Unless you’re new around here, you know how passionate I am about reading. In fact, I have an entire section of my website dedicated to books that have been ‘Worth A Read’ for me. In a world that is chock full with ways to learn new things, master fresh skills, and expand our horizons, you’ll still find me curled up the old-fashioned way: with a BOOK.

You’ve developed a superpower when you have overcome or improved upon an identified issue. If that issue is public speaking or leadership, congratulations! You’re in good company. Forbes says over 70% of career professionals fear public speaking or presenting from the front of the room, while over 45% consider themselves to need “better leadership skills.”

Okay, so we all know a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if I told you that stories are the most valuable tool available when it comes to magnifying a memorable message? Not only do stories make a presentation more memorable, they make it more meaningful AND more motivational, as well. They build a bridge between you and the audience – connecting you with them and connecting them to your message.

When it’s time to increase your presence, influence and impact without compromising on authenticity or results, it’s time to speak like a leader. If the ability to persuade, influence and communicate effectively is essential to your role, but you feel frustrated by your current capacity to do so, this article is the perfect starting point to help you flip the switch from meh to marvelous.

When I walked away from a 6-figure contract earlier this year (completely separate from my scenario above), I walked away from a superficially diverse c-suite filled with mostly (white) women and a few men. And, as excited as I was to join what was sold to me as a “sisterhood”, it was a horribly toxic, inauthentic nightmare of a company - that literally made me and my family sick.

Yes, we are all responsible for our own energy, protecting it, elevating it, understanding it, and shifting it for our own good. To do so successfully, we must accept and implement a radical level of self-care.

Sometimes this self-care looks like staying. And sometimes it looks like walking away.

Let’s talk about something that isn’t necessarily new, but is rather a much-needed approach for successful women and men in today’s professional environment to break limiting gender stereotypes inside of communication at work, helping them cultivate healthy professional relationships on all levels. Hint: this has got nothing to do with sacrificing any part of who you are.

I recently observed an exchange between a female senior executive manager and a female employee where the former called the latter “the weakest person we have” in her position in the company after the employee asked for assistance and feedback in an area where she felt she needed help. Shocking? It doesn’t just shock because of its poor taste. It’s truly terrible, toxic management from a communication standpoint because…

We sacrifice authenticity for ease, honesty for tact, and skirt around issues to make life “simpler” but in reality all this does is create conflict within ourselves. Our conflict-aversion becomes conflict-creation.

If you always feel like somebody’s watching you (with apologies to Rockwell)... you’re right! If you’re online in the business world in 2022, you’ve been being watched for at least two years: on Zoom, on Teams, on Google Hangouts, Facetime, inside social media groups, and other various interactive platforms. Odds are, you’re probably doing a lot of watching yourself – meaning, you spend a lot of time watching others speak.

But what if you were to watch yourself?

I received a message this week from someone who asked if I could send her my weekly blog articles via DM. She was a little sheepish: I know you send them via email, but I just can’t face my inbox. I know the feeling! I have a few thousand unread emails myself. Not to mention the Slack messages, Asana messages, Basecamp messages, text messages, DMs across platforms… the list goes on.

We all have too much information coming our way…

Let’s talk assessments for a second. Everyone knows Myers-Briggs and most have had their Enneagram typed. Then there’s Strengths Finder, DiSC, The Four Color Personalities, Goleman’s EQ Test… the list goes on and on.

The Enneagram test outlines nine different interconnected personality traits, with 27 additional subtypes. The nine traits are then grouped into three different “centers”…

What IF you could control what happens to you? What if you could have an objective POV that enabled you to:

• Observe the situation objectively

• Assess your energy level

• Predict your go-to response

• Intercept that go-to response (stress, worry, fear, anger, etc) with a sudden peaceful, controlled energetic shift that, in turn, created…

• … a new reality.

Excellence in public speaking is not gender-dependent. However, certain psychological traits – such as risk aversion, willingness to compete, or aversion to feedback – contribute to explaining gender differences that occur not only in occupations, wages and careers, but in development in the area of public speaking. The ability to give a good public presentation is relevant for career prospects and leadership positions; presenting information publicly, clearly and eloquently creates an important competitive advantage in a variety of job settings.

The goal of an interview is to communicate your key message to a public audience via a news reporter, podcast host and the media outlet they serve. Remember: you’re not there to educate the reporter or show how much you know. To achieve this, you must focus on your core messaging and utilize techniques to keep the interview centered on those messages you most want to relay, while also adding “color” and “context” that is relevant to the platform, scope of the interview and audience.