The secret isn’t innate confidence. It isn’t a good slide deck, either. It’s not positive, pre-show affirmations. It’s not killer quotes, “life changing” stories, or hilarious content. It definitely isn’t picturing your audience in their underwear.* The above all play a part in great presentations (with the exception of the underwear visualization), but they…
I may love writing, but doing podcasts is a hell of a lot of fun! As I’m off visiting family this week, I’m casting my content line back a couple of months and bringing you a podcast interview I did with the amazing Alison Donaghey from Natural Born Speakers. We chatted about pretty much everything related…
This is a photo of me MCing the Edmonton Event Awards on February 25th. This picture tells both a truth and a lie. The truth is that grin and overall impression of enjoyment. I had a great time MCing the event! I love MCing, and this was a particularly fun night. The audience was…
WARNING: this is a geek-out post. Get ready to get a dose of rhetoric! (I am so, so happy that we get to enjoy a nice, long Canadian Federal election this year! It’s like Christmas has come early and it’s going to last for two extra months.) If you’ve been following the federal election at…
Yes, you sound different when you speak than when you write. The carefully massaged sentence, paragraph, or turn of phrase is unlikely to come out of your mouth in the same way that it reads on paper. Writing, reading, and unscripted speaking are all different mental processes. You can create a consistency between your spoken…
One of the most wonderful, beautiful things about live performance is the fact that there are no do-overs. Sure, you rehearsed and practised and polished and made sure that every ‘i’ was dotted and ‘t’ crossed. When it comes down to it, though, that particular performance in front of that particular audience is a one…
There are times to take risks and times to play it safe. I write frequently about taking risks with your content. Experiment. Try something new. Put yourself out there. If it doesn’t work, do a quick post-mortem, figure out what happened, then try again before the fear monster takes over and chokes you. A caveat…
You may have noticed a shift in the way documents and emails have been formatted. Once upon a time, the mighty indent ruled the start of every paragraph. Now the indent has been largely supplanted by an empty line. I am not entirely sure where or why this trend began. At first, it seemed confined…
I was at a convention this weekend, and while in the venue’s public bathroom I heard someone say something really familiar: “I don’t know what I’m going to stay on the panel. I don’t know why I said I’d do this. I’m going to start babbling and everyone there will think I’m an idiot.” So…
Reading out loud is one of the best ways to get in speaking practice. Whether you’re working on diction, expression, breath work, or something else, grabbing some reading material makes practice a lot easier than taxing your brain trying to come up with original content. Just about anything can be fodder for your speaking…
