Every interpersonal interaction is potentially important. But you won’t recognize which ones are and which ones aren’t until you learn to treat your private interactions with the same degree of care that you treat your public interactions.
Interacting on purpose
Spend a little time before each interaction to be sure you know what you want to accomplish—what […]

Before we get started talking about private conversations, though, I wanted to interject something. Think about this as the sorbet course.
I’ve always heard you’ve got to blow your own horn, because no on else is going to blow it for you.
For most of us, though, blowing our own horn is pretty hard to do. I’m […]

First off, happy new year everybody! This is the first post of the new year, and we’re moving on to the last new topic before we finish the whole book.
After this topic is done (in a couple weeks, probably) most of the core of the book will be online. The book has more information, […]

“Theory and big ideas. Don’t you have any tips I can start using right now?” Why yes, I do. Thanks for asking.
Hyperventilate your way to a successful talk
Everyone is nervous before a performance (see the next tip). But if you find your nervousness might distract you from being effective, do what I do: hyperventilate.
A series […]

I love speaking to a crowd. It often gives me my only chance to teach as part of my job, and I get to pretend I’m an graphic designer for a while. But a majority of Westerners list public speaking as their worst fear, beating out death, the dark, financial ruin, and spiders and […]

[The last tip was about getting enough practice.]
At least once, and preferably several times, set up a video camera or recruit a friend and tape yourself giving a tour or talk.
Without realizing it, people stick their tongues out between sentences, juggle change noisily in their pockets, grin at inappropriate moments, say “You know?” at every […]

Let’s spend a few posts talking specifically about how you can tune up your public-speaking performances.
You won’t get better if you don’t practice
As you’ve probably gathered by now, I believe that the biggest single key to success in just about everything is practice. And practice. And did I mention that you should practice?
Getting practice time
There […]

A lot of what I focus on when talking about ways to be successful speaking in public really boils down to finding a way to connect with the audience so that your message makes its way into their heads.
When you connect to the audience in a strong way, you can feel it. It is really […]

Public speaking combines two things that I truly enjoy: the opportunity to teach, and a chance to connect with a lot of people at one time. And I love giving talks. But it wasn’t always this way. I used to hate talking to a group.
The beginning of my training
I was required to take speech as […]

If what you are going to talk about is important, prepare ahead of time.
This suggestion is one you’ve heard and most likely take seriously for formal presentations given with slides. For most of us, the prospect of speaking to a larger audience in a formal setting is disturbing enough that we don’t need too much […]