We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jeannie Rapstad. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jeannie below.
Jeannie, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
The confidence I display in my speeches and theatrical performances comes from advance preparation. Regarding my speech presentations, my personal motto is “Write, Rehearse, Speak, Succeed.” I am willing to do the necessary research and wordsmithing to craft relevant and interesting content. Rehearsal plays a huge role in my preparation. I keep a log of every rehearsal I do when preparing for a speech presentation, a master class, a theatrical performance, or one of my “Comic Sketches” characters. Because I believe in practicing my presentations, not until I get them right, but until I cannot get them wrong, I enjoy confidence on stage. That confidence helps me show my best self. Each success helps to build my self-esteem because I know that I put in the necessary work and I have earned the right to be confident.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
My company, Jeannie Rapstad Enterprises LLC offers entertainment programs for hire as well as speaker and pitch coaching, and humor workshops for business and youthful speakers under my registered trademark, SpeechJeannie. Over the past few years, I have enjoyed success building my international speaker profile. I have participated and presented in many online educational and business conferences, webinars, and masterclasses as well as appearing as a guest on international talk shows and podcasts originating from countries around the globe including Azerbaijan, Canada, Georgia, India, Macedonia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom. I am very excited to state that I am an English language Verbal Elocution Specialist for Edutainment Spoken English and Smart Classes for the ESESC Institute of India (Dr. Madhvi Borse, Founder). I am also an educator for the “Tenacious Core Team” and Country Ambassador for the USA for Chilparco International India-UK (Dr. Alka Mahajan, Founder). I am also an “Education Changemaker” for the Metamorphosis Early Education Platform of India (Prof. Sonal Jhajj, Founder). I also teach online conversation classes for Sventi Public School English Club, Gori Municipality, Country of Georgia (Prof. Khatuna Kharkheli, Principal). These opportunities to teach and collaborate with global educators and influencers around the world have added so much joy and depth to my lifelong learning and teaching activities. I have been blessed with many educator and leadership awards these past years. I am humbled and grateful for the kind recognition.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I was blessed to have a wonderful and empathetic drama teacher in high school. He was kind and supportive to all his students, and I learned a lot from him. His teaching style helped us develop confidence in ourselves through learning effective communication skills that translated into acting skills on stage and conversation skills in our daily lives. As an educator and speaker coach, I consider myself in the confidence business. My job is to help my learners develop communication skills, speaker presentation skills, and confidence in themselves. I developed a speaker rehearsal methodology that has helped my speaker clients win rounds in speech competitions, and my entrepreneurial clients win tens of thousands of dollars in prize money. The acting skills that I learned throughout my lifetime helped me build the entertainment programs that I market under my trademarked show, JEANNIE RAPSTAD PRESENTS COMIC SKETCHES, and “Jeannie Rapstad’s Happy Hat Parade.” Here is my advice to everyone who wants to become an effective communicator: rehearse, rehearse, and then rehearse some more. Let your light shine. Confidence comes from being prepared. Go forth and be great.
What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
I think that my biggest area of growth or improvement in the past twelve months has been in developing my time management skills. I am always very busy with one presentation project after another. I receive many invitations to speak or teach each month. I had to learn to better manage my calendar. Many of my presentations require research before I can even write my speech. It is also time consuming to develop my supporting presentation decks. I found that I needed to improve my estimation time on how long a project would actually take. I am getting much better at that now, which has considerably reduced my stress level. I have also learned to organize my data more effectively, so that I can cull information from previous presentations to save time on developing the current lessons or presentations. I have also learned to gracefully decline or postpone invitations to teach or speak so that I have the necessary downtime I need to refresh my mind and spirit between presentations. Improving my time management skills has definitely improved my work-life balance.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jeannierapstad.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeannierapstad/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpeechJeannie-100440138893769
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannie-rapstad-26851127?trk=hp-identity-name
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JeannieRapstad
