Richard - Personal development coach - London
Richard - Personal development coach - London

One of our best tutors. Quality profile, experience in their field, verified qualifications and a great response time. Richard will be happy to arrange your first Personal development lesson.

Richard

One of our best tutors. Quality profile, experience in their field, verified qualifications and a great response time. Richard will be happy to arrange your first Personal development lesson.

  • Rate 746AED
  • Response 1h
  • Students

    Number of students accompanied by Richard since their arrival at Superprof

    50+

    Number of students accompanied by Richard since their arrival at Superprof

Richard - Personal development coach - London
  • 5 (40 reviews)

746AED/hr

Contact
  • Personal development
  • Personal coaching
  • Public Speaking
  • Elocution

Voice, Speech, Public Speaking and Accent Reduction Coach - 15 Years of Narration, Voice Acting & Executive Presence Coaching Experience - Richard Di Britannia

  • Personal development
  • Personal coaching
  • Public Speaking
  • Elocution

Lesson location

Ambassador

One of our best tutors. Quality profile, experience in their field, verified qualifications and a great response time. Richard will be happy to arrange your first Personal development lesson.

About Richard

For over a decade Richard Di Britannia has worked as an narrator and voice actor for top global brands, institutions and organisations such as Mercedes-Benz, WWF and the US Government. All beginning when he was rendered completely mute for several months due to acid reflux and had to teach himself how to talk again.

Richard consults on executive presentation, communication confidence and public speaking techniques at companies such as Amazon, Google and Morgan Stanley. There he taught CEO's, executives and people like yourself his 'Thought Articulation' method to cultivate eloquence and gravitas.

Finally, he's also an international best-selling expert on the topic of improving enunciation with 'Speak and Be Heard: 101 Vocal Exercises for Voice Actors, Public Speakers and Professionals', improving impromptu speaking skills with 'Speak Your Way to Wealth: How to Talk to Yourself, so You can Speak with Others' and cultivating communication confidence with 'Small Talk, Small Ideas: Fifty Ways to Have a Deep Conversation'.

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About the lesson

  • All Levels
  • English

All languages in which the lesson is available :

English

Have you ever wished people would agree with your opinions, take your thoughts into consideration or just say 'you've got a nice voice'?

Well, all voices work on air so to get a confident and rich voice which people listen to and some executive presence, you first need to know how use yours better!

My method of helping people reach their goal of getting a great voice with confident communication skills is a little different. Most voice coaches make their student slog through hours of punishing exercises turning vibrant, natural accents into an old hierarchical relic of the past called 'received pronunciation'. This usually involves repeating boring tongue twisters or old speeches - leaving you spending your day worried about slipping back into your native tongue when get tired or excited.

Is all that stress really necessary? I don't think so.

Listen to any advertisement, executive presentation or TED talk and you'll hear a myriad of accents and communication skills. You don't need to trade your own rich, warm and musical dialect for an anachronism of the past. Nor do you need to talk to yourself in a mirror or record your voice. In my view, these methods are outdated. Instead, you need the ability to articulate your thoughts with ease, because the best speakers are not those with golden voices - the best speakers are clear communicators.

Let me guide you along a journey to help you speak confidently and articulate your thoughts with a strong voice - all whilst still keeping what makes you unique!

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Ask yourself:

• Is your voice sabotaging your first impression due to a slurred accent, by being weak, croaky or nasal?

• Are you terrified of public speaking?

• Are people asking you to slow down or speak up when you talk?

• Do you find your voice hurts after a short speech or are your opinions being ignored when speaking in groups?

• Are you learning English and struggling to make certain sounds?

• Do your communication skills leave you struggling to socialise?

All of these issues can be fixed!

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With lessons from me you'll learn:

• Ways to empower yourself with key concepts which create a great voice.

• How to identify weaknesses in your own voice and how to fix them.

• Exercises to rectify breathing problems and strengthen the muscles used when talking.

• How to deepen or heighten the tone of your voice.

• Routines to clearly vocalise all forty-four phonemes (sounds) of the English language such as 'st', 'th', etc...

• How to become an articulate and eloquent speaker.

Or, if you struggle with a particular vocal sound, mouth shape or just have an anxiety when talking, get in touch to discuss how I can help you become a better speaker.

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You'll also get a free textbook written by myself and each session will come with a recap document summarising everything we cover - meaning you don't have to take notes, because I do that for you!

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Rates

Rate

  • 746AED

Pack prices

  • 5h: 3,481AED
  • 10h: 6,216AED

online

  • 746AED/h

Details

Online tutoring:

- Lessons last one hour and are taught via Zoom or Google Meet. No screen sharing is required, but a webcam is advised to aid with enunciation exercises.

