By: Julie Lindsay, Speechworks Category: Practice It’s all about the shoes. That’s Charlie Lehman’s secret ingredient for stepping into success with his startup company Convex Minds. Lehman, a former U.S. Navy officer, is familiar with pulling himself up by the bootstraps. So, when the young entrepreneur had to pitch his startup idea in just [...]
By Joey Asher Category: Practice “You’re the one that wanted a big dog. So if you don’t get him under control, I’m sending him to the farm.” I didn’t’ ask what my wife meant by “the farm.” But she was mad. Balou, our six-year-old lab, had unleashed a shockingly large stream of urine on our [...]
Joey Asher President of Speechworks, a selling and communication skills coaching company in Atlanta. He has worked with hundreds of business people helping them learn how to communicate in a way that connects with clients. His new book 15 Minutes Including Q&A: a Plan to Save the World from Lousy Presentations” is available [...]
By Joey Asher Category: Practice Former UN Ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young once told me a story about how he learned the importance of speaking without notes. As a minister in his early 20s, he always preached from a prepared text. But as he was getting ready to preach to a church in Beachton [...]
By Joey Asher Category: Content, Practice I drove to the Great Smokey Mountains near Townsend, TN recently to fly fish for trout. And I caught more than my fair share – 14 gorgeous rainbows. But who’s counting? Spending time with my guide -- a terrific, pony-tailed fisherman and author named Ian Rutter, of R&R Fly [...]
By Joey Asher Category: Content, Practice In the late 1800s, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that 20 percent of the peapods in his garden yielded 80 percent of the peas. He also noted that 80 percent of the land in Italy was owned by 20 percent of the population. So was born the “Pareto Principle,” [...]
By Joey Asher Category: Content, Practice There’s an interesting book out called “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking.” In the book, author Susan Cain explains how today’s world overvalues extroverts and undervalues introverts. And certainly extroverts get lots of credit for being natural speakers. But in my experience, introverts [...]
By Joey Asher Category: Practice And you think you have a tough boss? Consider the poor Amazon engineer that gave a presentation to CEO Jeff Bezos only to have him say, “Why are you wasting my life?” Bezos is notoriously difficult in meetings, according to “The Everything Store, Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon,” [...]
By Joey Asher Category: Nerves There are many good tactics for beating the fear of public speaking. Extensive rehearsal helps the most. Physical exertion can reduce the adrenaline-driven jitters. Comedian Billy Crystal once said that he did push-ups to deal with stage-fright. Schmoozing with the audience before the presentation helps you relax. I’ve used all these tactics. [...]
By Joey Asher Category: Content Are you a lousy speaker? It might be because you believe one of the following lies. Lie # 1: My topic is dull. When I was a newspaper reporter, we had a saying: “There are no bad stories. Only bad reporters.” The same idea applies to public speaking topics. I worked [...]
