How speakers create anxiety in listeners, part 1
Just as common as speakers being anxious when talking is listeners feeling anxiety with speakers. Today’s focus is on the anxiety we listeners get when speakers don’t look at us – not to be confused with speakers from cultures who take extended eye contact to mean an affront or challenge of authority. In the United .. read more
If It Feels Like You’re Pushing, Use This Tip
Many of us have felt this – whether we’re networking, in a sales meeting or needing to convince a client – sometimes we don’t like what we’re doing or saying but think we need to continue, and it shows. It feels like we are pushing ourselves while all we want to do is stop. Rather .. read more
Listeners can’t understand you? Try this.
Your pace may help you get things done, enter conversation, make decisions and get results. But that doesn’t mean your pace works for listeners. They may be overwhelmed by your rapid delivery and decide to tune out. I know you don’t want this. So what do you do? You’re not the only communicator dealing with .. read more
When to think about your presentation audience
Many speakers focus all their pre-speech time on brainstorming, selecting and organizing the ideas and details on what they find most important about a topic. Whether they bring unique or already-prepared messages to their audiences, often the only focus they have is in what they want to say. That’s when they get in their own .. read more
How long can you hold their attention?
Think it takes much to get and hold an audience’s attention? Consider this: Jerry Seinfeld, arguably one of the world’s biggest comics, reveals the difficulty of being in front of an audience in the movie, Comedian. When he decides to go on the road to test new material, Jerry says that it’s not as easy .. read more
Presentation Extenders – training that works
Let’s face it. A day of training or an hour of speaking helps fill a training need from a training director’s or administrator’s standpoint. But what does it do for the student? It doesn’t matter how much you spent on speaker/training fees. Retention of a one-time offering is as good as the Chinese food you .. read more
Emotions have a place, when handled
An introvert, I used to try to conceal my emotions, afraid they would show a weakness. Then I watched some of my favorite performers and realized another perspective. Emotions have a place, when handled. My desire was to learn how to gain control of emotions, then appropriately pull people into my conversations. Although I wanted people to .. read more
Are You Practiced or Engaging?
How is your delivery with the routine things you say? Practiced or engaging? I used to be a BNI member when I was in business in Toledo. The idea was each week we would have something different to say about ourselves and our work, opening the minds of those in the room to how they could .. read more
