Maya Angelou

UNFORGETTABLE YOU

Poet Maya Angelou was quoted as saying, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

How DO you make your audiences feel?  They came to be transformed.  They want to leave different and better than when they arrived.  How do you make that emotional connection for them?

What anger, despair, joy, enthusiasm, pleasure, sadness are an integral part of your stories?  When you are preparing your presentation, identify the feelings inherent in your material.  Once you know where these are be sure to give them plenty of space. 

Rather than bulldozing through those moments, STOP when you come to the point of emotion.  Take a deep breath from low in your belly and FEEL the emotion. Pause. Then take another breath and with this new energy go on.  By taking your time through the emotional moments, your audience will be able to experience their own feelings in response, and this will give them that precious sense of something really important happening. 

They will not forget how you made them feel and these feelings are the vehicle for your message, affecting them deeply and making it stick.

If you would like to practice these moves, developing comfort, confidence and proficiency as a presenter, check out the workshop schedule for August 27th and 28th  HERE

GET YOUR MOJO WORKING!

Isn't MOJO is a great word!  Energy, dynamism, magic, power, finesse, excitement, charisma - all of these are part of the meaning of that word. Originally related to a Voodo or Hoodo spiritual practice, it has come to mean a kind of personal charm that is mesmerizing. Muddy Watters, the great blues man made a song about MOJO famous.

Look at the guy in this picture.  See how much energy is in his gaze?  See how expectant he is to get a response from you?  See how engaging he is?  He's got his MOJO working.

You, too, can discover your own brand of MOJO.  I say discover because we all have a seed of it and it is up to us to find it, to nurture it, to exercise it, develop it so that we can use it to help us communicate our messages to our audiences.  Each of us is unique and so is our potential MOJO  It is related to pleasure and the joys of sharing it with others.  It is the fire in our belly. It is part of our branding.  It might be a particular way we like to begin and/or end our presentations.  It might be the level and style of interaction that you plan into each presentation.  It might be the kind of humor you use or the stories you tell. 

The very next time you make a presentation, see where you can express your MOJO.  GET IT WORKING FOR YOU!

This coming weekend we will be doing a workshop that will teach you how to identify you MOJO - check it out here.

What's in your Treasure Chest?

The words "treasure chest" conjure up all kinds of exciting and valuable images: pieces of gold, gold coins, precious jewels, chalices, notes, fabulous jewelry, silver and gold ware, maps of hidden treasure and so on.  When we think of having a treasure chest of our own - it's likely a place we store jewelry, family photos, coin or stamp collections and mementos that mean a lot to us.

When I begin to work on a presentation, I create a special presentation treasure chest, to fill with all of the sensory and action-filled elements that I might like to use.  My intention is to make my presentation so enjoyable, so compelling, so sticky that they will remember my core message and take it back to their office or home and communicate accurately to others. 

First I analyze my audience and get very clear about what my core message is - the exact words I'd like my audience to remember after the presentation is over.  I put these in my treasure chest first.  Next I add the 2-3 main points that will support the core message.

And then the real fun begins.  I look at all of my points and sub-points and think of visual images that each of these stimulates in my imagination.  I do not edit them at all.  I do not question whether I have the means, the exact technology to manifest them - rather I just write them down or sketch them.  I add as many as I can think of - no editing allowed.

Next I add to my treasure chest kinesthetic elements for each point and sub-point.: words of action, scenes of action, active verbs, gestures, spacial relationships and feelings.

Now I put as many stories as I can think of for each of the main points and sub-points.  Stories illuminate and connect us with the content and affect us on many levels.  Personal stories, case stories, media stories, statistical stories, and future "what if" stories.

And last and most important, I add interactive elements for each main and sub-point: questions, rhetorical questions, activities, brainstorming, list-making, discussion groups - whatever is appropriate for the audience, core message, and time available. These invite participation and stimulate interaction between the audience members.

Now my treasure chest is full and I can begin the process of choosing which of all of these I finally want to use in this particular presentation.  The process has stimulated my imagination, and helped me to create a colorful, lively, and engaging experience for my audience - and for me as the presenter.  I feel bountiful and look forward to sharing my treasures with my audience.

If you want to create richer and more exciting presentations using the Treasure Chest approach, register for the Saturday workshop on July 17th: Speaking with Clarity.  Or register for the full weekend series and really increase your professional value!  More info or registration, check here.

STEP INTO IT!

What makes us avoid speaking opportunities?  

Why do we delegate presentations to others on our teams?  Dread?  High anxiety?

Professionals who embrace the opportunity to speak are quickly promoted and given many more opportunities than those who try to delegate others to do the speaking for them.

But if you regularly feel anxiety in the pit of your stomach, lose your place in the middle of a speech because you suddenly cannot remember that great phrase you were going to use - if you get that feeling when you are on your way to a presentation that you are a lamb going to slaughter - how about making the decision to STEP INTO IT, instead of shying away?

Instead of mistakenly thinking that you are the only one who tends to suffer from stage fright, realize that as herding animals our brains change function when separated from the group.  We lose full use of our neo-cortex and are left with our survival brain that sees the audience as predators.  Sound familiar?

