How does your speech title impact how others perceive your speech? Your speech title matters more than you think and can impact how your audience perceives your speech, even before you’ve said a single word. The broken promise I sat through a public speaking competition a few days ago and one of the speech titles … Read more
Last week, a review of data for the Toastmasters district I lead revealed that we were doing better than expected on a range of indicators. The scale of the success surprised me and I immediately set gears in motion to start celebrating this success. But why does this matter you might ask? Recognition works wonders … Read more
During the many conversations, I’ve had about leadership over the past few years. An interesting theme cropped up many times amongst senior leaders within my organisations. It is best summarized as “Why do people always expect more help on this topic, when large quantities of information are available online about it.” I’ve previously explained that … Read more
Tyrion Lannister of Game of Thrones fame isn’t a fictional character that one would associate with public speaking. Nevertheless, I previously looked at Tyrion Lannister’s speech from the Battle of the Blackwater. A speech that is a quintessential example of a strong motivational speech. Tyrion did another speech later on in the series and this … Read more
Perhaps because of my experience of playing strategy games when I was younger. Leadership and strategy have always been closely interrelated in my mind. Yet, over the past few years, I have observed that this isn’t the case for everybody. While strategic planning and strategic analysis are super strengths I’ve developed as an executive leader … Read more
JFK’s speech delivered in 1962 at Rice University in favour of the Apollo programme. Is in my opinion one of the best political speeches of the 20th century. There is a lot that can be learnt from this speech. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, this speech is a very good example of … Read more
“Over 90% of people aren’t serious about developing themselves.” This is what a past World Champion of Public Speaking said to me in passing some months ago. This remark may seem negative but I think its entirely true. I have often seen aspiring speakers in Toastmasters who had high goals and aspirations but never lived … Read more
I’ve always been interested in space exploration and I spent countless hours as a kid reading books on NASA’s and Russian cosmonauts exploits. My younger self dreamt of seeing humans return to the Moon, walk on Mars and exploring new solar systems. I am still fascinated by the subject and to me, the Apollo Moon … Read more
Looking at my nuclear industry career with hindsight. It is actually quite striking to see that many leadership lessons can be drawn from the industry. The more I think about it, the more I actually realise that it even influenced elements of my own leadership style. So, let’s find out what the industry can teach … Read more
The secret sauce in the very successful Toastmasters formula is peer to peer evaluations. Evaluations are structured oral and verbal feedback that members give to each other after delivering a speech. The structure will typically cover what the person did well as well as areas for improvements. However, the power of leverage that they provide … Read more