to guide to help experienced, novice, and terrified speakers overcome self-defeating attitudes, feelings, and habits about public speaking.

But my approach to personal empowerment goes beyond public speaking. Here’s how I explain my overall approach to public speaking success and personal empowerment generally: I believe the most powerful motivational speech in the world is what you say to yourself. Your internal dialog – your consistent, habitual self-talk – will determine whether you succeed or fail, whether you reach your peak potential in life or fall short. That’s why I focus my books, coaching, and speaking programs on sharing the tools needed for empowering mindset shifts. This approach applies to all three ‘power tools’ in my Triad Empowerment System – Habits / Speaking / Promises.

This is a unique combination of three forces that, I believe, can have a profound impact on helping people to reach their peak potential — on and off the podium.

Matthew, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I guess I should start off with a high-level summary. My leadership communications career spans the corridors of power and influence on both sides of the Atlantic. I served most recently as a speechwriter for top officials at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Earlier in my career I was a special assistant and speechwriter for the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. I also worked as a legislative assistant for Congressman Leon Panetta. Along the way, I coached and penned speeches for many corporate and academic leaders – from the Chancellor of UCLA to CEOs and other senior executives at GTE (now Verizon), AT&T, IBM, Pepsi-Cola, MasterCard, LaFarge, and many more.

I served as the founding President and Board Chair of the Center for Voting and Democracy (now FairVote). I studied abroad at the University of Lund, Sweden and I have been a longtime advocate of study abroad opportunities. One of my dreams is to establish a global nonprofit called Study Abroad Alumni International (SAAI) dedicated to “building a community of global citizens.” I even tried to establish SAAI’s global headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to move that project forward. For anybody interested in helping out, please visit https://www.thepodiumpro.com/saai for more information.

As a speaker, workshop leader, speech coach and speechwriter, I have shared my public speaking and other personal empowerment ideas with a wide range of domestic and international audiences, including corporations, associations, government agencies, conferences, schools, community groups, and nonprofits/NGOs. I recently conducted a series of four PodiumPower! public speaking workshops in Brussels, Belgium, for a major international organization. I also gave two well-received presentations about “The Joy of Public Speaking” and provided one-on-one speech coaching for two senior executives.

Since I’m now based in the greater Cleveland area, I’m actively seeking clients and venues for my speaking and coaching programs in Ohio and more widely on both sides of the Atlantic. I recently launched a new website (www.MatthewCossolotto.com), complete with a demo video and an overview of my lineup of Personal Empowerment Programs (PEPTalks).

To help put my books into context, The Joy of Public Speaking is the first book in my personal empowerment trilogy. Two additional books are coming soon: Harness Your HabitForce – which highlights the seven habits of FAILURE and SUCCESS – and Embrace Your Promise Power – featuring an extensive foreword by Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series.

The way I see it and describe it, HabitForce functions like a software program or Personal Operating System. It’s the collection of thought-habits that determine whether you succeed or fail. Programmed from childhood, your HabitForce can either work for your or against you. The good news is you can reprogram your HabitForce. This is just one of the Six Axioms of Personal Empowerment that I reveal in my HabitForce programs.

In my HabitForce programs, I describe in detail the seven habits of FAILURE and the corresponding habits of SUCCESS, along with the mechanism for moving from one particular FAILURE trap to its equal-but-opposite habit of SUCCESS. The mechanism for doing so is a simple three-step process I refer to as the Three Rs: Recognize, Reject, and Replace. To my knowledge, I am the first and only personal empowerment speaker and author to notice the noteworthy coincidence that two very powerful words in our culture – Failure and Success – both contain seven letters.

Turning to the power of promises, I like to think of this as the New Frontier in personal change and empowerment. I believe the power of a promise holds the key to making positive changes in our personal, professional, and spiritual lives — and making a positive difference in the world, one person and one promise at a time. And yet, self-help authors and success coaches have largely neglected this potent force for positive change.

With my forthcoming book (Embrace Your Promise Power) and Promise Power programs, I hope to share the power of making a promise with millions of people around the world. My book includes an extensive foreword by Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup for the Soul fame. Jack reveals the promise he made at the age of 27. This transformative promise changed the course of his life, thereby enriching the lives of millions of people around the world.

In his foreword, Canfield writes: “Contributing the foreword to this book and being associated with Matthew’s inspiring ‘Make a Promise’ project are totally aligned with my life’s purpose.”

Fortunately for all of us, the power of a promise is not the exclusive province of personal development authors and self-help gurus. It’s something we all possess. Author and political philosopher Hannah Arendt observed that “Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future.”

My Promise Power programs combine research and practical advice with inspiring stories about people who have made and kept life-changing promises. I share stories about real promises made by real people, among them such luminaries as President Joe Biden, Oprah Winfrey, John Assaraf, and Tony Robbins, along with “ordinary” people whose promises have led them to do extraordinary things. These stories capture the unique potency of the word “promise” itself.

Here’s the bottom line: A promise is like a goal on steroids. Which leads to my GPS Success Formula: Turn Goals into Promises = Success – GPS.

This formula is key for getting on track and staying on track. Why? Because goals tend to be more cerebral, more brain-centric. A promise comes from the heart. With a promise you are emotionally engaged in fulfilling the promise. Even the way we talk about goals differs from how we talk about promises. You can change a goal, but you can only break a promise. And most people are loath to break their promises.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I think it’s clear by now that speechwriting and coaching only comprise part of my purpose. My true purpose came into sharper focus when I made a promise to my mother on her deathbed that I would finish writing a book she had been encouraging me to write, and dedicate it to her memory. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said: “You do that, Matthew. You do that. This makes me very happy.” I’m proud to say I kept that promise.

I’ll be perfectly honest. Keeping that promise was not easy. You see, the book I promised to write was a self-help book and at that time I did not consider myself to be a self-help author. This was outside my comfort zone. But the idea for the book was intriguing enough to me that I discussed it frequently with others, including my mother. And she reminded me of the idea from time-to-time. She seemed to know something that I didn’t fully appreciate: that I should be a personal empowerment author and speaker. I’m convinced now that she had a clearer vision of my purpose years before I perceived it myself.

Making that promise put me on my current path as a personal empowerment author, speaker, workshop leader, and coach. It also helped to shape my overriding mission: To help millions of people around the world achieve their dreams, keep their promises, and reach their peak potential—on and off the podium.

One of my maxims is: Success is an inside job. This is the motivating idea that unifies and infuses all of my personal empowerment books and programs. With The Joy of Public Speaking and my related PodiumPower! programs, my explicit goal is to help others emerge from the dark shadows of self-conscious silence into the bright sunlight of self-confident and joyful self-expression.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding thing is to see people transform based on some of the creative ideas I’m able to share with them. Whether it’s about turning stage fright into stage delight, the gentle art of mental joyjitsu, the power of making a promise, or the habits of SUCCESS and FAILURE – I’m delighted when I see firsthand how the insights I cover in my books and programs have a positive impact on my audiences. Makes it all worthwhile.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.MatthewCossolotto.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-cossolotto-the-podium-pro/
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/powerofapromise
• Other: http://www.einpresswire.com/newsroom/matthew_cossolotto__the_podium_pro_/