It may sound counter-intuitive, but as communicators, we must go slow to go fast. As a speed-speaker, I can attest that when I speak quickly, my audience is lost. When I breathe and scaffold my communication, the audience comes with me. Many things contribute to my hare-like tempo: anxiety, an internal sense that I should hurry up to make space for others, and the disconnection from my audience that results. Admittedly Type A, I like to check things off of my list, get this conversation or talk over with. Talking without stopping is also correlated with domineering—not leaving space for others, controlling the interaction. But of course, if the purpose of communication is to have an impact, to create relationship, to share, then simply skipping through those precious moments without connection is a waste of everyone’s time. We leave our audience baffled and bored. So how do we slow down?…Read on.

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” — Gustave Flaubert. I love this quote from Flaubert. It makes me think of the small, repetitive movements of a farmer moving along a row of earth, planting seed after seed after seed, orderly and regular. The farmer knows that this calm and mundane routine will coax wild roots to descend and twisting tendrils to wind their way skyward.

All of the work we do together—in blog posts, trainings, coaching sessions, key notes—has the same message: prepare, become fluent, then play.

In the workplace, this means…Read on.

This is just ridiculous. Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin with this. Ludicrous. Is the point to dehumanize our audience so we feel superior? To humiliate them? To infantilize them? Make them less threatening? Why do we think of the audience as an adversary to begin with? And how indeed do we hope to force ourselves to see something that isn’t even there? Should we ignore the dressed audience? Look away or over their heads? Squint? Sheesh. What a waste of everyone’s time to focus energy on what isn’t there when we could be falling in love with our audience, including our audience, giving a gift to our audience, engaging, embracing, dancing, playing with our audience. If we are scared, as most of us are, of speaking in public, there are many, many wonderful skills and techniques we can use to help us enjoy our time in the limelight. The basics are…Read on.

There is a myth out there that public speakers must be WILDLY ENERGETIC!!!! Like Tony Robbins. ALL THE TIME! Some people caffeinate, put on loud music, jump up and down, frantically pump themselves up for every talk. They will actually say, “I need to be anxious to have a good performance,” and worry if they are calm. I promise you, a caffeinated, anxious, intensely pumped up performance is not a great performance. What distinguishes a talk or performance is…Read on.

“Never work with animals or children.” —W.C. Fields. Last week we talked about focusing our attention on the speaker while sharing the stage. Wise performers have always known that they will easily be upstaged by both children and animals. Why? Because children and animals do not know that they are performing. They are simply being. And that simple state—guileless, egoless, effortless and unexpected—is riveting. How can we be the cat? How can we have that ease and presence? Read on…