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July 2010 |
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Can You Learn 'Executive Presence?' Absolutely. |
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Joey Asher
President's
Perspective |
Sometimes my clients teach me about
communication skills.
“I have
an associate that needs your help,” a law firm partner
told me over the telephone. “He is smart and a great
lawyer. But he lacks executive presence.”
“What
do you mean?”
“Speaking to clients, he never inspires confidence, ”
the partner said. “Every time he speaks, I cringe.”
What a
great definition of “executive presence”: the ability to
inspire confidence.
So can
we teach how to speak in a way that inspires
confidence?
Yes.
It takes four things.
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Can Video Games Cure Fears of Public Speaking? |
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If public speaking
is your biggest fear, California psychologists are testing a cure: a
public speaking video game.
The technical term
for the cure is "virtual reality therapy" and it’s being tested in
San Diego at the Virtual Reality Medical Center. The
VRMC
uses virtual reality to cure many types of phobias, including fear
of driving, flying, and yes, public speaking, according Psychiatric
News.
Virtual reality
therapy simulates the public speaking experience with computer and
video technology. Patients stand at a lectern and wear a
head-mounted display that uses small video monitors and stereo
headphones to simulate the public speaking experience. The
patient then gives a presentation while doctors monitor heart rate,
respiration, and skin temperature.
Why does this work?
The best way to deal with any phobia, including a fear of public
speaking, is to face the fear head on, Brenda Wiederhold, executive
director of the VRMC, told Psychiatric News.
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Try 'Show and Tell' to Make Your Audience
Really Understand. |
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If you want to really get your audience to remember a
point, try “show and tell”. If done right,
demonstrations can make an unforgettable impression on
an audience.
No one in the Washington D.C. hearing room will ever
forget Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Richard Feynman
immersing some rubber O-Ring material in a cup of ice
water to demonstrate the cause of the explosion of the
Space Shuttle Challenger.
It turned out that the insulation around the infamous
shuttle O-Rings, which had properties similar to
styrofoam, became dangerously inelastic at 32 degrees,
the temperature on the day of the Challenger launch.
Feynman demonstrated the problem by immersing the
material in a glass of ice-water and showing how
inelastic the material became at freezing point.
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New Book From Speechworks
President
15 Minutes Including Q&A. |
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Corporate America is
being overrun by a scourge of lousy presentations. Every day,
business people bore listeners with presentations that ramble on,
make no clear points, and fail to address the audiences’ key
concerns.
Speechworks
President Joey Asher proposes a simple cure for this corporate
scourge in his fourth book:
15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World from Lousy
Presentations.
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Learn to Speak Like Winston
Churchill! |
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“If
Churchill had a speechwriter in 1940, Britain would be speaking
German today.”
When
Churchill scholar James C. Humes, wrote those words, he meant that
by writing his own speeches, Churchill became more emotionally
invested than if the words were written for him.
At
Speechworks, we couldn’t agree more. The key to giving a great
speech is delivering it with passion. It’s hard to do that when
you’re just mouthing someone else’s words. That’s why our workshops
don’t just focus on how to deliver a presentation. We also teach how
to create great messages.
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