Intention

Ultimately, the point of communication should be to collaboratively advance an idea, a connection, a relationship, a thought, a plan. That’s the rational business case for communication.  In practice, however, we’re often communicating for other reasons. We communicate to further our need for attention, to express judgement, to advance our agenda, to score points. That second …

In a workshop I did last week, a woman said, “I am often in back to back 30-minute meetings for seven or eight hours. How can I stay present for all of them? It’s exhausting!”  Yes. It is. Seth Godin writes about this concept–emotional labor is what many of us do now. We’re not digging …

A client and I were working on her presentation. As often happens, as soon as she started to “present,” her personality flattened out, her voice contracted to a monotone, and her eye contact vanished. The content she was delivering was good, but it was hard for me to know what was important and what wasn’t, …

I was having a coaching session with a new client last week, and he related that about 50% of the time when he has to give a work presentation, he dreads it. It always goes fine, but from the moment he finds out about it, he wishes it were over. I asked, “What do you …

Here’s a lesson I keep having to learn: Lots of times, what I need to say is nothing. I am learning to ask: what do I want to accomplish by saying this? See where my true intention is. If the candid answer is something along the lines of “I want to show how wrong he …

When do you default to your old habits? I’m thinking about this today as I recommit to budgeting, and meal planning, and generally being more intentional. All the tools I need to be good at this stuff are literally at my fingertips—apps, information, lots of ways to monitor and measure. But the driver of all …

I’ve seen it a thousand times.  The person who was just sitting with me, talking excitedly and passionately about their work, stands up to present, and suddenly they turn into a different person. They go into “presentation mode.” It’s like the change in altitude from sitting to standing flips a switch in their brain, and …

Recently I was out of town on business for a whole week. I was staying in a hotel, and before long I felt like I knew the place inside and out. On the fourth day of my stay, I got up early and went in search of coffee. The elevator door opened, and three things …

There’s a moment that comes right before you say something. A moment when you’re drawing in breath to speak, when you can alter the course of what’s coming next. In that moment, where are you? What are you thinking about? Are you two steps down the road of the discussion you’re having, trying to win …

I went to a routine medical appointment yesterday. The woman who was taking care of me said, “Thank you for being so pleasant! That’s been in short supply here today.” Her comment surprised me (I think I’m an average amount of “pleasant,” as a person), and I asked what had happened. Without getting into details, …