The Speaking Path

You can be excellent at your job and still not know how to help someone else get better at theirs. Co-hosts Jess and Rich sit down with leadership coach Sheneka Johnson, MBA, ACC, to talk about developing the people around you. They cover when to step in, when to step back, and how to stay invested without taking over someone else’s growth.

You’ll hear:

• Why the urge to give people the answer works against their growth
• How to pick a stretch opportunity that fits where someone wants to go
• How to influence a colleague’s growth when you have no authority over them
• A one-week challenge to develop one person on purpose

--

--

Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs near you by clicking here.

Jess and Rich sit down with Ramona Baylor to talk about the conversations most of us put off: hard feedback, conflict, boundaries, and saying no. Ramona spent 21 years as an Army human resources sergeant and more than a decade in federal HR, and she now serves on the Toastmasters International Board of Directors. She shares what she learned leading soldiers across a pitch-black field in Baghdad and walking a tenured employee through a performance improvement plan that went off the rails.

You'll learn:

• Why avoiding conflict never makes it go away
• How to reset a conversation that's going sideways
• Three steps to prepare for any hard conversation
• A one-sentence exercise to start the talk you've been avoiding

--

Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs near you by clicking here.

Today's guest, Albert Bellamy, has reviewed hundreds of resumes and coached countless people through interviews. After 23 years in the Marine Corps and an established career in data analytics, he now coaches fellow analysts. In this episode, he joins Rich and Jess to talk about how to describe your value, without sounding braggy, awkward, or robotic.

You'll learn:

• The four things every strong introduction needs
• Why rehearsing your story makes you sound more natural, not more scripted
• How to write a resume that highlights results instead of effort
• The "turn the map around" trick for framing your value around what the listener actually needs to hear

--

Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs near you by clicking here.

Classically trained musician Joseph Ittoop didn't plan to speak at his father's funeral, but something moved to get him up anyway.

In this episode, Joseph joins Rich and Jess to talk about what happens when speaking stops being about performance and becomes personal: eulogies, wedding toasts, and the moments you never rehearse for. He also breaks down how rhythm, pacing, and silence — the tools of music — apply directly to speaking with confidence.

This episode is for anyone who's ever frozen up before a toast or a tribute.

Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs in your area by clicking here.

Running a good meeting isn't a skill most of us were ever taught. It's one we pick up by accident, if we pick it up at all.

This episode walks through the full arc of an effective meeting – setting the tone in the first two minutes, keeping a meeting on track without shutting down good discussion, and handling the harder moments.

Joining Jess and Rich for this episode is Cozy Brents, senior project manager and past president of Raleigh Talkmasters, who's learned through three career pivots what actually works.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• what makes a meeting good or bad
• why "stick to the agenda" isn't always right
• how to redirect a meeting that's drifted
• and where AI can actually help
  

  
  Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs in your area by clicking here.

Persuasion gets a bad reputation, usually because people confuse it with manipulation.

In episode 8, Rich and Jess close out the skill-building arc by digging into the difference. They open with a discussion on:

• how framing a message around someone else's goals changes the response you get
• why trust and credibility do more work than any technique
• why listening is the persuasion skill most people overlook

They also turn the questions on each other, covering:

• the biggest misconception about persuasion
• the one habit to drop immediately
• how to win over someone who's skeptical of you personally
• and more...

You'll leave with a practical way to approach your next pitch, negotiation, or difficult conversation — and a challenge to try it out this week.

Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs in your area by clicking here.

Ever been put on the spot with zero time to prepare a good answer? If so, then this episode is for you.

This week, Jess and Rich sit down with Antoine Basquiat Jr. — Toastmasters table topics champion, agile coach, and creator of the Expressive Clues game — to break down what it actually takes to think on your feet.

Antoine shares:

• the process he uses to structure impromptu answers on the spot
• how reframing nervousness as fuel changes the game
• why deep listening (not quick talking) is the real secret to a strong response
• and more...

Plus: the hosts close out with the Speaking Path's 7-Day Quick Thinking Challenge, a simple daily exercise to sharpen your improv skills.

Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs in your area by clicking here.

People don't remember facts. They remember how something made them feel.

In this episode, Rich and Jess sit down with Kathy Boerner — storyteller, educator, and author — to explore what separates a story that lands from one that just fills time.

They cover everything from how to source material out of ordinary life, to reading an audience when you can't tell if it's going well, to why the person you make the fumbler in your story should almost always be you.

Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs in your area here.

Most people think great speakers have a gift for words. They don't — they have a gift for listening.

In this episode, Rich and Jess break down:

• why listening is the core performance skill that separates speakers who inform from speakers who connect.

• the three levels of listening (including the one most speakers skip entirely)

• the five common listening mistakes that make audiences check out, and how to read the room in real time so you can adjust on the fly

If you've ever watched a speaker hold a room and wondered how they did it, this is the episode that answers that question.

Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs in your area here.

What happens when you take communication skills beyond the room where you learned them? In the final episode of Arc One, Rich and Jess look at where finding your voice can actually lead — in your career, your relationships, and your confidence in everyday life.

They spotlight a few people who turned communication skills into extraordinary outcomes, from a self-made entrepreneur to an astronaut who kept his composure under impossible pressure.

Then they get personal, sharing their own paths: the fears they pushed through, the risks that paid off, and where they each hope their voice takes them next.

Interested in improving your skills? Check out the benefits of Toastmasters and find clubs in your area here.