Is Your Natural Humility Undermining Your Communication Style?
Many of our clients fit the following profile: super smart, accomplished, ambitious, and humble. They are dedicated to their work and to maximizing their skills. They are good leaders. So why are they getting coaching? One characteristic that comes up a lot with these brilliant folks is that their humility can actually get in the …
What Do You Say About the Elephant in the Room?
What do you do when there’s an elephant in the room? The project went badly. The leadership made a mistake. There’s a lawsuit the company is going to have to deal with. Do you address it yourself, or wait until a questioner brings up the lurking pachyderm? My advice, in most cases, is to go …
Competing Intentions: The Cage Match
On August 24, I wrote about some ways to handle competing intentions that might surface on your team. In that situation, you’re all working to be intentional communicators, but people have different priorities. Today, let’s think about what happens when you don’t have the luxury of a shared vocabulary around intention. For example, you’re preparing …
How Packing is Like a Speech
I have traveled for work for fifteen years. I also really like to travel, so I do it even when it’s not for work. In short, in non-pandemic times, I travel frequently. When I’m choosing what to pack for a business trip, it’s pretty simple. I have specific clothes that are for “work,” so it’s …
What we really need.
Today’s post was originally sent out in May of 2019. In recognition of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to re-post it today. If you’d like to see Come From Away yourself, it starts airing today on Apple TV. Last week I got to see the musical “Come From Away” while …
Big Announcement! (It’s the book!)
I’m thrilled to announce that my book, Before You Say Anything: How to Have Better Conversations, Love Public Speaking, and Finally Know What to Do with Your Hands, is making its debut TODAY! If you’re a reader of this blog, the book’s big ideas will be familiar to you. What’s different is that the whole thing …
The Problem with Peanut Butter
Peanut butter is a delicious and filling snack. Peanut butter is sticky. Peanut butter eaten ten minutes before you’re recording an interview is…not a great idea. Maybe have some apple slices instead. (My son Cameron read this blog post and said, “I don’t get it. Is there a metaphor here?” Nope. No metaphor. Straight talk …
The Control Panel of Behavior
Sometimes I think about all of our vast array of communication behaviors as being like knobs and sliders on a control panel. Each one of the knobs adjusts and mediates a behavior: pausing, volume, eye contact, gestures, cadence, pace, vocabulary, etc. We probably have some factory settings (I might even call them default settings), that, …
What’s Different When We’re There in Person?
I attended a funeral last week. The woman who passed away was a family friend, someone important to me. The funeral was held in the city where I grew up, about two and half hours away. The funeral was held in person as well as streamed on the church’s Facebook page. I had two choices: …
Giving a Great Pitch, plus a Sneak Peek…
Last week I got to spend some time with Trey Scott, the founder of WatchPitch. His work brings entrepreneurs with great ideas together with investors, so he’s kind of a matchmaker. Trey invited me to come and speak with him about my book, Before You Say Anything: How to Have Better Conversations, Love Public Speaking, …
