My student gave me one final comment as she was exiting my workshop. She said, “My biggest takeaway from today? Less is more. I won’t forget that.” She smiled and shook my hand as I thanked her for her participation and insights. When you’re the speaker, you’re trying to achieve an objective when you speak. […]
This comment seems to come up every time we discuss storytelling, “But I don’t have any stories!” I have but one response when I hear that comment (with both a smile and a wink.) “You’re wrong.” I’m usually not one to tell my students they’re flat out wrong, but this is one of those exceptions. If you think you […]
If you’re like me, as we enter the holiday season, I begin to think about the parties and family gatherings to come. We all enjoy seeing the friends and family but let’s be honest… sometimes our conversations could be improved and we’re the ones who might need to change! I began this year with a blog […]
I thought he was wrapping up his message but then he said, “… and we could also start reviewing the project timelines weekly… and also, we really need to look at… also, there’s a new way we could…” I was starting to wonder how many “alsos” we were going to get! Where is the Bus […]
I asked my workshop students what they wanted to gain from the class. The first student responded with, “I want to be a more engaging speaker!” My initial response was delivered with a smile and a wink, “Don’t we all!” Of course, we certainly covered that topic in our class. To many peoples’ surprise, it’s […]
You’ve heard it plenty of times, “It’s not WHAT you say that’s most important, it’s HOW you say it.” I disagree with that statement. I don’t think the WHAT or the HOW is most important. What’s most important is “what they HEAR!” Too often I feel like the emphasis we put on speaking skills is […]
“Our executives don’t want us to tell stories.” After the student made the comment another jumped in, “No way! He’s right! You don’t ever want to tell a story to our executives. They hate stories.” I found the response a little sad and the worst part… this wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like […]
The audience began to shift in their seats at the 5 minute mark of the presentation. So far the presenter had successfully bored the audience with 6 slides of solid text and a mouthful of insincere pleasantries. After 10 more minutes of words on slides and a presenter reading the slides, two people walked out […]
After the conference one of your friends poses the question, “Which keynote speaker did you like the best?” As soon as one person answers everyone else immediately jumps in and says, “YES! Me too! She was so good. Why do you suppose we all loved her so much more than the others?” I can tell […]
“So how was the new restaurant you tried?” As soon as I ask you the question you immediately begin to access the memory of the experience. For some reason, before you recall anything from the experience you feel agitated and disturbed. Then one side of your mouth tightens while one eye brow is lifted with […]
