Building Confidence Through Discomfort and Play
Minna Taylor
Book a demo →from €2,250 for your whole company
Book a demo →from €2,250 for your whole company
This one runs as an interactive workshop: the hour includes exercises your colleagues do themselves, not only a talk.
Minna Taylor is the Founder of Energize Your Voice, a global communication coaching and training firm, author of The Confident Body, international speaker, and influential thought leader in the theory and application of PLAY. She is committed to helping visionary leaders and their teams transform the world. With an experiential approach, rooted in the principles of play and performance, she and her team support organizations, individuals, and entrepreneurs to explore their full potential in public speaking, storytelling, and leadership communication. Notable clients include TikTok, Red Bull, UBER, and EY. Minna earned her BFA from NYU Tisch and went on to earn her MFA in Performance with a concentration in speech and vocal production. Beginning her career as an accent reduction specialist, Minna went on to transfer her theater training to developing an innovative approach for professional development. She has a deep passion for supporting individuals to play, fail, and tell powerful stories.
All sessions by Minna →Minna Taylor explores the human physiological response to high-pressure scenarios, such as public speaking, highlighting the role of the sympathetic nervous system and the 'fight or flight' reaction. She reframes these natural survival mechanisms—like sweating or shaking—not as flaws but as opportunities for personal growth.
Emphasizing the importance of both solo and group practice, she advocates for embracing discomfort and risk-taking to build resilience and communication confidence. Central to her session is the concept of 'play,' defined as an unpredictable yet essential tool for learning, expanding boundaries, and deepening relationships.
By fostering curiosity and engaging in iterative improvement, individuals can transform challenging situations into valuable growth experiences.
During the expert session, Minna Taylor engages the audience through interactive exercises using the Mentimeter app, group activities, and thoughtful reflections based on David Epstein's quote about risk-taking and communication.
Practicing taking risks and discomfort in a safe environment can help build muscle memory and resilience for effective communication in high-pressure situations.
Direct, clear, and active communication is essential in deepening relationships with others and creating meaningful experiences.
Recognizing how our bodies react to risks and ego-threatening situations can help us better prepare for and manage these experiences, leading to greater confidence and personal growth.
In this expert session, Minna Taylor discusses the human response to high-pressure situations and the role of the sympathetic nervous system in shaping our physical and cognitive reactions. During moments such as public speaking or important meetings, our bodies may activate the 'fight or flight' response, leading to symptoms like shortness of breath, sweating, loss of focus, and shaking.
However, it is essential to understand these reactions as natural survival mechanisms rather than sources of rejection or discomfort.
Minna encourages listeners to view these experiences as opportunities for growth and resilience-building, emphasizing the importance of practicing solo and in group settings. By embracing discomfort and practicing risk-taking through activities like public speaking or expressing opinions openly, individuals can develop muscle memory and confidence in their communication skills. In turn, this allows them to adapt and respond effectively based on feedback from others.
The speaker also touches upon the concept of "play" as a crucial aspect of life, which she defines as the unpredictable space where we grow and learn. Play is not merely frivolous but a vital means of expanding boundaries and fostering deeper relationships with ourselves and others.
By approaching interactions with curiosity and a willingness to iterate and improve, we can transform moments of risk-taking into valuable learning experiences.
Minna's expert session emphasizes the importance of embracing discomfort, practicing risk-taking, and developing effective communication skills through solo and group activities. By focusing on the physiological aspects of these experiences and viewing them as opportunities for growth, we can deepen our understanding of ourselves and others, ultimately leading to stronger relationships and personal development.
No prior knowledge is assumed. It is built for a general working audience, and people who already know the subject get the research and the practical side rather than an introduction. What the hour itself covers: Minna Taylor explores the human physiological response to high-pressure scenarios, such as public speaking, highlighting the role of the sympathetic nervous system and the 'fight or flight' reaction. She reframes these natural survival mechanisms—like sweating or shaking—not as flaws but as opportunities for personal...
A workshop. The description of this session says so itself: the hour includes exercises and activities that participants do, not only an expert speaking. It still runs live and online, for as many colleagues as you want to invite.
Minna Taylor is one of the experts we auditioned ourselves, and we produce every session so we see how each one lands. Participants rate this session 4.2 out of 5, across 41 responses, and rate Minna personally 4.5 out of 5.
It is interactive, and the block higher up on this page says exactly how for this session. Nobody has to speak up who does not want to: the chat and the polls carry most of it, and the questions can come in anonymously.
It runs 45 min / 15 min: the talk, then live questions. All you do is pick a date. We brief Minna, produce the session, host and moderate it, run the Q&A, and send you the report within an hour of the end.
A team, a department, an employee network or every single employee at once, with no cap and no per-seat price. It runs inside your own Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, or on a branded page we build. No integration, no login, no company device or e-mail.
The session is delivered in English. You can add high accuracy live subtitles in 8, 16 or 24 languages, so everyone follows in their own. That is a paid option, priced by the number of languages you need.
No, and that is by design. There is nothing to install, nothing to integrate and no connection to your systems, so there is nothing for IT to validate: we join your own Teams, Zoom or Meet as a guest speaker, or we host a page and your people open a link. No software, no accounts, and no data of yours that we can reach. It is why hundreds of companies, among them some of the largest technology and financial firms in the world, were able to start within a day.
We never receive or hold personal data about your employees. Because the session runs in your own environment, attendance and identity stay with you, and what we report back is aggregated: numbers, ratings and survey answers, not people. That is also why IT approval usually takes minutes rather than weeks.
You keep the recording and can share it internally. You also get attendance over time, participant ratings for the content and the speaker, the survey answers, and the topics your people asked for next.
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