Are you in the habit of bringing up elaborate speaking notes or scripts when you give a presentation? If so, you are likely causing more harm than good! Extensive notes and scripts can actually make it harder to present and to recover from those inevitable mistakes and slip-ups all speakers make. But that doesn’t mean…
Do you struggle to find time to practice your speech with your packed schedule? The idea of grinding through your speech over and over for 30, 60, or 90 minutes at a stretch can make anyone turn into a master procrastinator. Practice is absolutely essential for delivering a good talk, but you don’t need to…
If you give presentations, it happens to you: you get a question and you have no idea how to answer it! This is a simple fact of presenting, and if if hasn’t happened to you, it’s only a matter of time before it does. But there’s no need to let your audience see you sweat and stammer. …
Cross cultural communication skills are important for anyone working with international businesses. While some points of communication etiquette are so ingrained as to be subconscious, we can’t take for granted that what is polite to us is polite to someone from a different culture. Communication signals such as eye contact, gestures, turns of phrases, who…
Diversity and inclusion has (rightfully) been a hot topic in workplaces. Unfortunately, language habits can often get in the way of proper everyday inclusiveness. This is especially true for colonial expressions and manners of speaking, which are deeply embedded and often unconsciously (or perhaps unthinkingly) used. Decolonizing our language, however, requires thoughtfulness, deliberate engagement, and for…
So you’ve given a number of talks at conferences and events in your industry, in front of some decent sized audiences, and you’ve caught the speaking bug. Now you’re wondering how you can move from being someone who speaks as part of your job to a paid, professional speaker in your own right. But you…
Have you found yourself tacking “right?” on to the ends of your sentences, even when it makes no sense? I know, right? This common filler word drives a lot of people crazy, including Mike, who has noticed he’s been doing it more and more often. So Mike reached out to me for help, and he…
I know you’ve done it. I certainly have – we all have. Talking smack to ourselves, hoping to try to bully ourselves in to more productivity, better performance, higher achievement. In the words of my interview guest, “How’s that working for you?” Today we’re wading into the murky waters of self-talk, and how we can…
In this episode of Communication Q&A, I have a question about a really common speech habit, coming our way from Melissa, who writes “Hi Lauren – I saw your video on vocal fry and it made me think of a problem I’ve been having. A colleague has told me that I often use “upspeak” and…
To stand or to sit? This seemingly simple question sparks a lot of debate – and feelings – in the speaking community! In this Communication Q&A, I tackle the question of whether it’s better to sit or stand when you’re giving a talk or presentation via video conference (or Zoom, or any other virtual meeting…
