Our coaching approach boils down to these three steps: intention, alignment, and practice. The answer to almost any question you ask me or another Ignite coach about communicating is going to fall into one of these three buckets. Intention. Alignment. Practice. This week’s blog posts are a review of these fundamental building blocks. Today, the … Read more
Intention
When in doubt, remember: It’s not about you. That presentation, that difficult conversation, that speech—it’s not about you. Even when the topic is you, it’s not about you. It’s about the person or people you’re talking to. That’s what they’re thinking about, so that’s what you should be thinking about.
This morning, I woke up thinking about an old friend. In fact, I had dreamed that I ran into her and her wonderful family, and I was so happy to see her. “Right,” I thought, “this is a sign that you need to text her.” I had actually been meaning to text her for the … Read more
This one’s a re-post: enjoy! Even if you’re late to the meeting, don’t look rushed. Even if the speaker before you cut into your time by ten minutes, don’t look rushed. Even if you overcommitted and have two other places to be, don’t look rushed. Looking rushed is a default intention. It’s an effort we’re … Read more
This one’s a re-post: enjoy! I can’t help with fear of death, or apocalypse, or zombies. But the fear many of us experience when we have a high-stakes presentation or meeting coming up? I have a suggestion. Most of us can describe an interpersonal situation we don’t want to be in. The three situations we … Read more
This is one of the most important things to know when you are preparing a speech or a presentation. Audiences are selfish. Many people fear that the audience is judging them—that is usually misplaced. Most audiences are willing, and even excited, to see what you have to offer. But we’re not there for you. We … Read more
This week’s posts may seem familiar! I am working on some new ones, but a huge amount of travel has meant they’re not quite ready so I have pulled a few from the archives.Thanks for your patience! I was just part of a meeting when someone unloaded a short, angry-sounding rant that made the room … Read more
Imagine a giant convention center ballroom. This ballroom is ready for a conference keynote. At the front of the ballroom is a stage, with a huge screen. There are cameras, and teleprompters, and row after row after row of seats, just waiting for the audience to fill them. Backstage there are dozens of people running … Read more
On Monday, I wrote about Bill Hader’s insight about identifying what’s wrong versus knowing how to fix it. You can read part one here. This is part two. It’s important for me to say that as a coach, sometimes my suggestions on how to fix things are wrong. The point of coaching is that the … Read more
I’m rethinking what this blog might be. I love writing for you, and I’m curious about what you find interesting and useful. Today’s post is an old one, but I am venturing back into writing new posts (as Monday’s of this week was.) If you have ideas about what you’d like to see in this … Read more
