Practicing Is A Gift for Your Audience
Practicing your presentation is a gift you are giving to your audience. Even if you feel totally comfortable, spending some time bringing some forethought and planning to what you’re going to say signals to the people listening to you that you cared enough to put your thoughts in order. Don’t skip this.
Bad Habits Are Habits
There’s an unspoken secret that many coaches and teachers have. If your job is to help other people perfect a skill–to coach them–you sometimes secretly wish no one else had ever coached your client before they came to you. (That’s a broad statement: maybe it’s more accurate to say that you wish all their previous …
Happy Damn Glad to Be Alive Day!
Today is Damn Glad to Be Alive Day! A little backstory: On February 6, 1995, I was working as a production resident for Playwrights Horizons, an off-Broadway theatre company in New York City. We were in technical rehearsals for a new musical called “Jack’s Holiday,” (about Jack the Ripper—don’t ask), and the master electrician asked …
Practice: A Review!
Our coaching approach boils down to these three concepts: intention, alignment, and practice. The answer to almost any question you ask me or another Ignite CSP 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, …
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 …
Intention: 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 …
Don’t Follow Bad Advice
This seems obvious. When someone gives you bad advice, just…don’t do it. Ignore it. The problem comes when you can’t identify the advice as being bad. You’re not an expert in the topic, and whatever you’ve been told seems reasonable. How can we protect ourselves from the bad advice when we can’t tell it’s bad? …
Rate of Perceived Exertion
In many exercise programs, you’re asked to assess your “rate of perceived exertion,” or RPE. On a scale of 1 to 10, how hard are you working? From 0-2 is low effort, you can talk; from 3-4, you can still have a conversation but it’s tougher; from 5-6, you’re getting uncomfortable; 7-8, things are getting …
When the Resistance Comes Calling
The writer Stephen Pressfield has a great book called The War of Art. One concept he explores is what he calls “the Resistance.” This is an all-too-common phenomenon for anyone who is trying to make anything—the idea of making the thing is great, but sitting down and grinding it out seems impossible. The Resistance makes …
