Overnight Sensation - Public Speaking, Communication and Personal Development

Win a Copy of My Newest Ebook

James — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:19:03 +0000

I’m putting the finishing touches on an ebook version of my “Ace That interview” program that I expect to begin offering at the end of the month. It’s based on the workshop (and audio program) of the same name and covers everything from interview preparation to answering questions to what to do after the interview is over. It’s definitely a great tool for those that are having a tough time with their job search.

The rules are straightforward. Simply recommend this blog to five friends using the “email this to a friend” feature at the top of each blog post. At the end of the month, I’ll put all of the email addresses of those who have shared at least five posts (for every five you share, I’ll enter your email a separate time so you can have more chances to win) into a spreadsheet and use a random number generator to select five winners. If I get a huge response to this contest, I may decide to give away more than five.

All entries must be submitted between February 6th, 2012 and February 29th, 2012. Here’s exactly how to enter:

Choose one to five articles on the blog to share with friends.
Click the “email this to a friend” feature for each post you want to share.
Add your name & email and your friends’ names & email addresses (you can share each post with up to five people at a time).
In the remarks field, type in at least one sentence about the article.
Click “Mail it.”

On March 1st, 2012, the contest will close. I’ll start notifying winners within seven days and they will receive the ebook shortly afterwards. I will post a list of winners (names only) if they give me permission to do so.

Now, to proactively eliminate potential problems, here’s the fine print to define what constitutes an entry:

Use of the “email this to a friend” feature to notify five friends of posts on this blog. This could be the same post sent to five different people, five separate posts to five different people of some combination of each.
You must send to five different people, to get an entry. That doesn’t mean you can’t send multiple posts to the same person if you think they’ll find them interesting, it’s just that those won’t be counted for the contest.
You must send to valid email addresses and use a valid email address where it asks you to.
Email addresses submitted as part of this contest will not be used for any other purposes. You (or your friends) will not be added to any mailing lists. You email address will only be used for the following purposes:
1. To contact you if you are a winner.
2. To email you the ebook if you are a winner.
3. To respond to any questions about the contest and/or blog that you initiate.

Lastly, I assume no liability or responsibility for any damages or problems associated with this contest. I also reserve the right to shut down the contest in the (unlikely, I hope) chance that things get out of hand. If you have any questions about the contest or want to check the status of your entries, feel free to contact me using the contact form on my about page.

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Why I’m Starting to Hate Facebook

James — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:30:55 +0000

I’ve been saying for a while that I question how long the world’s most popular social media service will retain its popularity. Yes, there are security and privacy issues that come up from time to time and some of the games and activities on there can waste people’s time to the point where they put their jobs at risk. But what I feel will do in Facebook is that it will become a victim of its own success.

Facebook is all about connecting people. Back when I first started using it, I can remember staying up several nights until 3:00 am looking up people I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Throughout the last few years, I’ve reconnected with old friends, made new ones and even added classes and training related to Facebook to the services my business offers.

So why am I starting to hate it? Well it has done such a good job at connecting people and making it easy to share your thoughts or what you’re doing that I’m starting to realize that I really don’t want to know as much about my friends as I’m starting learn. Yes, I think it’s making people communicate too much and too personally.

It’s just too tempting to see people talking about something you’re passionate about to not chime in. But it’s just as easy for someone to reply that they disagree with you. And unfortunately, they don’t always do it tactfully. This isn’t so bad if you’re talking about sports or movies, but if you’re talking about a hot button issue, the debate can get ugly.

Over the last week, I have heard more than I want to about Susan Komen dropping and reinstating funding to Planned Parenthood, how evil Obama and/or the Republicans are and how you’re a bad person if agree or disagree with allowing same sex marriage. These issues all have valid arguments on each side which I don’t care to get into here, so I don’t mind people having an opinion even if it’s different than mine. The problem I have is with the fact that so many people choose to share their opinions in a manner that is both condescending and disrespectful for those that choose to disagree. And the worst part – these people are trying to promote their businesses and/or career at the same time.

So bringing this back to Facebook, it has succeeded in its mission to connect people and allow them to share information. But it has failed in thinking that people could do in a professional and mature manner. And why am I starting to strongly dislike it? After all, I can simply ignore what I see, hide people from my feeds and take a number of actions so i don’t have to look at someone else’s “free speech.”

What I don’t like is the fact that it’s causing people to dislike the way some of their “friends” are acting – and in my case, it makes me wonder about people’s judgement. But more importantly, it’s causing people to de-friend each other because of something stupid one of them posted that they never would have shared in such a manner, especially publicly, in real life.

