Everyone Communicates, Few Connect
John Maxwell is an internationally respected leadership expert, speaker and author. A New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Business Week best-selling author, Maxwell has sold over 18 million books. His most recent work is entitled Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. The premise of the book is simple: Talk is cheap. What matters is making your […]
Desperately Seeking Inspiration
It’s a shame that so many presentations fall short of the mark because they are so uninspiring. We all know the feeling: The speaker ascends the podium; there is a moment of anticipation, of excitement; the first slide flashes on the screen — full of text; the speaker reads the slide; the next slide flashes […]
The Gettysburg Address: An Analysis
On 19 November, we commemorate the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in 1863. In one of the first posts on this blog, I compared Lincoln’s two-minute address with the two-hour oration by Edward Everett on the same occasion. Today, people regard the former as one of the most famous speeches in American history; the latter largely forgotten. Indeed, Everett himself […]
A Public Speaker's Checklist (Addendum)
The response to my recent post, A Public Speaker’s Checklist, has been great. Comments have been pouring in on Twitter, LinkedIn, email and this blog. People have been offering some great suggestions for additional things that public speakers need to remember. So that as many people as possible can benefit from our collective knowledge and […]
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 61) – Edwin Friedman
Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard.
The First Seven Seconds
For a public speaker, first impressions count. Here are some tips to help make your first impression the right one.
A Public Speaking Alphabet
Audience alphabet Fitting that it comes first. The most important part of any speech. A speech is for the audience and about the audience. Always. alphabet Books alphabet There are so many resources available these days for public speakers. Invest a small amount of money in yourself and pick some up. Here are three of […]
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 50) – John Zimmer
Are we up to 50 quotes already? Time flies. When I began this series, I decided to limit the quotes to those that were directly related to public speaking (as opposed to quotes on general topics that are often used in a speech). Soon afterwards, I began to wonder whether I would run out of […]
The Number One Rule for Speech Contests
In less than two weeks, the 2010 Toastmasters International Convention will begin in Palm Desert, California. As always, the highlight will be the International Speech Contest. There will be nine Semi-finals, each featuring nine contestants. The nine winners will square off against each other in the Final. Of the 81 contestants who have survived the […]
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