In a recent Eloqui workshop, an attendee, we’ll call him Patrick, became overly excited each time he got up to speak. Nerves and stage fright drove him. As a result, he increased his speed and volume. This made Patrick difficult to understand and affected his ability to...
The more you attract new and fresh, the better you’ll feel, and ultimately sound. Stage actors in long-running shows know their most critical challenge is making the script sound spontaneous each night. Take on this challenge and have the best speaking year of your career....
Sarah Gardner went to England and brought home the gold. But Sarah isn’t an Olympic athlete-- she’s the Development Director for the non-profit THORN. Their mission is to prevent child sex abuse and trafficking through technology. Sarah is outgoing and professional. But when she was asked...
We wrap up each year with an exercise that puts our life and business in perspective. After almost twenty years, it's become a cherished tradition. Here's how it works. Purchase a spiral-bound, lined journal with enough paper to last for years. Set up the following...
David Sax's NY Times article: End the Innovation Obsession explored how society values innovation. But innovation cuts both ways. To please investors, customers and the media, firms put a priority on inventing new technology. Unfortunately, many of those innovations wind up in landfills or the dustbin of...
Yorgos Lanthimos' film The Favourite is getting great buzz. Lanthimos wanted immediacy and authentic vulnerability from actors Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and Olivia Colman. He achieved this outcome with three weeks of rehearsal, having the actors do seemingly goofy exercises like jumping from floor tile...
Last Monday night, one game broke records, wowed fans, and forged its place in football history. For fans of the LA Rams or the Kansas City Chiefs (both with 9-1 records this season), it was a nail-biter all the way. With continuous well-executed plays and...
Earlier this week we were training in New York for NPD, a market research firm. While in discussion with a group president, Tim directed us to prepare his leaders for their "bus moment." We were stumped. We'd never heard the term. Tim explained. "In leadership roles,...
Melissa McCarthy, while touting her new film Can You Ever Forgive Me? called herself a "dinosaur" because she doesn't text, email or tweet. Instead, she observes human behavior and incorporates those insights into her characters. All well-trained actors, sketch artists, and scientists have highly developed...
The difficulty for speakers stems from the belief that it is their responsibility to educate, inform, and then make sure the audience understands the topic. With this perspective, there is always the potential to add more content, especially if you want to be as thorough...