Did the earth shake a little during the 2018 Golden Globe Awards? In eight minutes, Oprah Winfrey electrified her audience at the Golden Globes with a speech that ignited a movement for her to run for President. It can also inspire you to be a better speaker. Accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement (a first for an African-American woman), Oprah used her speech to raise awareness of sexual harassment and assault and exhorted women across the country to… Read more »
I was having a tough year. Divorce, sick dad, and now I’m launching a speaking career! What was I thinking?! Do I even know how to tell a story?! I stood in the quiet darkness backstage, waiting for my cue. On the other side of the curtain, the audience’s steady hum died down as the bow-tied host walked up the microphone. He smiled. “Hello, everyone. You’re in for a real treat today,” he said. As he spoke, I shifted nervously,… Read more »
Remember the last presentation you sat through? Chances are the speaker fired up his laptop, opened PowerPoint and started talking. You, and the rest of the audience, were an afterthought. Audience engagement is key to presentation success. Research shows our attention spans last only ten minutes — that’s not much time to captivate and educate! According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, students in traditional lecture classes are more than 1 1/2 times more likely to fail… Read more »
It’s time to start. You have everything you need to make your presentation great. Your PowerPoint is ready to go, you’re wearing an outfit that makes you feel powerful, and you’ve got your topic down cold. You start to speak and… Something’s not right. Maybe it’s because you know your topic well but your body language and tone of voice don’t convey confidence. Maybe you don’t sound sincere. Maybe you’re trying too hard. Or maybe you’re so worried about what you’re… Read more »
