My webmaster Kenan Branam happens to be a thought leader about the internet and the future of humanity.  He is always trying to make sense of the world and how we humans live in it.  This cold drizzly Houston morning in December we chatted about a new program I am creating called Your Life Stars [...]

 
When I see a brilliant article, I have to shine some light on it.  Jessica Swanson of Shoestring Marketing has written a brilliant article called “Creating A Brilliant Marketing Message.” 
 
Her three step method for designing a marketing message that sizzles is excellent.  Check it out at http://www.jessicaswanson.com/creating-a-brilliant-marketing-message

 
 Have you noticed how there will be some people in your audience who shine like headlights at you?  For some reason they are already with you and are beaming attention at you!  Learn to look for the lights in your audience members to absorb love and support for your talk. Link up with their energy before [...]

 
The trick to awesome speaking is not looking good on the outside, but feeling good on the inside.  You must build an inner foundation of comfort in your skin, presence, internal fullness and receptivity to the flow of other’s attention.
 
What trips people up about speaking is often the internal tension that distracts them from what [...]

 I teach people to think on their feet and speak from their hearts.  My greatest challenge as a presentation teacher is to persuade people to accept their natural ability to speak and to let it flow without expecting themselves to be perfect in their speech. Verbal communication does not require the same sentence structure that [...]

 
I would love to have been a fly on the wall to have heard what President Clinton said to the North Korean officials that persuaded them to release the two women reporters.  My guess is that he used his ability to connect genuinely and speak from his heart.  I am sure he had a well [...]

 
 
Recently, I was fascinated by an NBC Dateline documentary spotlighting the singing star, Taylor Swift.  What compelled me to pay attention and watch the whole hour twice was the authenticity from which this dynamo of a performer and businesswoman lives her life and runs her productions.
 
At 19 years of age, she runs the whole show; [...]

 
I heard this on the radio today, “Great Leadership begins with the ability to level with people.” That’s another way of saying we must be transparent to be effective as leaders.
I just heard Obama criticized for going to Cairo to “apologize” for American behavior. It might just be that he was being transparent – leveling [...]

 
Most people are used to hearing others say what is bad and wrong about them.  That is one of the causes of fear of public speaking. It shocks people to hear all the good that you sense and see in them.  We use “mirroring the good” as a part of  our speaking training to help [...]

Public speaking clients ask me how they can “read” their audience. I tell them they must open to receive their audience members.
Receiving is an experience of 1) seeing individuals in the audience, 2) making authentic connection one-to-one with them and 3) taking them in through soft-focus eye connection.
Receiving is my way of expressing an experience [...]