Janet Esposito, MSW, is the president of In The SpotLight, LLC, a company devoted to helping people overcome fear of public speaking and performing. Janet writes and speaks from her own experience with this challenge and from more than a decade of helping others to master their fear. Her best selling book, In The SpotLight: Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking and Performing, and her CD, In The SpotLight: Guided Exercises to Create a Calm and Confident State of Mind, Body, and Spirit While Speaking or Performing, as well as her workshops and personal coaching, have helped thousands of people better manage their performance anxiety and achieve a level of comfort and confidence they never thought possible. Janet writes and speaks with a depth of understanding, compassion, and inspiration. She is a master guide on this journey as she deeply understands both the problem and the solution!

Janet’s newest book, Getting Over Stage Fright: A New Approach to Resolving Your Fear of Public Speaking and Performing, is a great sequel to her first book. It provides a comprehensive mind, body, spirit approach to working through stage fright and offers a wide array of techniques and practices to help you resolve this fear. Janet has also created a very helpful Checklist of Practices for Creating Calm, Composure, & Confidence when Speaking or Performing, which is free to those who order her book.

Janet's work is unique in that it focuses exclusively on helping people overcome their fear and avoidance of speaking or performing, rather than on teaching specific presentation or performance skills. Many people who come to her workshops and consult Janet for personal coaching have taken classes that teach these other skills, but report little benefit from these classes because their fear of being "in the spotlight" is still a major barrier. They need a more in-depth approach to help them overcome their feeling of stage fright before they will benefit from a skills-oriented program for speaking or performing. People consult Janet for coaching and come to her workshops from all over the country (and abroad) because of her unique and highly effective approach.

Janet has been interviewed by America West, McCalls, Glamour, Marie Claire, Seventeen and First Women magazines.  Her work has been featured in The CT Business Magazine, CT Post, The Danbury/Housatonic Business Digest, The Danbury News Times, The Waterbury Republican-American, The New Milford Times, The Litchfield Times, and The Physicians' Financial News. She has also been featured on several radio and television networks, including The Sally Jessy Raphael Show, Star 99.9, ESBN, WDIS, WPAT, WINE, WODI, Fox 61, News 12-The Exchange, Women in Business, and Issues and Answers.

Janet Esposito is a licensed clinical social worker who has practiced in the Danbury, CT area for over twenty-three years. Janet is a graduate of Smith College School for Social Work . She did her undergraduate studies at Rutgers University in Psychology, graduating with Highest Honors.

Janet has been married to her husband Rich for over twenty years. Rich has been a great supporter of her work and gives her the needed time and space to devote to her clients and her writing. They have a beloved golden retriever, April, who brings much joy and laughter to their lives.

Photograph © 2009 Wendy Carlson