Olympic gymnastics are judged on Difficulty and Execution. The flashiness of a performance is weighed against how hard a move is to accomplish. The same concept applies in business presentations; the higher return, the more risk you must take.We just returned from Nashville, where Deborah...
Great thinkers and speakers operate in a similar way, no matter their area of study. Seven hundred years ago, Occam’s Razor, the Principle of Parsimony stated that the simplest explanation is often the best. Richard Feynman, Nobel prize-winning physicist, invented Feynman Diagrams-- visualizations of highly complex...
For the past 23+ years, we’ve sent out a speaker tip, quote and word every Sunday morning. Our tip has always been free because we believe in providing value. And we know how important it is to have tools from the professionals’ playbook-- to engage...
Last week we traveled to the west coast of Vancouver Island. It was an escape from the pressures of a book launch and desert heat. First dawn found us on a slate gray beach, early rays of sun filtering through dense forests, lighting up glistening...
Breaking was introduced into this year’s Olympic Games. At first, we dismissed the event as young people spinning on their heads, but were we wrong. Not only is breaking athletic and entertaining, it throws down a challenge for anyone who performs to an audience.Breaking has...
The repechage round is a new component in the Paris Olympics. Repechage gives athletes who lost in the first round of semi-finals another possibility to advance. It’s their second chance. Wouldn’t we all like a repechage? In fact, USA hurdler Freddie Crittenden used repechage to his advantage. Approaching the...
The Paris 2024 Olympics are providing chills and thrills. We often held our breath as stumbles completely unnerved some athletes and dashed their chances of medaling. Others shook it off and came back even stronger. If you’re facing a challenge-- when running a race or...
The Paris Olympics have opened with much fanfare. But concerns about the Seine’s pollution remain, despite 1.5 billion Euros spent. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo promised the Seine would be clean enough to host water events, even though swimming in the badly contaminated river was banned...
Soon we’ll see the finest athletes in the world competing at the Paris Olympics, replete with fanfare, hype and publicity. But what happens to the athletes when it’s over? Win or lose, they have a relatively short career, one that thirsts for a second act....
Would you stand on a platform in a bathing suit and jump from nine stories high, fall sixty-five miles per hour and land in water three seconds later? Everything in your rational mind screams “NO!” It’s not so different from what most people feel getting...