Public speaking and speechwriting: the essential guides
Looking for advice on public speaking, speechwriting and leadership communications? Here are some of my most comprehensive posts, on topics that people ask me about most often.
Know your audience before you even meet them
Every speech has a goal, one that almost always involves changing the way your audience thinks and acts in some way. You can only do that effectively if you know your audience. But just how you do that isn’t immediately obvious. You probably won’t get to meet most of...
Tony Robbins, #metoo and the failure to listen to a changing world
Tony Robbins’ dismissive comments about the #MeToo movement should make everyone who speaks from the stage step back for a moment and think hard. (If you haven’t followed this story, there’s a pretty decent summary here. And if you haven’t seen the video from...
Need to make a big emotional pivot without losing your audience? Try a three-point turn.
The speaker ahead of me was wrapping up. I could feel a little knot of anxiety start to grow in my stomach as I prepared for my turn at the mic. Speaker after speaker before me had spoken with courage and vulnerability, and nobody in the room had been left unmoved....
Delivery: How to lift a speech from the page
“Put me up on stage in front of a microphone to speak off the cuff, and I do great,” one of my workshop participants said not long ago, as we talked about speech delivery. “But give me a written speech to read and I just go dead,” he added,...
Getting better feedback
“Could you read this?” a friend asked me, handing over the manuscript for his novel. “I’d love your feedback.” So I did. I read all 200 pages and made detailed notes about story, character and voice. How the dramatic structure needed...
Why, yes — I’d LOVE to speak at your event
Public speaking and speechwriting: the essential guides
Looking for advice on public speaking, speechwriting and leadership communications? Here are some of my most comprehensive posts, on topics that people ask me about most often.
