Why Great Leadership Means Balance

Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and discipline … Reliance on intelligence alone results in rebelliousness. Exercise of humaneness alone results in weakness. Fixation on trust results in folly. Dependence on the strength of courage results in violence. Excessive discipline and sternness in command result in cruelty. When one has all five … Read more

How to Guarantee Your Proposal Gets Heard

Jonathan and Thomas both have a great idea for their companies. Jonathan works at a multi-million dollar firm, and so does Thomas. They are equally qualified and talented. They both give their proposal to senior team members at the same time of the fiscal year. They both speak to the key decision-maker, who is equally … Read more

Doctor’s Weak Communication Skills Hurt His Important Message (video)

Dr. Marc Siegel, clearly a very intelligent and experienced physician, has trouble getting his message across. In this 3-minute segment with three goofball news anchors, he tries to communicate some points about salt, but quickly loses control of the discussion: Scientists: Everything we've been told about salt is wrongWatch this video on YouTube As the only one … Read more

They Don’t Need Your Data, They Need You

There are three main skill levels in public speaking, identified by our inner dialogue: At the beginner level, we think “how do I look?” This is the most basic mindset, where we are most concerned with how we look to the audience and whether they are judging us or accepting us. Most people don’t get past this … Read more

Shy? You Might Just Be Self-Centered

Imagine if Ghandi had said “Eh, I don’t want to talk about my ideas with too many people. I’m shy.” How different would history look? How different would the world be if everyone who had a profound talent or an amazing strength, instead of sharing it with others, decided to hide it out of “shyness.” … Read more

Communication = Conviction

I’m a big believer that if you don’t really believe in what you are selling–whether that is an idea, a product, a service or yourself–you will fail. You can always force yourself to “hype” something that you don’t really believe in. But that’s a short-term play, not a path to long-term sustained value. Unless you are destitute … Read more

This is The Simplest Way to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking

The fear of public speaking is one of the most common challenges we see with clients and students. The lack of preparation is one of the biggest reasons why we struggle or fail in our presentations. It’s a relatively simple problem to fix. Just take 10 or 30 minutes to practice at some point before actually … Read more