Fellow speakers, To make sure you end strongly and don't lose your audience at the end of your speech, memorize your closing lines for your speech. Then, when the end of the speech comes, give those closing lines powerfully and excitingly to your audience. At the end, Tim
A valuable resource: a blog made up of short speaking tips. Seems like a good way to focus on speaking skills between engagements. Discovered via the list of public speaking blogs at Six Minutes.
From William Burroughs, a Thanksgiving prayer from the other side. Puts me in mind of Mark Twain's War Prayer.
What exactly is consciousness? It exists when we live in attunement with what we at Quantum Leaders call the Context field of energy.This is the field of meaning and purpose, the underlying context for all that we do. For some, this field remains unconscious and therefore unavailable to them.Yet this field is rich in information that when accessed, can guide and direct any person and any organization to the most effective way to achieve their goals...
And what guides our service to others? It is the second pillar of conscious capitalism, meaning and purpose. At Quantum Leaders, we call this the Soulful Purpose of the organization; a purpose so core it touches the very soul of the organization and is in fact the very reason for its existence.Like the acorn that recognizes its purpose is to ultimately become an oak tree, each individual and each living organization has a soulful purpose that will guide and direct its success.
The third pillar of conscious capitalism is leadership. To the degree that the leadership for an organization has matured and developed along the three dimensions of functional skills, interpersonal skills and their own intrapersonal skills is the degree the leader will be able to create a consciously living organization.Each of these domains of skills translates to the ability of the leader to manage the organization, to create collaborative team environments and inspire and motivate the workforce to become fully committed and engaged to the fulfillment of the organizations’ Soulful Purpose.
At Fast Company, a thoughtful post on Consciousness in Leadership. Sounds like only 100 people attended. Still, I've got to wonder where these people were when I was working and how I can use these principles in non-business society.
Do you find yourself running into the same speaking problems again and again? Do you try quick fixes or on-the-fly solutions, without success? Then it's time to take the fix-3 approach to rehashing and improving your speaking.
In her valuable post Denise Graveline suggests that "most speakers don't take the time for this type of self-analysis," and from experience I can say a big amen to that. Here's a valuable way to add your own analysis to the advice you get from evaluators.
Thanksgiving 2009
In yesterday's post I offered up the epigraph from my forthcoming book, and my delight therewith. Namely:
"Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart."—Henry Clay
It strikes me that Mr. Clay's remark also works particularly well for a Thanksgiving post in the midst of, for many, a very tough year.
When I got back from my Angola-Saudi Arabia-Dubai-Ecuador-India-Etc. marathon, I tweeted about the fact that my greatest thrill (yes, thrill) was the Unmitigated Joy of the Ordinary: doing my laundry, chatting with neighbors at nearby Mach's Market, working through Susan's T'giving shopping list, and, yes, washing the dinner dishes (I don't use the dishwasher—I like the therapeutic part of hand washing).
I am not soft-peddling the loss of a job or a major reduction in hours or the like. Nonetheless, what we pretty much all do have is the opportunity to be thoughtful to others—to offer up "courtesies of a small and trivial character."
Add these kindred quotes to the "keeper" list:
"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble."—Helen Keller
"We do no great things, only small things with great love."—Mother Teresa
So how about dedicating Thanksgiving 2009 to purposefully Practicing Courtesies of a Small and Trivial Character?
(I started out this Wednesday by sending "Happy Thanksgiving" emails of no more than a few lines in length to about 80 or 90 people.) (As usual, the responses are pretty amazing—so much so that it almost makes the drill feel self-serving.) (Speaking of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I just read that the pilgrim fathers and mothers preceded Thanksgiving by a fast day. I think that is a marvelous idea. Alas, I read the article after breakfast on Wednesday. But next year ...)
At any rate, Happy Thanksgiving. And, as always, my deepest gratitude to our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines away from home, and in many cases in harm's way, on this November 26th.