Lead From Your Center
During a leadership communication workshop last week, I asked the participants to think of a time when they were effective and powerful – when they felt the most energized and proud of an outcome that they themselves had a hand in orchestrating. I then asked them to...
What are your public speaking pet peeves?
In the last month I have witnessed presenters who have done the following: Chewed gum during their entire presentation. Put a finger in their mouth to dig out whatever piece of food was stuck in their teeth (while taking questions). Leaned on the lectern to the point...
Five Deadly Sins of Public Speaking
If you want to be a better speaker, watch others in action. It's a great way to reinforce the dos and don’ts of excellent communication. Sadly, there are more examples of what notto do and last week's keynote address at a national conference was no exception. Once...
Once Upon a Time
Stories click. We know intuitively that we recall people, problems, and outcomes best when wrapped in a story. When I work with clients, I help them craft presentations into “story chapters” to make it easier, more memorable and more fun for their audience. It...
Five Surefire Ways to Connect With Your Audience
When I was growing up, there was a framed print in our living room depicting the face of John F. Kennedy with a billowing American flag backdrop. That image stayed on the wall year in and year out, while other items came and went. New couch? Same wall art. New...
What’s in a Name…Change?
You may have noticed our not so subtle shift from SpeakEasy to SpeakWell Partners. It turns out that there is an existing trademark in the communications field on the word “speakeasy.” Yes, it’s true. After some legal tussles (Cease! Desist! Infringement! Damages!)...
Breathing through a Tsunami of Fear
I have been actively practicing “rescue breathing” this week. Between the unaccountable devastation and terror in Japan and the ongoing interviews with the dead-eyed Saif-el Islam and the drug addled Muammar Gaddafi, I am feeling afraid. What’s ahead seems more...
Newt Gingrich: An Object Lesson in What Not to Do
When I heard Newt Gingrich say that the reason he was unfaithful to his wives was because his passion for this country made him work too hard, I was nearly speechless (and that, my friends, is a rare moment). I yelled out to no one in particular, “Who’s buying this...
Q&A with NPR’s Jack Speer
I distinctly remember saying goodbye to Jack Speer. After years of playing in the firelanes behind his house and skating on the pond near mine, his family was moving away. I can still see his eyes magnified behind the lenses of his thick glasses, and the cowlick at...
Mike Huckabee and The Big Lie
Hard to believe that the 2012 presidential race has begun. Even harder to believe that the “silly season” is already upon us. I find presidential campaigns fascinating for a number of reasons, but mostly for the lessons they provide for public speaking. And we are off...
More Oscar Night Analysis (Inside Baseball for Movie Fans)
Disfluency: Noun. Lack of skillfulness in speaking. Irregular utterance that is not consistent with grammatical construction of an otherwise fluent speech. It’s Oscar Week at SpeakEasy! Both Charlotte and I are big fans of the event despite our agreement (with each...
OSCAR MADNESS: 8 Public Speaking Lessons from the 2011 Academy Awards
1. Care That You Are There: Wake up James Franco you are a HOST. 2. But Not Too Much: Anne Hathaway: Eight dress changes and a solo is overkill (adorable and energetic as you are). 3. Don’t Be “Shocked:” Seriously, your odds of winning are roughly one in five. Why...
How to Win Others Over
As I was getting ready to write this post, I accidentally typed the letter T in the Google search window. Not because I wanted to, but because my dog wanted to go for a walk and he knows the best way to communicate that wish is to bump my hand off the mouse. All dog...
Four Quick Speaking Tips
If you’re like me, you are drowning in e-newsletters and marketing emails, and if so, I’ll go out on a limb and guess that most of them end up getting deleted without ever being opened. Which means your Mail Folder window looks like mine – a bolded “Deleted Items”...
Sunday Business
Adam Bryant is on my list of people I would like to meet. He writes the Corner Office column in the Sunday Business section of the New York Times. Each week, he prints excerpts from interviews with CEOs about leadership, lessons learned, hiring, firing, and creating...
Pema Chodron and “The Cool Shade of Fearlessness”
Being a card-carrying Type A with a touch of ADD, it’s clear that I will never be a successful practitioner of meditation. The closest I have come to that “state of transcendent wonder” is on a long walk with my two Labrador Retrievers. But I still enjoy listening to...