Speaking with stage fright is like driving with the emergency brake partially on. Your whole body trembles, your mouth gets hot and dry, you can smell the smoke rising from your armpits, and you can’t get to where you want… Read More »Got stage fright?
There are some circumstances in which we can tell an audience what to do, some where we must sell them (or convince) them to do something, and then there are those times when we do not have the authority (or… Read More »Presentation Skills: Tell, Sell, Solve
Whenever you give yourself a compliment in front of an audience, you run the risk of being seen in a negative light. For instance, telling stories about how you won a big piece of business by being a super salesman may… Read More »Good speakers don’t boast
It is telling that the greatest presidential speech in American history begins with a sentence that summarizes 87 years of our national story. It is a sentence above the fray, in fact 30,000 feet above the fray. It describes, from… Read More »Public Speaking: Two sentences at Gettysburg
Is it possible for anyone to become a great presenter? Let’s define our terms. Anyone is a college graduate in the western world between the ages of 21 and 65. Let’s define “possible” as an 80% chance that after reasonable… Read More »Becoming a great presenter
Albert Camus famously said, “Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.” Okay, very funny, Albert. But given the research coming out of universities demonstrating that students generally have poor retention of information delivered by the… Read More »The twilight of presentations?