FAQ about Pro90d with Thom and Michael

First off, what is the difference between self-study and coaching? The short answer is that there is no difference in a very real way because it really is all about the system. Pro90d is a systematic approach to smooth speech, and self-study means you're doing it all on your own. You've got all the material; you've got the system, which is beautiful because the reality is that you can do it and get to smooth speech, overcome the stuttering, and get on that path with the system. Whereas if you do the coaching, you're going to be able to accelerate your progress.

You accelerate your learning with the teacher. Let’s discuss how a teacher can help.

I’ve seen where it can accelerate or speed up your results by at least 10 times, and sometimes it's faster. Where did I get this number from? Over the past decade or so, I've had clients come in who've taken the self-study or who've cobbled the self-study together from all of my YouTube videos, so they have a lot of the system. It's often taken them a couple of years to get to the same place that it's taken either those same people or others a couple of months working with me, so either 24 months or longer. I have seen people try for 3 or 4 years on and off of programs without the results that a couple of months can yield. It is emotionally draining and exhausting to go through this roller coaster for years without really reaching your speaking potential. Especially when they could have come and worked in an intensive coaching environment and made progress that amounts to years, emerging with smoother and more consistent speech.

Why is the progress so much faster? I personalize and customize the smooth speech system that you see online and on YouTube for each client. So while you also get the self-study and the tools you really need to succeed, I am focusing on what we call the twenty percent. The twenty percent are one or two things that get you eighty percent or more of your results. This is the 80/20 rule that works in business, and it works in speech coaching. This is why you need a coach. It's very difficult for you to figure out on your own, not because you're not intelligent, but because I've been doing it so long that I can look at a person and within minutes isolate the issues. This is how working with a coach accelerates your process.

Customization and personalization are more than a luxury; they are a unique evaluation that helps precisely isolate your speech disfluencies and habits, down to your mini-habits. Your microhabits are the things you do to get in the way of what you want to achieve. Tom is a coach that helps people achieve their goals and helps us discuss how we are all in different places, and the truth is, if you really are trying to get to that place in your profession, get that job, get that raise, or get the right income, you might want to start taking account of these micro-steps and habits that are holding you back sooner rather than later.

What coaching can do, in a professional as well as a speaking arena, is keep you accountable for your progress, setbacks, and ultimately your success. This type of investment is ultimately going to get you where you want to go faster. It can take a lot of hard-earned lessons before working with a coach who will be offering you the best advice, holding you accountable, and pointing out those 20% of habits that hold you back.

The proof is in the testimonials we have. So many of our students are making back the money they invested in coaching tenfold. Whether they got raises or are in careers where they win more deals because of how well they speak, they're already about to get that money back multiple times. Some students who are only through one month of training are already seeing the return on their investment, and that is not all. The confidence and resilience you acquire through one-on-one support and speech training are really invaluable.

Another student, a young lady and her husband, both from Saudi Arabia, had very severe speaking disfluencies, and in a recent interview, an interviewer commented that they really liked the way she expressed herself and articulated her thoughts. This increases your communication skills, and your qualifications are going to appear that much better when you communicate better. She has soared under the one-on-one coaching and is fielding job offers because of how much better her interviews are. We are all blown away by how quickly the money invested has come back.

Part of Pro90d coaching is the confidence factor. Encouraging them and helping instill confidence just takes it to another level because sometimes we block ourselves from that confidence even if it's built into a program, like it is in self-study. This is a really good example of a component of the system that differs from the self-study because some people really need that other person guiding them, that mentor instilling that confidence in them, for them to get it absolutely. There are some times that I'm working with people and I'm like, "Man, you know, we had to really analyze this thing, and I had to draw deep on my experience to troubleshoot this particular issue. I don't know how they would have done this on their own; I just don't know how they would have, could have, or how long it might have taken them to figure this out because I really had to dig deep and really think about it, look at my other clients, look at the system, and look at the science. Coaching is going to get you the best results the fastest for most people.

The self-study does not take years, either. You can start in 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days. But to get to that next level or to get to that next level faster, I need some guidance. Or you may have interviews or important presentations coming up, and you just don't have the time to be going up and down and sliding back and forth. You need to get your speech to a certain level as quickly as possible, and coaching can help you do that. It is natural to get frustrated, and sometimes we quit, but it's not because we think it's not working or because we think we got it. At these points, it is especially important to be vigilant in practicing the methods of Pro90d.

Some of the questions we get a lot are about whether it is a system or a therapy. It is a science-based system, not a therapy. Pro90d is a holistic, science-based, complete system, and we deal with stuttering and speech in three different aspects, or three different dimensions. One is mental and psychological, in which we use affirmations, self-talk, and visualization. Then we treat the physical things, such as breathing and movements. The proactive speaking skills that we teach you don't just help you not stutter; they actually help you get compliments, like my clients. Lastly, we help shift your identity if it is based on your lack of language or communication skills.

We offer a three-part solution to stuttering and speech to mold you into an excellent speaker who people like to listen to. Now that you're an amazing speaker, people love to speak with you, and you start to see yourself that way. When you have a disfluency, it doesn't pull you all the way back down if you're just using technique-based programs or just doing psychological stuff. Then, when you have a dip, you start to doubt. He says wait a minute, and I've heard people say wait a minute; I'm back to square one. You have the tools to increase confidence inside and out in all of your communications.

Imagine transitioning from being technique-oriented, where you have to think of techniques all the time, to becoming just who you are. I'm a smooth speaker, right? It makes a world of difference. This is that investment in your speech, in your self-study, in the coaching, in the system. We are just talking about 90 days of concentrated training with a holistic approach, exercises, and a community that you can practice with and turn to. It really is not that much time and not that much money when you start to consider the capital you are losing by not being able to communicate effectively.

We hope we can clarify for some people the differences and similarities between self-study and coaching. We deliver the system in two ways: one is a self-paced kind of working on your own, but there's a community there as well; the other is when you're working with me, which speeds up the process by sometimes as much as or at least by 10 times. One thing we know for sure is that the longer you wait, the more you're trying different things and slipping and sliding, and you're not really making the progress that we could be making together. If you are ready to start, let’s take this next step together.