It’s Hard Work to Make It Seem Effortless
Ballet dancers seem to float, to soar, to magically propel themselves. The grace and fluidity of their movement captures our imaginations and tells us a riveting story. We leave the theatre in awe of their talent, their gift. We’re not necessarily thinking about how hard they worked to create that two-hour experience for us, the …
How Do You Practice When You Can’t Practice?
It’s college basketball season, aka the Most wonderful Time of the Year. And last week, I was listening to an interview with a player on my favorite team (go Heels!) Puff Johnson is a sophomore, and as of the time of the interview, he had just begun playing again after being plagued with injuries that …
What to Do When It All Falls Apart
I was watching a college basketball game the other night, and the team I was rooting for played well for 38 out of 40 minutes. Then in the last 2 minutes, everything they had been doing right seemed to abandon them. They made wild passes, took bad shots, and generally fell apart. When it came …
The Doing is the Practice.
The doing is the practice. When we’re coaching, we teach clients the best ways to practice for a presentation or a speech. But the real truth is—every day is a chance to practice. Every conversation is a chance to practice intention. How am I hoping to affect the person I’m talking to? Am I being …
Building Your Bench
Most of us don’t coach high-performing sports teams. In fact, I don’t know a single head coach. But I do know that coaches need starters, and they also need players who can come in off the bench to play when the starters need to rest, are injured, or don’t have the right skillset for the …
Show Me the End of Your Talk and I’ll Tell You How Long You Worked on It
The segment of a speech or presentation that gets the least attention from the speaker when they are preparing is …the closing. This makes sense! The speaker has created material and practiced it, massaged their turns of phrase and designed gorgeous slides, for 98% of the presentation. They have great points! They are telling stories! …
What Spock Tells Us About Preparing
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” Spock, the rational thinker, makes decisions based on the greater good. Who will benefit? One individual, or many? A moment may come when you need to start preparing for a speech, presentation, meeting, or event. You won’t feel like it. You may …
Moving Stuck Trucks, and What That Has to Do with Public Speaking
My husband Charlie and I have many of the same cultural interests. We like the same kinds of plays and movies, for example. But when left to our own (literal) devices, we often choose to watch different things. Recently Charlie said that he wanted to show me a video of this guy, Matt, whose YouTube …
What Do You Do When It’s Hard to “Yes And…”
A quick video today, talking about the power of “yes and” versus “yes but.” Where do you find the opportunity to say “yes” and invite collaboration? Hey! My book is out! Go here to order Before You Say Anything: How to Have Better Conversations, Love Public Speaking, and Finally Know What to Do with Your Hands! …
Try It for Ten Minutes
They say that, when you start running for exercise, you need to give yourself ten minutes to get warmed up and start feeling good. I suggest you apply the same formula to practicing. Give it ten minutes of focused effort to get over the hump of not wanting to do it, feeling silly, whatever. Ten …
