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November 2003 |
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A Heightened Look At
Leadership Presence. Can Short Candidates Become
President? |
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Judging by
the Presidential Height Index, Candidate Joe Lieberman
probably shouldn’t start picking out his White House furniture
just yet. At 5-feet 8-inches tall, Lieberman is fully four
inches shorter than the average Commander-in-Chief over the
last 40 years.
Indeed,
height often translates into that intangible quality we call
“Leadership Presence.” How else do you explain our last 10
presidents (6’0” on average) being two inches taller than the
average American male (5’10")?
But Joe and
the rest of us should not give up on commanding the attention
of listeners. Here are some tips for commanding listeners’
attention during a presentation, even if you’re not as tall as
Honest Abe (6’4”).
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Change Habits Like Ben Franklin.
Rely On Reticular Activation . . . Huh! |
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Do you speak with all the energy of a house
plant? Do you pepper your conversation
with too many “Uhs” and “Ums.” Do you keep
your face in a permanent state of “boredom”?
More importantly, do you want to change some of
these habits?
If so, then do what Benjamin Franklin used to
do. Pick
one point of improvement and work on it
continuously for a single month. Ben didn’t
know it at the time, but he was changing habits
using a technique that psychologists call
“reticular activation.”
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Learn To Keep Messages Tight. Attend The Persuasive Speaker
Workshop. |
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Voltaire
said, “The secret to being a bore is to tell everything.”
Indeed, we
find that many presenters try to tell audiences too much. That’s why
we tell our clients to limit their presentations to no more
than one big idea and three main points. |
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What To Do
When Stumped By A Question; How To Coolly Say "I Don't Know". |
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If you
give enough presentations, it’s going to happen. Someone’s
going to ask a question during a presentation and you’re not
going to know the answer.
Maybe you just need a moment to
think about it. Or maybe you just have no clue what to
say.
So what
do you?
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Communication Situation Coaching: A New Approach To Public
Speaking Training. |
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When Henry
Ford introduced the Model T, the joke was that you could have
your car any color you wanted “Just so long as you want
black.” Unfortunately, most public speaking training is the
same way.
The
overwhelming majority of people that attend public speaking
workshops experience the same thing: A chance to present on
videotape and get some feedback from a coach. |
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