What Your Audiences Fear #2
Yesterday’s post addressed the number one fear of audiences – speakers wasting their time. Today’s fear is a very close second. Audiences fear when we speakers focus on things they don’t understand. As a past high school teacher, I remember the number of times I did this in my own classroom. It’s painful for students to sit .. read more
Why We Introverts Must Learn to Ask
One of my hardest lessons in life has been asking for help. I recall times during my high school years I would attend county fairs with friends with a limited amount of money in my pocket. So much to do with a little bit of money – eat great foods, ride thrilling rides or play .. read more
Introverts, Get Up and At’em!
Back when I was teaching and directing HS theatre, I had to emphasize to students during show weeks the need to get up early on Saturdays. Often Friday night shows would go well. Students had been up early enough to get to school on time, had their metabolisms engaged and by showtime they were fully alert .. read more
Could you just quiet down?
We introverts have an internal meter that automatically kicks into gear in public spaces. It is a mechanism that alerts us to behavior insensitive to our temperament – when people are too loud. I live in a loft downtown Columbus. Like most public housing, hallway noise and noise within the units are apparent to those .. read more
Introverts, Tip to Make the Conversation Easier
One of my clients, an extrovert in many ways, has difficulty with owning authority. Like most of us, she doesn’t want to appear too pushy, so she naturally defers to avoiding some useful conversations. A common situation for most of us, this avoidance leads to her having some complicated situations with direct reports. When she .. read more
Meeting Management Requires Interruption
We introverts struggle with injecting ourselves into conversation. In earlier posts I have focused on meeting participation. Today let’s focus on how to guide the conversation when you are the meeting facilitator. Not a smooth task, yet one that requires both courage and calm to interject and set the tone. Do you wait for the .. read more
Introverts, Now Make Something Happen
I really love introverts. We go deeper and get more involved in the meaning of and importance of things than others do. Yet sometimes we forget to do something about it. I’ve been there, too. I pour myself into a topic, sit for hours in front of my laptop doing the due diligence, make notes, .. read more
Introverts can Go for the No, Plan for the Yes
In a Leadership for Life course, I was once given instruction to see how many times I could ask a question that could be answered by “No”. “Get 10 No’s a day” was the recommendation. Really?? I hate it when people say NO! Many thought this bizarre – why would we want to ask questions .. read more
Believe or Don’t Believe
On Easter Sunday, our minister made a startling point. “It’s not my job to convince you of anything today. Either you believe or you don’t believe. But I am here to tell you what this day means to me.” And on he went with a series of stories about what it means to have Jesus .. read more
When Meetings Follow the Rules
I recall a time I presented a topic to a firm’s practice group when the firm administrator was present. He sat off to the side where he could gain an advantage of being in the room while also witnessing the participation of others during his scrutiny of me. He is a conscientious rule follower, especially one .. read more