However you need not shy away from speaking because there are techniques that will give you your wits back.  These will help you regain your balance and allow you to focus on your audience members and sharing your message with them.

Speaking well to groups is a practice and practice makes perfect.

If you change your habit and speak whenever the opportunity arises, if you look for speaking opportunities rather than practicing avoidance, your skill will increase and soon you will find yourself looking forward to the chance to engage your audiences, trying new speaking techniques, and much more at ease at the podium.

There are many opportunities to learn speaking skills: Toastmasters, in-house training programs, and through our Pivotal Presentations workshops, 1-1 coaching and our on-going program: Great Women Speakers.  

So, stop avoiding and STEP INTO IT!

New Summer Great Women Speakers program beginning on June 25th and Summer Workshop Series from July 16-18 !  check these out HERE

TRUST!

My sister met a woman at a business function who was very appealing - successful, smart and generous.  She told my sister that God wants us to be happy.  She said the universe is so perfectly designed that the instant we ask for something God gives it to us. 
 
But the problem is we don't believe that we are worthy enough to receive, or it doesn't look like we imagined it, or we think it must be for someone else.  We don't trust ourselves - and so we don't realize that we have received just what we were looking for or something even better.
 
Sometimes when we are making a presentation we feel stuck.  Though many thoughts of what to say in that moment to that audience come to us, we waste time trying to decide whether these words will be good enough.  We panic instead of trusting that the right words are the words we have been given in that moment.
 
We stop and stumble, searching for other words, ruminating - looking for the words we planned to say or "better" words.  This habit of distrusting ourselves breaks the flow of our communication and the relationship we have with our audience.  We become self-conscious and self-critical rather than open and sharing.
 
We must learn to trust that the perfect words will come to us when we need them, perfect for this moment with this audience, accepting the gift of these words as a blessing. Only then can we be free to be fully present with our audiences.
 
And then we will flow, we will shine, and our audiences will experience that truly divine feeling of presence. 

TRUST!

A new series of workshops designed to give you lots of practice with TRUST: Speaking with Ease, Speaking with Clarity & Speaking with Power will be held on April 2nd, 3rd & 4th in Seattle. JOIN US!  For more information

SMILE

Whether it is a full out enthusiastic smile or a subtler "Buddha smile," or even a Mona Lisa smile, your smile radiates pleasure, joy, enthusiasm, contentment, engagement, excitement, energy, delight, connectedness, passion or desire.

Just for a moment, think of one of your presentation topics, and then notice whether your own face moves into a smile in the process.

No?  Then think through the 2-3 main points you use to support your core message.  Any smiles there?

No?  Is your subject too dry, too data driven, too much someone else's idea, too serious a subject to warrant a smile?

But what is your purpose in making the presentation?  To create a relationship with your audience?  Or to inform them?  Or to teach them a skill?  Or to change their attitude?  Or some or all of these?  Certainly.

Yet if you are not demonstrating your own pleasure, joy, enthusiasm, contentment, engagement, excitement, energy, delight, connectedness, passion, and/or desire related to the subject, why should they pay attention?

Smiles are infectious and provide on an emotional level, a reason to pay attention.  Several years ago I was making a radio commercial.  The director prompted me to smile as I was talking about the product - even though my audience could not see me.  He said the audience could hear a smile and it added energy to the sell.  And it did!

Now, look at a presentation that you did recently or one you are preparing and see where you feel passion, enthusiasm or pleasure.  Use that feeling as an emotional vehicle for the whole presentation.  It will carry you far and help your presentation to be more persuasive and more memorable.

Go ahead!  Seduce and delight your audience with your passion for sharing your topic with them.

Smile! 

If you are a woman and you want to be taken seriously, want to be promoted, want to dazzle an audience - find out about the Great Women Speakers program that begins on February 26th.  For information and to see if this is a good fit for you, contact Connie here 

Grace


At this time of year we can get so wrapped up in our doings and goings that we lose sight of the essential.  We rush from one appointment to another, one email to another, one call to another, one gift to another, trying to fit it all in, get it all done, satisfy all of the demands.

The same thing happens when we are making presentations.  Wanting to get it right, get all of the info into it, we rush from one idea to another, making so many points, providing so much data, we drown our audiences in content, knock them over with our bulldozing energy, and then suddenly end before they know what happened to them.

Grace is a quality that is worth cultivating in both situations:
 

Grace means having a close relationship with your breath, breathing from your diaphragm rather than from your collarbone. 


Grace means crisp beginnings and endings.
 

Grace means coming from stillness, starting from silence and calmness.  


Grace means not rushing through emotional changes, rather taking the time to feel the feeling in your body and thereby allowing the audience to feel it as well.
 

Grace means listening deeply.  


Grace means noticing when you sigh, that it is the deepest part of you that sighs, a true song of the soul.
 

Grace means knowing that presenting gives you the opportunity to connect with people on a very deep level.  


Grace means the courage to step into it, rather than avoiding it by rushing.
 

Grace means feeling gratitude for the special opportunity to connect with others in this way.




I am so very grateful for your attention, your connection with me and all you have shared with me during the last year.  I am truly looking forward to our New Year together. 


New Speaking with Ease workshop on January 29th (1-6) Seattle.  For more info or to register