Communication is one of the most essential parts of success. But public speaking is at an entirely different level. The larger the audience gets, the smaller we feel. Most people, especially women, don’t even dare to stand in front of an audience and deliver a speech. It’s either they are afraid of making a mistake in front of a large audience, or they’re scared of what other people may think of their speech. Either way, public speaking is not for everyone. 

This fear has plagued a lot of people in the world, but mostly women. Lauren Currie, Founder of UPFRONT, noticed this, and that there is a large over-representation of white middle-class men speaking on stage. Every conference that she goes to lacks diversity. This is what sparked Lauren’s passion to help women overcome their fear of public speaking. 

“Our world is full of multi-billion dollar industries that exist and thrive off of women believing that the problem is them.” - Lauren Currie

Lauren believes that the lack of confidence in women is a result of their environment, which often tells them that they are the problem. Their race and class and economic status often affects how people perceive them. This is why UPFRONT doesn’t try and change women, they try and change the confidence of women. 

What Lauren realized is that with any other profession, there is a testing phase where you can dip your toe into the water before you can go all in. But in public speaking, that phase doesn’t exist. If you want to try being a public speaker, you will have to face hundreds of audiences that expect you to be charming and articulate instantly.

Having realized this gap in the market, Lauren partnered with keynote speakers all around the world and asked them to put a giant red couch on the stage with them. This will allow people who are interested, to get a feel of what it’s like to be on stage. To her surprise, the demand was extremely high and that this very simple exercise was able to help a lot of people overcome basic fears. This is how UPFRONT was born. 

From that simple experimentation, they now offer a global bond community where women can join and get access to Lauren herself, and the rest of the bonds. They have four events a month and daily conversations geared towards building new muscles of confidence, visibility and power. 

Aside from that, they also have individual bonds, which is a six week program. This program consists of three hours of pre-recorded materials and three hours of live materials, all focused on enhancing confidence and changing your mindset. 

Right now, Lauren is focused on working with neurodivergent women, who are teaching others how to navigate their world and who need professional guidance and career development. 

Conclusion

What Lauren is doing is really inspiring and she is changing people’s lives. Learning how to speak in front of people has caused job promotion, business start-ups  and just made her clients happier in their daily lives. If you are a woman who is struggling to speak up and has confidence issues, Lauren and UPFRONT can definitely help you.