Public Speaking Without the Terror: Aristotle, Authenticity & Audience Connection | with Denise Stewart

Harmony Slater and co-host Russell Case sit down with executive coach, theater artist, and University of Virginia lecturer Denise Stewart for a conversation about story, voice, and confidence.

With more than three decades of experience as an actor, playwright, and director, Denise now coaches CEOs, physicians, scientists, entrepreneurs, and university students on how to access their own stories — not a polished script, but the real, specific, unglamorous truth that actually connects.

Topics covered:

• Why code-switching and accent shame shape how we show up to speak
• The difference between a "vulnerable moment" and a "weak performance"
• Why vague stories ("it was a hard time") lose an audience, and how to dig for the moment underneath
• Aristotle's six elements of story — plot, character, spectacle, diction, music, and theme — as an entry point into your own history
• "Story pulling" instead of storytelling: how to help someone else open up without interrogating them
• Why some audiences need vulnerability and others need authority, and how to tell the difference
• Protecting the stories you haven't "earned" the right to tell yet
• How Denise coaches Tibetan entrepreneurs, neurosurgeons, and early-stage founders to pitch from story instead of platitude

About Denise Stewart: Denise Stewart is an executive coach and lecturer at the University of Virginia's Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, where she teaches public speaking, improv, and storytelling. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from UVA and has spent over 15,000 hours in public speaking and theatrical performance, including touring her one-woman show Dirty Barbie and Other Girlhood Tales to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her clients include entrepreneurs, physicians, scientists, and Fortune 500 teams.

Connect with Denise: denisestewartstudio.com | Instagram @swamphatchedbutterfly | Substack: The Last Nerve

Connect with Finding Harmony: Instagram @findingharmonypodcast | Host @harmonyslaterofficial | community-harmonyslater.com

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