If you’re lucky enough to have learned how to write in school, you probably know a lot of “rules,” such as: Don’t repeat yourself Don’t begin a sentence with a conjunction (and, but, or) Don’t use clichés or formulas Leaving aside the issue of whether these rules make for good writing (reasonable people can disagree!), Read More
Writing a Speech or Crafting Remarks
How One Man Mesmerized His Audience, without Words
Words are great, but they’re not always essential. Don’t believe me? To kick off an episode of the hit radio show This American Life, Ira Glass and science writer Paul Hoffman talked about “a mathematician named Frank Nelson Cole, who demonstrated a groundbreaking idea at a conference in 1903.” I was knocked out by this description of Read More
You Only Need One Speech
Back when I was still building Speak Up for Success, two of my business heroes — Amy Abrams and Adelaide Lancaster, co-founders of a women’s incubator called In Good Company Workplaces — asked me for help with a common public speaking problem. They’d been speaking a lot about their book The Big Enough Company, and wanted advice on Read More
College Summit: Write Like Yourself (Even If You Break a Few Rules)
You can never learn too much about communications That’s one of the many reasons I’m passionate about College Summit, a national organization that promotes college-going cultures in disadvantaged high schools, and, every summer, helps 25,000 rising high school seniors prepare to apply for college. This year, I joined an awesome group of 48 teens and Read More