What King had done with Sinatra, as he has done with thousands of guests from the high and mighty to the people next door, is to shift focus from himself to the guest. This creates a sense of rapport that stimulates further conversation. Or years later as Sinatra once told King (then doing Larry King Live on CNN), “you make the camera disappear.” Bingo! A television conversation becomes just two people talking.

John Baldoni shares some powerful thoughts on how to build rapport with the people you're talking to. Click through for the whole post.

I was slightly startled when I discovered yesterday that I was sharing a double bill at Monterrey Tech yesterday with Malcolm Gladwell. I have never read Gladwell’s famous books, “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”. And - up until yesterday, I had never seen him speak. But I know he has sold zillions of copies and is a famously good speaker - good enough to fill theatres with paying customers in London.

Usually posts like this promise to reveal the speaking secrets of Steve Jobs, so it's refreshing to see a perspective from the UK and a different speaker.

But, now that I've mentioned Jobs, how about this reference to an analysis of a speech by archrival Steve Ballmer and a useful technique for analyzing your own speeches.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Albert Einstein