Most of us don’t match the stereotype In 2017, in response to The New Yorker magazine’s cover by French artist Malika Favre, groups of female surgeons began posting pictures of themselves with the hashtag #ThisIsWhatASurgeonLooksLike. (I’m proud that the first group to post included my client, Dr. Heather Logghe.) Of course, medicine isn’t the only Read More
The World We Speak In
How Tidying Up Your Mind Can Spark Public Speaking Joy
As millions of people now know, Marie Kondo — the international de-cluttering guru and author of four bestselling books — has a new show on Netflix called Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. Her message is simple and powerful: You can live a better life when every object in your home matters (in Kondo’s words, “sparks Read More
Consent Is the Communication You Need Before Having Sex
Public speaking — the art of thinking, and expressing yourself clearly — can help you everywhere, from the board room to the bedroom! And that’s a good thing because, if you’re over the age of 12, you’ve probably noticed that sexual desire makes all of us stupid. Add to that the usual difficulties that people have Read More
Three (Terrible) Public Speaking Trends from 2016
The U.S. election of 2016 ushered in lots of public speaking and communications trends, and many of them — like the return of overtly racist language — are terrible. So bad that they put me in mind of a story that’s told about Mahatma Gandhi: REPORTER: What do you think of Western Civilization? GANDHI: I Read More
Public Speaking Tip 95: Find Out If You Have Unconscious Bias (Including Bias Against YOURSELF)
What Is Unconscious Bias? If you’re like me (in other words, breathing), you can probably list many human qualities, and possibly some groups of people, that you think are inferior. That’s because — whether bias is hard-wired in us, or a habit from our tribal past — we human beings are really good at noticing how other people are different from us, and Read More