Analysing the interview: Justin Trudeau

The other day I was working with a client, and I gave him a section from a political commentary article to read aloud.  He glanced over the article, which was about Justin Trudeau and the recent Liberal Party leadership race.  We briefly chatted about Trudeau’s famous father and the current buzz around the newly elected Liberal…

The nerves keep on jangling

I took a couple of weeks away from blogging, speaking, computers, and just about everything else communication.  This was a refreshing, if unplanned break.  As my wee boy was in a major growth spurt, I needed time to make up for a lot of broken, unsettled sleep and dial down my daily activities a little.…

Winging it

“Hey, we need you to fill a space in our program.  This speaker just backed out, see, and it’s too late to find someone outside the organization to fill their space.  The presentation needs to be related to Topic XYZ.  Don’t worry, you’ll do fine – you’re so good at winging it.” I shuddered every…

Smile, damn you, smile!

I have and will always maintain that a weapon every speaker should carry around in their arsenal is the ability to fire up a genuine beaming smile on demand. Actually, scratch that statement.  Everyone, speaker or no, should learn how to smile on cue.  And by smile, I mean the sort of eye-crinkling, cheek raising…

Daily Acts

Acting is part of life. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we spent a significant portion of our day in one performance or another. Life demands all of us to be a bit of an actor, and most people are remarkably adept at this. We perform in front of our spouses and friends. We act…