Alignment

Ignite your power to communicate.

We coach people to make a fundamental shift in the way they understand their own power to communicate.

We help people feel seen and heard so that they can do their best work.

Alignment: A Review!

Our coaching approach boils down to these three steps: intention, alignment, and practice.  The answer to almost any question you ask me or another Ignite coach about communicating is going to fall into one of these three buckets. Intention. Alignment. Practice. This week’s blog posts are a review of these fundamental building blocks. Today, the …

You Have to End Your Sentences

When we’re talking casually, many of us have run-on sentences that follow our stream of consciousness, it’s s conversational habit, there’s nothing wrong with doing that, but if you’re speaking to a group of people and it’s not a conversation, you might think about figuring out where you want to stop and which points you …

How to Be a “Better” Listener

Friend and reader Catherine responded to last week’s post: What Kind of Listening Do We Owe Each Other? She said, “Now I’m waiting for the next email on how to be a better listener.” I hope this is that email! I want to start by defining “better listener.” That word “better” seems like it’s clear, …

Subvert Expectations This Year

Most of us do the many of the same things in the same way every day. We take the same route to the grocery store, we have the same routine in the shower, we turn to the same meals for dinner. Routine is helpful—it lessens the number of decisions we need to make every day. …

Our Greatest Truthtellers

Your body knows a lot. It knows when you’re feeling out of your depth, when you’re under-prepared, when you’re worried, when you’re excited. Sometimes it knows before you do. What does your body want you to know? What messages does it send you? What happens when you listen? What happens when you don’t?

When You Talk Too Much

A client of mine has gotten feedback that he’s too wordy and goes into more much detail than is necessary. It’s clear from the volume of this type of feedback that this is a behavior that shows up all the time, regardless of the situation. I’ve observed it myself in our coaching sessions. In the …

The Mystery of Executive Presence

We are often hired to coach people who have been told they need more “executive presence.”  This is one of those pieces of feedback that is completely in the eye of the beholder; it’s a moving target. Often, “improving executive presence” simply means “look and act more like the person giving the feedback.” If that’s …

In-corporate

One meaning of to incorporate is to make physical, to embody. When we learn something in our brain, we have to figure out a way to bring it into our understanding, our embodied knowledge. For example, you can watch YouTube videos for days about the perfect golf swing, but until you start to incorporate the information, …

Projectors Are LOUD

Quick tip: If you’re speaking in a meeting, facilitating, or presenting in the same room with a projector, remember that projectors are loud. Projectors have built-in fans, and those create white noise. We acclimate to the white noise, and then we don’t quite realize that we need to project over the projector. Make it easy …

Popping Pronouns

In theatre, we talk about the cardinal sin of “popping pronouns.” This is when an actor emphasizes a pronoun  instead of a verb, noun, or adjective.  To illustrate this idea, I’ll borrow one of my favorite lines from “The Negotiator,” starring Samuel L. Jackson. He plays a police negotiator whose partner has been murdered, and …

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