Mary Anne Dorward: "So many of us are so very familiar with losing our true voice - right when it counts most. "
As a professional speaking coach, Mary Anne Dorward has helped hundreds of people give powerful and winning presentations. She has also taught strategic communication workshops around the world. Her clients include politicians, CEOs, sports celebrities and leaders in the non-profit community. Mary Anne has also written and directed many winning political media campaigns. She has been a coach and image consultant for candidates ranging from Governors and Presidents to Prime Ministers and Members of Parliament. Mary Anne's professional speaking coaching for leaders in the non-profit community has helped organizations to gain visibility and raise millions of dollars. A member of the National Speakers Association, Mary Anne has addressed hundreds of groups and delivers entertaining, educational and inspirational keynote speeches around the world. Mary Anne has been a performer on Broadway and national television. She is a very popular voice talent, so it's very likely you've heard her award winning voice on the radio. Mary Anne is known as "The Voice Of Accessible Luxury" and she has been the signature voice for many companies and campaigns. Mary Anne is committed to being a force of positive influence for the greater good. She is fluent in Spanish, loves her Specialized Roubaix road bike and is an avid international traveler.
1. How did you find your passion for the work you do today?
I was originally a performer on Broadway, national television and radio. I also was one of those actors who got very nervous before performing. I was a true blue perfectionist and felt compelled to always do my very best to do justice to the material I was performing, whether it was words which were spoken, written or sung in a song.
I took time off from professional performing when my children were born to raise them. I knew far too many people in the acting profession who never put their children to bed at night and I saw the toll that choice had on their families. That was simply not a price I was willing to pay. No profession was worth missing those truly special moments with my kids!
After my children were mostly grown and I got divorced, I knew that I needed to make a living somehow. I thought a lot about what I felt I knew how to do and what I found to be my passions. I also read the Gallup Poll that said that people’s number one fear was public speaking.
I decided that like a scientist, I would try to deconstruct that fear so I could understand it better and then come up with interesting ways to help people overcome their fear and loathing of public speaking. I certainly had plenty of experience with my own fear, which I had overcome over the course of working professionally over many years!!
So I created a company and began helping people with their speaking concerns. The work I do today helping coach the speaking and doing speech writing for executives, politicians, sports celebrities and not for profit leaders really all grew from an authentic desire to be of service to others.
2. You are a performer and a workshop leader, how do you captivate your audiences?
I try my best to tell the stories of my clients’ personal and professional speaking triumphs as truthfully and straight-forwardly as I can. Their stories capture the best of the human spirit expressing itself through speaking one’s Truth and learning how to speak with one’s Real Voice.
My clients are really courageous people. I think that it’s always inspiring for an audience to hear a story about a person overcoming tremendous obstacle of any kind enroute to a sense of personal triumph. My clients provide such wonderful and fascinating case histories that I am deeply grateful to them for giving me such great stories to tell! It always seems audiences are captivated by their stories.
3. Why is public speaking such a large fear for so many people?
So many of us are so very familiar with losing our true voice - right when it counts most. We know only too well those moments of dread and terror as our speech or presentation approaches, coupled with previous experiences of folding under pressure.
Frankly I don’t blame or judge any one of us for being scared or anxious when we need to speak under pressure. I think we all get afraid because we sense deep inside us the tremendous power of words. The words we choose every day can do everything from inspire and uplift to cripple and humiliate the people around us.
If people only knew how much incredible potential exists within them right this very minute to overcome their fear of public speaking, they would all feel so much better, have so much more hope and feel so much less fear! I want to help them all feel better about and conquer this debilitating issue of fear!
4. What tips can you offer for our readers in terms of preparing for a public speaking occasion?
There are many different types of public speaking occasions so it helps to understand not only why you are speaking and who your audience is, but also what your personal or professional objectives are for that public speaking occasion.
If you know “The Why” of your speech, or why you are speaking in the first place, that helps to clarify a lot for you in terms of the written content and the focus of your speech.
Then of course, there are wonderful relaxation exercises you can do before you get up to speak that can help a lot to calm you down and get you focused before you speak.
Great preparation for any public speaking occasion takes many forms: brainstorming your ideas and choosing your three most resonant points, analyzing your audience demographics, writing, and rewriting and writing some more until it really sounds like you talk, and also knowing how to effectively rehearse your speech or presentation are all very important. Prepping for the question and answer period after your speech is extremely critical too.
5. What tips can you share for our readers in terms of giving a public presentation?
If it sounds like you speak in real life, it’s just right. That goes for your gestures too.
6. What if you are speaking to a group of people you don’t know, how can you gain their respect right away?
It’s been proven that people in your audience decide whether they trust you in the first 8-15 seconds of seeing you. So this means you are giving off a particular “vibe”, even before you ever open your mouth to speak!
Gaining your audience’s respect is as much about how you authentically “show up” from within as much as it does from how you dress or appear from the outside. People pay so much attention to the right outfit and hairstyle and forget to line themselves up internally with their own personal truth and integrity from within. This would greatly help in generating respect from others.
7. What is the most common error you see individuals make when communicating publicly?
The biggest choice I see people make that trips them up when speaking publically is that they practice their speech or presentation two hundred times inside their heads and then the first time they read their speech out loud is in front of their audience. This approach is bound to make your speech feel like a verbal hairball coming out of your mouth!
8. Even if you are the most experienced public speaker, how do you recommend one continually grow on their skills?
In order to keep growing as a speaker, one needs to keep growing as a person. The more you grow, read, develop and experience in your life enriches your speaking and adds to the many new fascinating stories you will have to tell.
9. What do you value most in your work?
I love being a witness to the tremendous courage and personal grit my clients show as they overcome their speaking obstacles that have had some of them stuck for their entire lives. Watching their self worth rise as they embrace new learning opportunities is a true awe inspiring privilege for me.
10. What do you value outside of your work?
My two children and my partner are the most important people in my life and the time spent with them is what I most value in my life outside of my work.
11. Do you have any great mentors in your life? How have they impacted you?
Other than my teacher Lee Strasberg mentioned above, additional mentors include my Children, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Pema Chodron, Joseph Campbell, my incredible voice coach Marice Tobias and the great physicist Richard Feynman who said, “There’s plenty of room at the bottom!”.
Each of these mentors have shared freely of their wisdom and life experiences which have each, in their own unique way, truly both enriched and guided my life.
12. What if one of our readers has questions, can they contact you?
Feel free to direct them to my website, www.speakingtowin.com. Or they can email me directly at madorward@speakingtowin.com
13. What websites and resources do you recommend?
Good In A Room by Stephanie Palmer
My first book, “Speak! Stepping Into Your Unique Greatness. (The World Can’t Read Your Mind)” which will be published in 2009!
I can be hired for speaking engagements through my manager, Stacey Stahl of Creative Entertainment Management (503) 246-2239
www.creativentertainmentmanagement.com