Intention Matters…Even in an Email
My friend Rachel described a recent email she got this way: “The words were polite, but you could feel her rolling her eyes while she typed it.” I’ve received that email. Heck, I’ve probably written that email. Rachel was laughing as she described it, but we all know what it feels like to be on …
The Cardinal Sin
If you’re giving a presentation, answer this question: What will change for my audience as a result of what I’m going to say? How will their lives be different? If you can’t answer this, you need to go back to the drawing board. The presenter’s cardinal sin is to give a talk that is for …
You Gotta Repeat It
Politicians know it. Preachers know it. Teachers know it. You have to repeat yourself. If you want the audience to really get it, to walk out of your presentation knowing the main idea or the call to action, you need to say it a few times. Tell us right up front. Create a headline, a …
Talk to Strangers
Last week I was on my way to the airport in a cab, and the driver and I fell into a conversation. He is from Pakistan and has lived in New York for 22 years; we figured out that we had overlapped living there by about six months. We talked about our kids, and he …
“I Hate to Practice.”
I know. I do, too. But you know what I hate more? Getting to a place and feeling unprepared. Forgetting what I wanted to say. The clammy feel of my palms sweating as I realize I might not have re-checked my slides. I practice so I will feel great. I practice so I can forget …
Your Outside Affects Your Inside
You know that I like to think about communication as starting from the mental (intention) and moving to the physical (alignment). But it’s also true that changing your body can affect how you feel! (We’re complicated creatures.) When you’re nervous, what do you do? Many people focus on why they’re nervous, maybe going over the …
Two Great Times to Set an Intention
Helping our clients think about intention, or the outcome you hope to achieve with what you say, is key to our coaching work. There are two perfect times to use intention. One: before you begin a high-stakes communication. This could be a speech, a negotiation, or a difficult conversation, anything where you might be nervous …
The “I” Word
There’s a word that, when I use it in front of an unsuspecting room of workshop participants, never fails to produce a specific reaction: veiled horror combined with “oh I think I have an important client call/a gastrointestinal emergency.” That word? Improv. Almost everyone has a strong association with this word, particularly when it comes …
One Way to Deliver Your Three-Point Talk
Yesterday I wrote about the classic three-point talk and its benefits. Today I’m going to give you a technique to use to deliver your next three-point talk. It’s the Overlapping Circles technique, beautifully sketched by me below: One way to help your audience follow your talk is to physically locate the different elements in different …
In Defense of the Classic Three-Point Talk
A lot of us learned this format in high school English class: your introduction lays out your theme and the three points you want to make to support the theme, then you explain each point, then you wrap it up with a summary. Perhaps because we learned this in Ms. Williamson’s class in 11th grade, …
