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In many parts of our culture, it’s considered impolite to talk about yourself and your own accomplishments. In one workshop I lead, we talk about what messages we may have received that underscore this idea.   Leave your ego at the door It’s better to let other people talk about your accomplishments Just keep your … Read more

Over the past ten to fifteen years, there has been a quiet but pronounced change in what is expected from public speakers. Fueled partly by TED, partly by the rise of social media, and partly by a more relaxed office culture, we no longer expect speakers to be stuffy and long winded. We expect authenticity. … Read more

We have all had moments of not-listening. And we’ve all been on the receiving end of that feeling–someone isn’t listening to us. It happens a lot, for lots of reasons.   The question to ask is why. Am I not listening because I’m preoccupied and thinking of something else?   Or do I not want … Read more

In the learning of a new skill, there’s almost always a part in the middle that’s a tough slog. The newness and excitement has worn off, the quick improvement from “knowing nothing” to “knowing something” has slowed to a trickle, and proficiency seems  very far away. Some days it seems like you’re going backwards. This … Read more

If you’re on the phone with your best friend, she’ll be confused if you talk to her with long, formal sentences and deliberate enunciation.   On the other hand, if you’re giving a presentation and you use a lot of slang and never land a sentence, your audience may wonder if you (or they!) are … Read more

I was watching a college basketball game the other night, and the team I was rooting for played well for 38 out of 40 minutes. Then in the last 2 minutes, everything they had been doing right seemed to abandon them. They made wild passes, took bad shots, and generally fell apart. When it came … Read more

In a recent New Yorker article, the art critic Peter Schjeldahl shared his formula for grappling with a work of art that he found not to his taste. He asks, “What would I like about this, if I liked it?”   How refreshing! Sometimes it fees like the world is full of people walking around … Read more

When you read, you’re getting a lot of information from the way the words are arranged, how they’re punctuated…even   where   they   are   on   the page.   In a typical article, you’ve got a headline, which sums up what you can expect to read about. You have paragraph breaks and italics, … Read more

I’ve been listening to a fascinating podcast called “Cautionary Tales,” recorded by an economist by Tim Harford. In each episode, he recounts a real story about something that went famously wrong, and he illuminates a larger lesson.   In the first episode, he tells the story of the Torrey Canyon, a huge and beautiful ship … Read more

Every time we communicate, we’re guessing. What words will convey our meaning most closely? How can I say this so that she really gets it? What tone of voice will help my words hit their mark?   This gets harder when the message is more complicated—not necessarily technically complicated, but emotionally complicated. How can I … Read more