I have just returned to Geneva from a speaking engagement at the Toastmasters International Convention in Washington, D.C. (More about that in a future post.)
At some point during the eight-hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean, this blog hit another milestone: 2,000,000 visits.
I am in awe of this number and so grateful for all of the support. The Manner of Speaking community has grown by leaps and bounds since I wrote the first post in May 2009. Thank you for being a part of it!
John delivered a keynote address about the importance of public speaking to 80 senior members of Gore’s Medical Device Europe team at an important sales event. He was informative, engaging and inspirational. Everyone was motivated to improve their public speaking skills. Following his keynote, John has led public speaking workshops for Gore in Barcelona and Munich. He is an outstanding speaker who thinks carefully about the needs of his audience well before he steps on stage.
Karsta Goetze
TA Leader, Gore and Associates
I first got in touch with John while preparing to speak at TED Global about my work on ProtonMail. John helped me to sharpen the presentation and get on point faster, making the talk more focused and impactful. My speech was very well received, has since reached almost 1.8 million people and was successful in explaining a complex subject (email encryption) to a general audience.
Andy Yen
CEO, Proton Technologies
John gave the opening keynote on the second day of our unit’s recent offsite in Geneva, addressing an audience of 100+ attendees with a wealth of tips and techniques to deliver powerful, memorable presentations. I applied some of these techniques the very next week in an internal presentation, and I’ve been asked to give that presentation again to senior management, which has NEVER happened before. John is one of the greatest speakers I know and I can recommend his services without reservation.
David Lindelöf
Senior Data Scientist, Expedia Group
After a morning of team building activities using improvisation as the conduit, John came on stage to close the staff event which was organised in Chamonix, France. His energy and presence were immediately felt by all the members of staff. The work put into the preparation of his speech was evident and by sharing some his own stories, he was able to conduct a closing inspirational speech which was relevant, powerful and impactful for all at IRU. The whole team left feeling engaged and motivated to tackle the 2019 objectives ahead. Thank you, John.
Umberto de Pretto
Secretary General, World Road Transport Organization
I was expecting a few speaking tips and tricks and a few fun exercises, but you went above and beyond – and sideways. You taught me to stand tall. You taught me to anchor myself. You taught me to breathe. You taught me to open up. You taught me to look people in the eye. You taught me to tell the truth. You taught me to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. I got more than I bargained for in the best possible way.
Thuy Khoc-Bilon
World Cancer Day Campaign Manager, Union for International Cancer Control
John gave a brilliant presentation on public speaking during the UN EMERGE programme in Geneva (a two days workshop on leadership development for a group of female staff members working in the UN organizations in Geneva). His talk was inspirational and practical, thanks to the many techniques and tips he shared with the audience. His teaching can dramatically change our public speaking performance and enable us as presenters to have a real and powerful impact. Thank you, John, for your great contribution!
Sara Canna
HR Specialist, World Health Organization
John is a genuine communication innovator. His seminars on gamification of public speaking learning and his interactive Rhetoric game at our conference set the tone for change and improvement in our organisation. The quality of his input, the impact he made with his audience and his effortlessly engaging style made it easy to get on board with his core messages and won over some delegates who were extremely skeptical as to the efficacy of games for learning. I simply cannot recommend him highly enough.
Thomas Scott
National Education Director, Association of Speakers Clubs UK
John joined our Global Sales Meeting in Segovia, Spain and we all participated in his "Improv(e) your Work!" session. I say “all” because it really was all interactive, participatory, learning and enjoyable. The session surprised everybody and was a fresh-air activity that brought a lot of self-reflection and insights to improve trust and confidence in each other inside our team. It´s all about communication and a good manner of speaking!"
Jon Lopez
General Manager Europe, Hayward Industries
Thank you very much for the excellent presentation skills session. The feedback I received was very positive. Everyone enjoyed the good mix of listening to your speech, co-developing a concrete take-away and the personal learning experience. We all feel more devoted to the task ahead, more able to succeed and an elevated team spirit. Delivering this in a short time, both in session and in preparation, is outstanding!
Henning Dehler
CFO European Dairy Supply Chain & Operations, Danone
Thanks to John’s excellent workshop, I have learned many important tips and techniques to become an effective public speaker. John is a fantastic speaker and teacher, with extensive knowledge of the field. His workshop was a great experience and has proven extremely useful for me in my professional and personal life.
Eric Thuillard
Senior Sales Manager, Sunrise Communications
John’s presentation skills training was a terrific investment of my time. I increased my skills in this important area and feel more comfortable when speaking to an audience. John provided the right mix between theory and practice.
Diego Brait
Director of the Jura Region, BKW Energie AG
Be BOLD. Those two words got stuck in my head and in the heads of all those ADP leaders and associates that had the privilege to see John on stage. He was our keynote speaker at our annual convention in Barcelona, and his message still remains! John puts his heart in every word. Few speakers are so credible, humble and yet super strong with large audiences!
Guadalupe Garcia
Senior Director and Talent Partner, ADP International
Congratulations John. You consistently have outstanding content on your blog that has me coming back. Here’s to 2,000,000 more. Dave
Thanks, Dave. I appreciate the comment and the support. Kudos to you too for your great blog.
John,
I’ve been lurking here for a while, but it’s time I spoke up.
WOW! That must make you genuinely proud. Think about it: One visitor at a time, you managed to repeat that mantra, not once, but *two* million times. Dude, that’s downright admirable by any measure.
I’m impressed all the more, as I’m aware of the persistent behind-the-scenes attention even to get to 1,000, never mind 10K or even 100K, so all the more unimaginable is the elevation you reached.
Coincidentally, 1K is what I just broke in membership to a meetup I hold in Silicon Valley – Influence Others (http://www.meetup.com/InfluenceOthers) – which focuses on topics aligned with your interests:
Applying recent findings in neural science to address sales and marketing challenges startups typically face.
Let me know if you’re planning to be in area and we’ll have you as a guest speaker. I’m confident of attracting 100 attendees at a professional venue.
Nathan Schor | Resource Center for Scientific Marketing | 305.632.1368 | nathan@rcsm.io
Nathan,
Thank you for the detailed comment. I very much appreciate it. Well done to you for your Meetup membership. Getting 1,000 people on board is impressive. I read through the information on your site. It is very exciting and I have joined the group (so you now have one more member). It would be terrific to speak at one of your events one day. I will keep you posted if I am ever in the San Francisco area.
Congrats John!
Thanks, Mel!
Congratulations !!
That is amazing.
Thanks, Emma. Much appreciated.
Well done John. 🙂
Thanks, Ben. Much appreciated.
Congratulations! Awesome!
In my recent weekly send out to my Toastmaster Club, Joie de Vivre Toastmaster Club, Toronto, I highlighted your blog as a “must subscribe to” for your intelligent public speaking and presentation posts and speech analysis. Looking forward to your Toastmaster International Convention and speech post!
Dear Katie,
Many thanks for the kinds words and for sharing the blog. I very much appreciate it. I just check the location of your TM club and see that you are just north of Yonge and Bloor in Toronto. I used to live very near there many years ago. My two daughters and other family members are in Toronto and I usually get there at least once a year. Perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to visit your club one day.
Congratulations. You words and wisdom deserve more than that.
Keep going!
Shokran, ya Marawan! Much appreciated.
Nice read. I’m not in the same situation or anything but this was a really good read, an eye opener of sorts. Thanks for sharing this story!
Thank you.