In my recent travels, I’ve discovered Presidential Libraries.  When I’m in a city with one, I chisel out half a day to visit.  There are officially 15 libraries. I’ve been to three so far, but would like to make the rounds to many more.  They are a fascinating look at...

My son’s first word was… “bye-bye”.  Maybe that’s two words.  Regardless, it seems like he was ready to leave even as he entered.  And he’s out on his own now.  Gone, but not forgotten.  My daughter’s first word was… “Daddy!”  There aren’t many moments that give...

You know, they say…  But who, exactly, are they? This has come up a bunch recently in prepping clients for big presentations.  It’s a huge problem in writing, and perhaps even more important in speaking.  But what is this?  And it? The indefinite pronoun. One of my...

There is an important change afoot in our world.  It affects you.  And I realized that the principles involved were worth sharing. First, the situation.  We are moving all of our backend systems and processes to a new server and method to support our new online...

It’s no secret that I love the New Years.  It’s a new opportunity.  A fresh start.  A reminder to leave behind the mistakes and problems of the past year.  It’s a chance to change.     This year I did something new, thanks to a friend/coach/mentor.  It’s a simple...

The last few weeks have felt like I was playing Whac-a-Mole.  Travel.  Back-to-back-to-back training programs.  Coaching sessions.  The holidays.  Visiting family.  Sickness.  It’s all been there.  But I also had several new or altered programs to develop.  This has...

I’ve just finished coaching a group making a pitch for a very large grant.  The pitches were virtual – the entire team was spread out over multiple locations and continents.  While everyone agreed that an in-person presentation would be preferred, that opportunity was...

I’ve been quoted by students and clients as saying I hate PowerPoint.  That’s not true.  I hate BAD PowerPoint.  Which is, sadly, almost the same thing since it’s rare that I see slides and visuals that are effective, or even necessary.   In the last month I’ve...

After years of procrastination and adaptation, I recently had my second total hip replacement this year.  THR is a radical one-way street—there’s no going back.  The surgeon sawed off my femoral head, cleaned out the hip socket (with a chisel and drill), and replaced...

The central model of our training methodology (adapted from Aristotle’s work a few millennia ago), says that great communication lives at the intersection of what you say, how you say it, and the relationship that exists between the speaker and the listener.  On an...

An oft-quoted statistic estimates about 65% of an audience are visual learners (I tend to side more with this being fiction, but the actual number is irrelevant to our discussion today).  Visual learners prefer to take in information through sight over any other input...

The first Christmas break of my college career, my high school friends and I decided to go snow skiing.  Our excited troupe from Florida loaded up in four cars and headed north towards the North Carolina mountains.  After stopping for gas at an exit in Georgia, one of...