Every idea is an incitement… Eloquence may set fire to reason. –Oliver Wendell Holmes Gram Parsons, an extremely influential musical artist credited with helping to found country rock, was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist. He played with the Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers,… Read More »Eloquence is reason set on fire
Creating 10,000 presentations in the course of your career and rehearsing them all with great care will not necessarily guarantee you presentation mastery. Neuroscience, and common sense, show that factors other than blind repetition must prevail. For example, if your… Read More »Rehearsing Presentations: Is there a better way to practice?
The inspiration for business presentation success can come from anywhere. Hamlet, for instance. Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark in Shakespeare’s play called Hamlet, written around 1603. In the play, Hamlet retains a troop of actors to stage a play he’s… Read More »Business Presentation Success: Hamlet the Speech Coach
Not one, but two of my clients are in trouble because they each have a super-abundance of charm. Accomplished, handsome raconteurs, they hold forth in meetings with panache, tossing off confetti clouds of words that flit, rise and fall on… Read More »Public Speaking: The curse of charm
Many presenters begin their talks like this: “I’d like to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about…” Don’t do this. First of all, what you would like to do at that particular moment is of considerably less interest… Read More »Presenters should avoid this opening phrase
I heard an Indian novelist interviewed recently. Asked what struck her when she first came to America, she said, “I noticed that in America, the rich are thin and the poor are fat—the opposite of my country.” Of course, she… Read More »The rich, the poor, the highly-educated and the tongue-tied