The message doesn’t always have to be new to have impact. How often do we go looking for information on the same old topic? How many times can we hear a similar message from different people and still be interested? Sometimes we don’t need new information – we just need to hear it from a…
I remember when the Gap clothing store opened its first shop in my city. There was a lot of excitement about this place. People told a lot of stories about the experience of shopping there. They’re obsessed with customer service! The clerks wore headsets and radios so they could talk to each other! They’ve got…
Much like any other skill, we need to practice talking to be good at it. You don’t need to sweat buckets over complex presentations or formal speeches to become a good talker. You just need to talk with people. Lots of people. Different people. I know some great presenters who are surprisingly poor at just talking with…
I don’t fall in love quickly. If a really fantastic thinker crosses my path, I might follow her videos and blog for a year before really falling in love. A great speaker might cross my radar, but I won’t giggle like a besotted teenager until I’ve figured out if the rest of his stuff is…
The term ‘cold calling’ strikes fear into the hearts of many a professional. Heaven’s knows it does to me. Cold calling, though, has its place. Actually, it can be a very useful activity for both the caller and the receiver. It can save time and energy, create new connections and opportunity, and grow your network.…
One of the keys to being able to ramble out a good, solid off-the-cuff or spontaneous speech is introspection – and lots of it. The purpose behind this introspection isn’t to indulge in endless navel-gazing. That’s what Facebook and Instagram are for. This self-reflection is to develop an acute awareness of your values, your personal drivers,…
Lately, I have been brushing up my LinkedIn profile. If you don’t use LinkedIn, I strongly recommend that you create a profile. It really is a great way to keep in touch with professional and business contacts and build your professional network. LinkedIn has a couple of different tools you can use to vet the…
I interrupt your current series on Conference Terror to refer you to today’s blog post by Seth Godin: Hoarding Information Information – good information – is a precious thing. If it is ours to give, we shouldn’t be afraid of giving generously. Generosity tends to be reciprocated. It doesn’t mean that you should happily do…
When we feel under threat, misunderstood, ill-used, or otherwise hard done by, we tend to put up walls. They are our mental defence mechanism, a way of deflecting conversations that might make us feel bad, or uncomfortable, or wrong. When we say that someone “put a wall up between us,” we usually refer to someone becoming quiet…
I started working on the next instalment on communicating intimately this weekend, and then got slammed with a nasty infection. Needless to say, it has completely derailed my writing efforts. Hopefully the antibiotics kick in soon (seriously – even the cartilage on my ears hurts). In the meantime, I would like to leave you with the following blog post…
