Effective Communication: 7 Tools to Communicate Tactfully

Michael is the founder of The Start Speaking Training Center, LLC, author of "Don't Try to Stop Stuttering, REPLACE It!" and creator of The Pro90d Speech System. He is the author of several courses on Udemy and has over 100 videos on YouTube. Michael was a professor of Student Success at a local community college where he began teaching on campus and later switched to online to give him more flexibility.

One of the careers that has served him well was being a Relationship Coach which he did for more than five years. Being married for over 24 years to the same woman both helped him do this job well and gave him an opportunity to enhance his own relationship.

Currently, Michael has devoted himself to two endeavors. One of them is helping people who stutter, stammer, have fear of public speaking or otherwise want to improve their communication (speaking) skills speak more smoothly, fluently and confidently. The other is helping people like himself who are called to teach reach their audiences as effectively and efficiently as humanly possible.

In 2012 Michael was contacted by a wealthy Indian doctor who hired him, and flew him to India to coach his son who was also a doctor (Update: Michael has completed his second paid trip to India in November 2013 where he spent almost (4) weeks doing life and speech coaching). This doctor found Michael on YouTube. THIS event was a turning point for him because it clearly demonstrated the power of clarity, purpose, passion, dedication and video. He had been working with people who stutter for over three years and wondered if he could ever really do this full time. This experience answered his question and totally transformed his life, business and subsequently the lives of all of those whom he has coached since.

More about the Michael the Speech Coach...

For more than 20 years Michael struggled with stuttering, sometimes severe, and other times mild. He always had this awareness of stuttering which in many ways controlled his life and limited him. There were times when he would stutter so severely, he would bite his tongue trying to get a word out. In school, he wouldn't volunteer to do certain things because it required him to read aloud or speak in public. Even when he knew an answer, he would not raise his hand because he wasn't sure he could get the words out. Although, he didn't completely let this hold him back, it did limit him greatly.

Sometime in his mid twenties, he figured out that stuttering speech was not just physical, but was also psychological. He realized that stuttering was as much a way of thinking as it was a way of speaking. Therefore, if he could change his thinking and create a new way of speaking, he could start speaking well.

THIS was the turning point for him. Once he believed this, it gave him hope, courage and the perseverance he would need to stick in there with this process of changing his subconscious over the next several years or so. He also discovered that it would be better to focus on learning to speak well, by modeling great speakers, than to focus on trying to stop stuttering. He didn't know it at the time, but this would be a great breakthrough.

Michael focuses not on treating stuttering, but teaching and coaching people to speak more smoothly, fluently and confidently. He has studied, taught and used accelerated learning strategies, and student success strategies. He has worked in ministry, and as a Relationship Coach, so he knows the importance of having excellent communication skills. Michael has taught live and online. He's done live T.V. interviews, been on radio and even cable television. He has taught classes in English and Spanish. Although he hasn't worked with Spanish intensively in a while, he understands the challenges of learning new patterns of speech, and more importantly, how to overcome those challenges.