Availability:

- I am available from 11am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday. All lessons are taught online.

Textbook Fees:

- Included.


Cancellation fees:

- If you have to cancel, I respectfully ask you contribute a 50% remuneration to cover my expenses in rescheduling.

Richard's Video

Find out more about Richard

Find out more about Richard

  • How long have you been interested in the field of voice over and how did you get started?

    Over a decade ago I became completely mute for three months due to a small micro-stroke and acid reflux which damaged my vocal cords. After a few weeks, I started to forget the sound of my own voice, which was terrifying, especially as I had no recordings of it! At the time I also lived on a boat which meant I had to create my own vocal restoration routine. The fear of not being able to remember what I sounded like made me determined to work towards ensuring that one day, millions of people around the world would recognise my voice. This is slowly coming true – my voice is heard by a few hundred thousand people each day thanks to my audiobooks, voice acting and commercial narration!
  • What makes your lessons and method different?

    I use my own, international best-selling textbook and I welcome my methods to be peer-reviewed and scientifically measured to show how they are beneficial. Several of the more ‘established’ methods practiced today have been either discredited or even found to be damaging to vocal strength building by medical journals – which is disappointing as they continue to be popular. I don’t believe in building vocal strength by having people do interpretive dance, ‘projecting the voice out of the palms’ or by practicing positive thinking. I believe speakers need to strengthen the muscles involved in producing speech, just like a runner would do to their lungs and legs before taking part in a marathon. My method involves more effort, but the results show.
  • Could you provide some instant top tips to improve your voice?

    Staying well hydrated is crucial to lubricating the vocal cords with mucus and allowing them to function properly. Secondly, speaking with breath support from the diaphragm allows you to not only speak slower and clearer, but also increases the power and richness of your voice. Finally, learn to love your accent – society no longer demands people speak in RP.
  • How would you describe your method as a practitioner?

    Past clients have said my lessons are fun but exhausting! A lot of my work involves identifying and rectifying years of learned bad habits, many of which stem from childhood. Sometimes the lessons involve pulling funny faces to identify exactly which muscles are weak, over emphasising the odd vowel or simply just improving breath support through physical breathing exercises. I’ve never had a client not burst into laughter at some point. I often transform students from having weak and croaky voices or reduced lung capacity to speakers able to power through entire sentences with a rich and warm tone. To them, it’s incredibly empowering as it brings about a change in both their self-confidence and career prospects.
  • With experience, are there things you have learned or unlearned about yourself or others?

    Chasing perfection is admirable but ultimately unobtainable. Richard Burton was often acclaimed as the finest speaker of the English language to have ever lived. His mellifluous baritone pitch and near-perfect enunciation graced the ears of millions across the world. His vocal routine involved climbing mountains whilst reciting poem and verse to his mentor, who would slowly walk away from him whilst still demanding vocal clarity. Yet even Burton, a master among masters was known to fib his lines or trip over his tongue; you can hear this for yourself by listening to the narration outtakes of Jeff Wayne’s 'War of the Worlds' album. There are many speakers who are crippled by the worry of mispronouncing their words. Some hesitate to say anything and others even stutter in fear. If you hope to never mispronounce a word again then you will be disappointed, such is the fickle nature of the detachment between the voice and the brain.
  • Do you have a role model, a person who really inspired you?

    There are an innumerable number of voices I’ve admired. Sir David Attenborough, Martin Luther King Jr., Sir Winston Churchill, Joanna Lumley, Orson Wells, Richard Burton, Dame Judi Dench and many more are just a handful – and importantly none of them spoke perfectly. To me it was the clarity, passion and articulation of their thoughts which carried the gravitas of their performances which captured the hearts and minds of their audiences. We easily forget faces, but we seldom forget a distinctive voice and no great speech has ever involved PowerPoint!
  • How do you personally practice; what methods work for you?

    Given that some weeks I can be recording upwards of 100,000 words for an audiobook and also offering lessons where I need to over-emphasise pronunciation, I have what many would consider to be a phenomenally strenuous daily workout plan that I’ve built up over the last ten years. If I were to give it to a student, they’d be hoarse within the hour! Each morning I start off with some low humming, diaphragmatic and embouchure training, my own trademarked exercises and then launch into reading aloud for at least three hours a day. I love voice acting and can’t see myself doing anything else!
  • Tell us about a memorable lesson:

    Probably the most memorable lesson was an email from a client who said she’d purchased my book for her daughter who had developed selective mutism and chose not to speak to anyone after to a traumatic experience. After reading the book, she taught herself how to whistle and uses that as a way of communicating. That message alone made the entire four years of publishing worth it.
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