There’s nothing like the holiday season to get people worried about their conversation skills. You’d be amazed at how many questions I get peppered with: “I’m a total introvert – how can I start a conversation at the corporate party next week?” “I want to look good in front of my boss. I probably shouldn’t…
Networking event, business mixer, after party…whatever you want to call it, these kinds of small-talk heavy events can be the bane of many people’s existence. That goes double if you are on the introverted side. We need to make conversation at these events, but how do you even start a conversation at a business networking event? Some…
The word charismatic gets thrown about quite a bit. I’ve heard people call someone “charismatic” when I would have labelled that same individual “bombastic a**hole.” I’ve also encountered people I would label as highly charismatic that others describe as inaccessible or aloof. The last year has been an interesting study in political charisma, with Justin…
Charisma comes in different flavours and styles, and absolutely experiences fluctuation in fashion. Like most kind of fashions, the “fashionable” characteristics that make us consider one person or another charismatic are both a reflection and creation of our current culture. Different social cultures – and I apply the term “culture” to both small groups, self-selected…
“Sorry” is quite possibly one of the most pernicious words I hear in regular conversation. When used in its truest sense, a sincere sorry is lovely – both strong and vulnerable in the way in admits and accepts responsibility, or empathetic in the way it expresses understanding. These uses, however, are heard with woeful infrequency.…
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,…
If you want to be interesting, you must be interested. Be interested in everything; be interested in current events, in culture, in daily life. Be interested in new ways of doing things, in activities you’ve never tried, in subjects you don’t know much about. Definitely be interested in the people you are talking to. The…
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 funny thing about establishing intimacy with an audience is that it doesn’t necessarily matter whether you, the speaker, feel that an intimate moment has been shared. Like just about any desired emotion, what really matters is that your audience feels it. They, quite frankly, don’t give a damn about what’s going on in your own…
This past weekend was the Canadian thanksgiving holiday, which I spent happily cocooned in a triptophan-induced semi-coma. Thankfully, I had the American presidential debates to giggle over while recovering from the turkey binge. Political debates are quite possibly the best fora to observe the spectrum of speaking and rhetorical competency. The unpredictability of the politicians’…
