In the summer of 2023, I was the subject of a full length article on the front page of the New York Times!! Why? Because—although my favorite activity is lying on the couch with a bourbon sour and a good romance novel—I’ve been privileged to help many Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees write their Read More
Celebrities and Real People Speak
Love Languages: You Might Be More Fluent than You Know!
You’ve probably heard of Gary Chapman’s book The 5 Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. Chapman, a relationship therapist, came up with his “5 Love Languages” by asking himself, “What do people who don’t believe their partners really love them want?” Then he went searching in his session notes for answers. Read More
How Joe Biden’s Rhetoric Rocked the 2016 Democratic National Convention
It’s rare for me to feature another coach’s work in these “pages” — but Canadian speaker coach Lauren Sergy‘s annotation of Joe Biden’s rhetoric was irresistible! Even if you’re not a fan of classic rhetoric (or of Joe Biden!), you’ll smile as Sergy’s pop-ups name the devices that help make this speech so powerful. And by the way, Read More
Why Mario Cuomo Was a Public Speaking Master
I’d forgotten what a wonderful speaker Mario Cuomo was. The former Governor of New York, who died today at age 82, inspired his audiences — not just with eloquent words (though he had those, and plenty of them!), but with his candor and passion. And while we can’t all be brilliant orators and speechwriters at the level Read More
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Even on the Supreme Court, Simple Speech Is Powerful
In 2012, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was named one of the U.S.’s Top 10 Woman by Glamour Magazine — not for her couture, though she dresses beautifully, but because, as journalist Dahlia Lithwick says, “The America we live in has Justice Ginsburg’s fingerprints all over it.” In this brief excerpt from the PBS / AOL series “Makers,” Ruth Bader Ginsburg Read More