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The Power of Power-Ups

James — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:22:10 +0000

I love video games (it’s one of my few addictions) and one of the ways games become exciting is the concept of a power-up. A power-up can be something that you earn (such as completing a task in a short amount of time) or that you find out of pure luck (looking in a container). Power-ups can give you special powers, send you to a bonus level or let you jump ahead so that you’re further along in the game. To add to the challenge of a game, many power-ups disappear after a few seconds or if you move off the screen, so you need to get to them right away – many gamers risk their lives (within the game) to get certain power-ups.

Just as a power-up can help you win in a video game, it can also help you win in real life. I real life, we call power-ups “opportunities” (or in some cases, “chances of a lifetime” if they are really big). And just power-ups in exist all over the digital world of a video game, opportunities can be anywhere – you just need to know how to spot them and where to look. Here are some instances where you might come across a power-up in real life:

A conversation with a stranger at the train station or in a waiting room or similar situation creates a lead for you that helps you get closer to your goal.
You are selected to get in front of an important client or have face time with a higher-up at work.
You come across a deal of a lifetime where you can by your supplies at a fraction of the normal cost.
You are given the chance to be interviewed on TV or the radio.

Going back to the video game analogy, when you play a new game, you may not be familiar with all the things within the game that you can interact with. You may notice a flower on the screen and think it’s just a part of the background, but then you touch it and it gives you super powers. Reading the game’s manual might clue you in as to which items are power up items, but again to make the game more interesting, the programmer may have added some special power ups that aren’t documented in the manual. This is similar to real life as your biggest opportunities often come from the most unexpected places – often they come from our problems and challenges.

Your definition of an opportunity depends on your situation. I listed some obvious opportunities above, but I’ve also found opportunities in conversations with people on the treadmill next to me at the gym, striking up a conversation with someone at a book store and even while waiting for public transportation.

Take a few minutes to list out at least ten of the places that you typically find opportunities – you can use my examples if they work for you. Then take about five to ten minutes to list out at least ten more opportunities that have come from unusual places, regardless of whether or not you seized them. Doing this exercise will condition you to better notice opportunities when they present themselves.

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Three Quick Ways to Improve Your Speech Articulation

James — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:09:00 +0000

If you’ve ever had a conversation with someone and they couldn’t understand you, you know what it feels like to not speak articulately. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re always speaking inarticulately, but we all mumble and fumble our words from time.

I get a lot of questions from people about articulation and how to speak more articulately. It’s actually a lot easier than you think to speak more clearly so that others can better understand you. Here are some of tips about improving your articulation that I teach in my classes.

Speak slowly

Most people that are difficult to understand are that way because they speak too quickly. Sometimes it’s due to excitement, other times due to nervousness. What happens here is that words and sounds end up running together causing a challenge for the listener. They simply hear too many sounds jumbled together and have a hard time separating them.

Slowing down will ensure that you both pronounce words fully and stop words and sounds from running together. This is the key to good articulation. When you catch yourself starting to mumble or run words together, simply slow down and pronounce every single sound separately. So if you were reciting the last word in the previous sentence, you would say it sep-a-rate-ly. One thing you may notice when you start doing this is that you’ve been skipping sounds when you say words. Many people pronounce “comfortable” as comft-able rather than com-fort-able. So try this right now with either a paragraph from this article or a few sentences from a book or speech or you need to give.

Speak in a consistent tone

Ever notice how some people tend to vary the volume of their voice when they speak? This can make it tricky for the listener to understand you as the variation in volume can cause them to miss sounds or even whole words. Most of us when we speak tend to start out strong but then our volume drops as we get deeper into the conversation. It then goes back up as the conversation starts winding down or the speaker notices the listener straining to hear them.

The best way to trap this is by recording yourself. In the old days, I’d tell you to grab a tape recorder but your computer, or even your phone, probably can record sound. If not, leave yourself a voice mail reading something and listen carefully to the tone of your voice throughout the recording. If you find that you do it, just being conscious of it is usually enough to help you stop. Practice recording yourself speaking three times a day in a consistent tone and within a couple weeks, the problem will go away.

Practice the tricky sounds

If you find that certain words, phrases or sounds give you trouble then practice them. I remember giving a talk with a friend and we each had trouble with the word “philanthropic.” There are lots of words like this that either come up speeches or conversations that can cause us to stumble.

The nice thing is that it’s easy to deal with this one – all you need is a few two-minute blocks to practice the word or sound each day. You can do it in the car, while walking, in the shower or whenever you have a few minutes to yourself – just try to do it at least four times per day for a week (more frequently per day if you don’t have a week to get it right). In these blocks, just practice saying the word clearly ten times. After a while, you’ll automatically start saying it correctly.

So there you go, three quick ways to speak with better articulation. Remember that all you really need to do here is identify the problem and then practice saying it correctly. If you’re not sure how a word is supposed to be pronounced, do a quick web search on the word and you’ll either find videos or a dictionary entries that tell you exactly how to pronounce it.

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