Next LIVE courses starting soon: Level 2 14 or 15 March. Level 1 2 or 3 May. 

Speaking Too Fast When Presenting

jet plane and trail across a dark blue sky

If you find that you’re regularly speaking too fast when presenting, there can be many reasons for this. Nerves, enthusiasm for your topic, or your natural speaking style are just a few. And when this happens and your mouth is moving faster than your brain, it’s easy to feel out of control and say something […]

For More Influence, Try Grounded Cognition

Black silhouette of a human face with brightly coloured beads inside the brain

What does your brain do when you hear the word ‘pepper’? What about ‘grasp’? Or ‘hat’? All these words fire up not just your language circuits, but different senses through other relevant brain circuitry. ‘Pepper’ activates your taste circuits. ‘Grasp’, your motor movement circuits. ‘Hat’ – visual circuits. Whatever you see as a hat from […]

A Key Audience Engagement Piece

A sticky note saying "Remember the audience takes their cue from you"

Want to engage your audiences more effectively? Remember this key point: the audience nearly always takes their cue from us. If we want them to be more than just informed by our presentation – and we usually do – we need to enable them to follow our lead easily. To motivate, lift, persuade or inspire…all […]

Exhaustive Detail = Exhausted Audience

Exhaustive detail = exhausted audience! If you’ve ever been in an audience and suffered through a stuffed – and possibly rushed – presentation, you’ll probably relate to today’s topic in exhaustive detail Cramming too much content into a talk or presentation is a bit like somebody feeding us, and continuing to put food into our mouth before […]

How Far Does your Energy Reach as a Speaker?

White cat hiding its eyes with a paw.

How Far Does your Energy Reach as a Speaker? Does your energy reach your audience? If you’re nervous, or a low-key or particularly introverted speaker, you’ll probably find that you’re not expanding your energy (or voice) towards your audience in a big enough way. Of course I’m talking about being live in a room with […]

4 Steps to Stay in Control when Challenged by an Audience Member

If you speak regularly in front of groups, at some point you’re probably going to have your ideas, opinion or control challenged. And it may not be a perspective you hold lightly. Sometimes audience members can touch a nerve or challenge a deeply held value…if this has ever happened to you, you’ll know that it […]

To Influence, Think White Space, Not White Noise

To influence, think white space, not white noise Just as visual white space designed into documents and slides is a very good thing, so is verbal white space in meetings, presentations and conversations. Visual white space allows the content to breathe and to be digested without cognitive strain. Verbal white space does exactly the same. […]

For Confident Public Speaking, Be On Your Own Side

For confident public speaking, be on your own side   Confident public speaking or presenting can be challenging, to state the obvious! And sometimes you might make it even harder for yourself by getting in a bad loop of negative self-talk. It’s harsh and critical, and easy to get fixated on bad past experiences. Which is […]

Powerful Internal Questions to Influence Up

Some powerful internal questions to influence up, if you’re nervous or threatened by hierarchy. Hierarchy challenges can rear up for a lot of people. Even when confident, that sense of “less than” can be a real issue. It can help a lot to reframe what you’re aiming to achieve. Asking yourself powerful questions such as “How […]

A Powerful Way to Increase Speaking Confidence

Hello! A video for you with transcript below about one powerful way to increase your confidence in speaking.     Transcript: Ok, we talk to ourselves all the time, don’t we? And we have automatic thoughts, and some of those thoughts and questions that we might be asking ourselves all day long, are, variations on […]