The ladder · Level 1 · Show up, speak up, follow through
Foundations
The bar: Stand up and talk about yourself for 60 seconds, prepared, notes in hand, and land it on a period.
13 lessons. Finished at Holding or better on every skill across the last three reps. A rep or two a week puts it at about a quarter.
Show up
Start here: beat yesterday's version of you
Confidence is practiced, not faked. "Fake it till you make it" hands you no tools. The goal is simple: beat yesterday's version of you. Show up, Speak up, Follow Through.
The rep: Ten seconds: who you are (10 s)
Your through line
One sentence on what you are building toward this year and who you want to be known as. Everything else is built on it.
The rep: Your through line, 60 seconds (1 min)
The handshake and the hello
Walking into a room you did not plan on walking into: a real handshake, your name, one line about you, and one question for the person in front of you.
The rep: Walk into the room, 60 seconds (1 min)
Point, Picture, Point
The container for a clear thought: open with the point, paint the picture in bullets, land back on the point.
The rep: Something you love, 60 seconds (1 min)
Land the plane
End on a period, an exclamation point, a line that leaves something behind. Never "and, yeah, that is it."
The rep: Sixty seconds, landed (1 min)
Speak up
The energy spectrum
The same line flat, then fully present. The difference for the listener is bigger than the difference in effort.
The rep: Fully present, 60 seconds (1 min)
The four levers
Pace, pitch, pause, power. Your voice is an instrument. One lever at a time, like a tennis lesson: change one thing, not seven.
The rep: One lever, 60 seconds (1 min)
Two full seconds
The pause does the work the filler word was doing, and it gives your mind room to think. Two full seconds, at the end of the thought. Push through the awkwardness.
The rep: Three deliberate pauses, 60 seconds (1 min)
Paraverbals
Um, like, but um, you know. Learn to hear them in other people first, then in yourself. Replace the bad habit with a good one: when the filler is coming, stop and take the pause instead.
The rep: Zero fillers, 60 seconds (1 min)
The back row
Throw your voice to the back row, with intention, not shouting. The same voice one on one and in front of fifty people.
The rep: To the back row, 60 seconds (1 min)
The one contribution
Speaking up is making your presence known in the room. One intentional contribution this week in a room where you would normally stay quiet: a class, a club, a team.
The rep: The line you will say, 60 seconds (1 min)
Follow through
The restart and the recovery
When it falls apart mid-sentence: stop, breathe, restart the line. When one word slips: name it fast, "business cards, rather," scrub it, keep going. Nobody restarts the whole story.
The rep: Stop and restart, 60 seconds (1 min)
The 60-second talk (capstone)
Everything on this level in one rep: a prepared 60-second talk about yourself, notes in hand, landed on a period.
The rep: The 60-second talk (1 min)
Live with Noah
- Deliver the 60-second talk to the group in a feedback session.
- Give one classmate feedback the way Noah does it: I noticed, the impact was, one thing to try.
Finish Foundations inside a paid term and Range opens on its own. Tracks is $69 a month; Coaching adds Noah twice a month.