Speech Tip: Inspiration Means Asking Someone To Do a Hard Thing If doing whatever you are asking your audience to do was easy, your inspirational dinner speech would be a breeze. Inspiration is hard. “Say, you know, I was thinking. You know that scholarship fund for poor international kids I mentioned in that letter last […]
Speech Tip: Don’t Tell Me a Story (Unless It Matters) When you are giving a speech, you are being graced with the attention of as many people as are listening. You’ve heard “tell a story, tell a story” as some sort of speech givers mantra. That’s not the point of your speech. Your job isn’t […]
Speech Tip: Avoid PowerPoint Jeff Bezos doesn’t like PowerPoint in presentations. Neither do I. Why not? They distract the audience and the speaker. It is as simple as that. That’s not even getting into the design question — so many aren’t done well. Too many words, too complex of a message (charts that are more […]
Those of you who follow me on LinkedIn know that I’m emphasizing public speaking. The quick gist is below, but for the full shebang, please check out my public speaking page Public Speaking: Keynotes, Workshops, Breakout Sessions * Clarity of Message. How to speak efficiently. * Confidence Building. Your audience wants to hear from you. […]
As Sears Holdings Corporation, owner of Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Kmart, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, I think of how they impacted the world. They invented department stores as we know it. Everything Amazon is, everything Alibaba Group is, Sears already was. Years ago, mentions of them might’ve filled inspirational speeches because of […]
Speech Tip: Politics as Unusual: Love, Not Hate in Political Speeches Politics. Can’t live with ’em. Can’t… I just can’t. I will write speeches for good people who want good things who are willing to say it all in a good way. There are two major ways to write a political speech. Ask most people, […]
Presidential Alert Update: Bid now (through GoDaddy Auctions). I own the Presidential Alert domain. It is for sale. http://PresidentialAlert.com It redirects to a page I have on voicemail and text blasts. I am open to selling it if someone offers me an embarrassingly high amount of money. More information. I will only sell it to […]
Adventures in Speech Writing I have a sexy job. It isn’t really, but that’s the impression some people have. Too many movies romanticize my type of work. In the course of conversation, someone might say, “So, what do you do?” There’s a range of reasons people ask such a thing — maybe they want to […]
Speech Tip: Don’t Speak Too Long (Unless You’re Jack) You’ll hear me preach on keeping within the prescribed time for your speech. If they say me, “Ton’, you’ve got three minutes. Not a second longer,” I know precisely what they mean: I’ve got three minutes. Not a second longer. I’m not, after all, Jack. Why? I […]
Speech Tip: Writers Read (So Do All Successful People) Writers who read are better than writers who don’t. If you aren’t reading, you should. It isn’t complicated to consider. Many of you are humming amen. As you do, think of the next great book you’ll read. If all you are reading is the flavor of […]