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
Celebrities and Other Real People Speak
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
Sonia Sotomayor’s Warm and Wise Public Speaking
If you don’t know to look for something, how are you ever going to see it? —Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor I couldn’t have been more thrilled when one of my favorite clients invited me to a New York Women’s Bar Association dinner honoring long-time member and Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. I’ve written about the public Read More
Learn from Michael Bay’s Public Speaking Panic Attack
NOTE: On the week that I wrote this post, two very high-profile people struggled with panic — in public. Scott Stossel Survives Anxiety The Atlantic‘s cover story, Surviving Anxiety by editor Scott Stossel, is about his “Anxious, Twitchy, Phobic (Somehow Successful) Life.” Stossel’s account of coping with multiple phobias and crippling anxiety is harrowing, yet ultimately inspiring. After all, Read More