Mailbag! How much does grammar matter? Part 2

Now for the second part of Rachel’s question, which gets down to the day to day use of language. She’s asking how our attention to grammar and word choice might change, depending on where we are and who we’re with. In general, you want to match your style and tone with that of your context. I think of ... Continue Reading

Back to the Mailbag! How much does grammar matter? Part 1

A longtime reader, Rachel, asked this question: How closely do speakers need to pay attention to grammar, word choice? I think this question is often related to another one Rachel posed about how we may shift our communication (tone, word choice, subject matter), when we are in different audiences.  Here’s my rule of thumb. When you’re speaking, you ... Continue Reading

Don’t trust the numbers

I thought I was done writing about this but apparently I’m not. You can count the number of times you say “um” in your talk. You can time your speech to fit into a specific limit. You can even measure the number of hours you spend rehearsing your presentation. These numbers will tell you 1) ... Continue Reading

When feedback does more harm than good

I was talking to a colleague yesterday about the public speaking courses he went through while he was employed at a big multinational corporation. He said that everyone at the manager level and above attended a course I would describe as prescriptive: Do this and don’t do that, and you’ll be a “good public speaker.” ... Continue Reading

What do you want to know?

As I sit down to write these posts, sometimes I have a whole list of topics I’ve collected that I want to address. Other times I wait for an idea to emerge. Today, here is what occurred to me: What do you want to know?  What thoughts do you have about communication and connection that you’d ... Continue Reading

The medium matters.

When you think back in your life to the most important conversations you’ve ever had, where were you?  When you needed to express deep feelings to someone else, or give bad news, or when you debated the deepest questions of life with your friends, what was the setting? I am guessing most of these interactions ... Continue Reading

Pick it up.

There’s an important tenet in theatre that I want to share with you.  It’s this: if a prop gets dropped, or if something falls off someone’s costume, pick it up. Young actors often miss this. They’re thinking, “That wasn’t supposed to happen, so I should ignore it.”  But the audience can’t ignore it. They will ... Continue Reading

The importance of beginnings.

When I am directing a play, it takes forever to get the first two pages of the script right. Despite the fact that I’ve spent months with the play, and the actors and I have taken several days to read and discuss it, getting the opening minutes just the way I want them requires a ... Continue Reading

“Until Covid, I took breathing for granted.”

Coaching clients to be aware of their breathing is all in a day’s work for us. Whether we are helping public speakers project their voices or calm their nerves, we rely on the power of the breath to provide the foundation. The English National Opera has taken this focus to a wonderful new level with ... Continue Reading

Being alone together

Recently I found myself in a conversation with both my kids and my mother about what it’s like to participate in a class or meeting virtually. We’ve all had lots of experience with this over the past year, on Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, and just about any other platform you can think of.  Each of ... Continue Reading