May Day
Endings, Beginnings, and New Territory
May 1, 2026 - Reset
My last post was in January so there’s been a long break between posts. May 1st is a good time to hit reset and start a new chapter so if you’re also in need of a reset, let’s all hit the button together:
What’s New With Adastra Speech
This should be three posts, but I’m putting everything together. Grab some coffee and take a break to read or come back three times. :-) I’ll skip over February because I was sick almost the entire month.
Endings
March was a busy month of transition for my individual speech coaching. I ended lessons with some clients and started lessons with some new ones.
It’s always bittersweet to come to the end of lessons, especially with people that have been meeting for a long time. I’m so impressed and proud of their dedication to commit to weekly meetings and the results they achieve.
The big final post evaluation review reveals progress made in every area of speech in quantitative, qualitative, and subjective results. Regardless of how many ways I measure progress, nothing is as significant as hearing how the journey has affected their lives in their own words.
Almost everyone says their confidence has increased, but not always in the ways you’d expect. It’s not just more confidence to present or speak up in meetings, it’s confidence that how they are speaking is being received the way they intended it to.
The removal of doubt can increase confidence.
When people stop doubting themselves and know that they are pronouncing a word correctly, conveying authority on a subject, or are being recognized for their skills, they feel more confident. That creates an upward spiral of positive speaking moments.
Most significantly, the removal of doubt reduces cognitive load.
It literally creates more brain space to use for expressing your meaning the way you want to. Now there’s room to remember to use a wider pitch range, to go down in pitch at the ends of sentences, to stretch vowels longer in stressed syllables, and to emphasize important words. All of those features are stacked on top of the actual words you want to say and there may not have been enough space to handle everything at once. Now there is.
Beginnings
Starting lessons is always exiting because it begins with the review of the big pre evaluation. This is where people learn what is making the biggest impact on how easily they are understood and an objective view of how they are perceived by listeners.
Seeing data about speech makes the invisible visible.
Everyone says that the evaluation is a lot more detailed than they expected. That’s great because it means my hard work has paid off. I spend about three to four hours on each evaluation. I’m listening to every detail and reporting the results. When I’m finished, I’m excited to share it and review the results with my new client because they all tell me they learn something new.
It’s the starting point for the next three months and the map for each three-month cycle after that. It’s very satisfying to find out where you currently are and know where you’re going.
New Territory
April has flown by but I have something to show for it. I had a plan last year to start monthly memberships as a way to help people keep practicing speech in small consistent ways. As usual, I made a plan that was very detailed and complicated. The plan grew and started intimidating me to just get it started. So, several months later, I am now ready to start with a much more simple plan. That makes today even more significant to me because I’m putting this out there and that makes it real.
I have tons of material from the speech practice app that I once dreamed of making. I’m going to use that material in weekly emails. Each week’s email will be a tiny practice of a specific speech feature with audio examples. I will host a live group Zoom once a week for Q&A and live practice.
These topics will rotate:
Prosody
Word Stress
Pronunciation - vowels
Pronunciation - consonants
Listening & Imitation
Each repetition will go a little deeper into each topic. Every practice topic can be applied to your own vocabulary and speaking situations. Even if this isn’t new information, it’s a reminder and strengthening of your ability to recall the information.
I plan to start by offering this to former clients, then open it up to anyone who’s interested on June 1. If you’re interested now and would like to receive an update on when it’s available to you, here’s a waitlist form.
There’s no obligation to join when you put your name on the waitlist form, I’ll just send you an email to let you know it’s available.
I haven’t thought of a really cool name for this membership. Right now, I’m calling it, “Adastra Speaking Group.” If you have suggestions for a more interesting name, please let me know!
May Day
I mark May 1 as the anniversary of starting my business so today is the 11th anniversary. 2015-2019 was exciting but stressful because I leaped out of being a professor in academia into being a solopreneur. 2020 was 2020. Then 2023 brought a move across the country, and 2025 brought….chaos.
I’ve read that May 1 is a good time to start something new. I will always love working with people one-to-one and will keep doing that as long as possible. I haven’t made any changes to how I do things since I started in 2015. Now, I’m really hopeful and looking forward to trying something new with the monthly membership. Maybe I’ll try more new things! I’ll keep you posted.