Tom O'Connor testimonial

I hired Jonathan for weekly 1-on-1 executive coaching, as well as invited him to spend two days with my team of scientists and managers, for a customized presentation followed up with individual employee coaching sessions.

Jonathan was tremendously helpful in coaching me through some very difficult situations. We focussed primarily on "emotional state management" which he quickly diagnosed was where I needed the most help. Maintaining the proper emotional equilibrium while going through stressful situations to a large extend comes natural to me. Nonetheless, there was a lot of room for improvement, and Jonathan definitely helped me reach a higher level of performance. Working with Jonathan was an absolute delight because he would quickly assess the situation I would describe to him and give me clear, specific pointers on how to adjust my perceptions and options to create a more positive emotional state regarding the situation. From there we would seamlessly transition to specific training exercises to prepare for future situations. I use many of these techniques now without thinking about them; they've become part of my repertoire and toolset.

Not only was Jonathan able to help me improve my performance, he worked with my entire team to help them improve their internal communication. By appropriately confronting them with the need to take responsibility for the outcome of their individual attempts at communication, he was able to help many of them move towards a greater awareness of their own specific communication needs and approaches and to make adjustments to improve the outcome. One team member told me what an amazing resource he was. I was very pleased with the changes in the team's approach to communicating with each other. While communication is still of course not yet perfect among them, it has improved considerably, and this allowed the team to achieve an amazing result. We set goals for the end of the year that we thought were aggressive. In fact we ended up beating the date by 2 months. No doubt we got lucky of course in terms of not encountering major technical obstacles we could not easily overcome. Nonetheless I credit a significant part of our success to Jonathan's work in enabling better team communication. Just the knowledge that in fact there were specific, attainable ways to make communication better encouraged the team and gave them the confidence to work through tense or difficult situations more smoothly than before.

Jonathan is indeed a tremendous resource for those who want to improve their communications (in the broadest sense of that word). Ultimately all human achievement is based on our proficiency to interact with others in a way that makes it more likely we will achieve a mutually beneficial, mutually desired outcome. Jonathan is able to work with any team or individual motivated enough to seek help in doing better, and helping them improve. What I appreciate the most about Jonathan is that he does not try to create an unnatural dependence. On the contrary, he happily shares his techniques and uses exercises and training to help you internalize them. Like any good coach, he helps you get better and acquire new skills that you can use on your own to achieve amazing results.

I attended Jonathan Altfeld's Irresistible Voice workshop about a year ago. I was extremely impressed at the time, but didn't want to post a review until I'd had a chance to experience the difference that it made in practice. [...] The starting point of the transformation was the use of various pieces of electronic amplification equipment. What this does is allow you to hear yourself as others hear you, in real time. ... Using the PA equipment is the first step to revealing our true voice. The result for me was a revelation - I have a good voice, but I'd just never heard it before. The workshop was interspersed with the opportunity to try out specific drills, a bit like circuit training, in groups of 2 or 3 people. Speaking to a rhythmic click track, speaking lying on the floor with books balanced on the belly, and a laptop with a speech analyser. All ways of generating feedback based on external indications, which we could then experiment with. For me, this was the magic of the workshop, the bringing to the surface of what was previously been hidden, where it could be experimented with. Another great feature of the workshop was the regular coaching by Jonathan, in front of the group. I wanted to be able to project my voice without shouting, so as to reach someone sitting 20 rows back. Jonathan made small adjustments to the way I held my head, a tilt of maybe half an inch or so, and the effect was noticeable and immediate. All of Jonathan's coaching and interventions were directed to specific outcomes that each person wanted. Shortly afterwards, I joined a public speaking club in order to be able to put into practice what I'd learned, speaking to groups of 30-40 people. The feedback I got right from the start was consistently that I have a great speaking voice, and that it was clear that I was an experienced speaker. I'd highly recommend this course.

Great, great, great! Thank you so much for helping me to find out more about what I've already been doing well, unconsciously! This was exactly what I needed to take my NLP skills "out there" and to the next level... and beyond! And thank you for opening up a whole new world full of miracles & adventure. Now I'm ready to explore! My main goal in this seminar was to find a way to integrate NLP more into my day-to-day life. In the past I sometimes got frustrated because I felt that I learned something very valuable and never got around to using it - at least not in a way I could verify to myself. It was as if a connection was missing between what I knew theoretically and what I actually DID. That's changed! Not only am I now using my NLP™ skills... I can't even turn it off anymore!! I've become an active player in this game - and I love it! Just the other day I got a glimpse of what really effective communication feels like. I had an appointment with a guy who definetely was in a less-than-positive state and who had no intention of giving me what I wanted -- and I got my way!! I was in the right state, alert, got my language spot on (...did I tell you that I love sleight of mouth?), had the tonality right, paced and then led led led led him to feeling great about my demands... WOW... talking about flow!!! Thank you, Jonathan, for sharing your knowledge! And thank you for blowing my limiting beliefs apart once more...!

(written in 1998:) Jonathan has not been doing NLP all that long, & yet his skills already surpass almost all the other trainers. Most of you will probably be wondering how he does it. Luckily, Jonathan has decided to teach us in a special 3-day training he calls "Knowledge Engineering & NLP". Because of the original nature of the material being taught & because of Jonathan's mastery of teaching at many levels simultaneously, the training suits all levels of NLP ability. He is also very good at tailoring the training to the participants: most of what we did was made up as we went along & yet, because it all went so well, I assumed it had been planned! Jonathan is quite happy teaching something completely irrelevant to the material if he thinks it's useful to the trainees. I found this particularly refreshing. I confidently recommend this course to everyone, especially those who want to progress a lot faster with NLP.