In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Steven Covey proposes a quite unusual thought experiment that he terms “beginning with the end in mind.” What he actually suggests is that you write your own obituary! While this may seem to be somewhat macabre, it is actually a brilliant exercise, in that in forces you to think about your legacy and how you would want to be remembered.
Give it a try: as you embark on a new year and new decade,
I recently had the wonderful opportunity to speak at TEDxEmory . The overall theme
was What Makes Your Heart Beat? My topic was Owning Your Confidence: How to
Overcome Nervousness and Exude Confidence in High-Stakes Situations. I discussed
several practical techniques to help you excel in even the most stressful of
situations. They are practices I’ve developed over many years of being on television
and speaking professionally around the world,
In an age of information overload where we are constantly having to compete for attention, the ability to tell stories that have an emotional and intellectual impact is a critical skill.
Think about the last meeting or presentation you attended or Ted talk you watched, what did you remember, what did you repeat?
The story! Especially if the story related to you or triggered you to reflect on your own similar experience.
“If you don’t ask, you don’t get. If you ask, you may not always get what you want, but if you don’t ask, you won’t get”
You’ve probably heard it said that you won’t get what you truly desire if you’re not prepared to ask for it. But for many of us, knowing how to ask for what we want in a way that makes a positive impression – and ultimately gets us the response we’re hoping for – can be challenging.
How to OWN it to Persuade and Influence? We’re often told not to judge a book by its cover. But the truth is, that’s precisely what most of us do a lot of the time. We make judgments about the people we encounter very quickly. Therefore, it’s important to make a strong first impression. And to do that, you need to learn to own your physical space.
Own Your Style
While we may wish we could go to the office in yoga pants,
I recently had the pleasure of working with a group of salespeople for a large retailer. Each participant had been a winner in their particular store for selling the most warranties.
What did they all have in common? What differentiated them from their less successful colleagues?
The one thing they all had in common was PERSUASIVE PRESENCE. Each of them had the ability to persuade and influence their target audience,
Do you ever feel so tired that you literally can’t move?
Do you ever wonder if you are experiencing a level of “burnout?”
Do you ever wish the weekend was just one more day and you still had just one more hour of sleep before you had to wake up?
A couple of months ago, I was so overwhelmed with fatigue that I decided to consult a physician.
Isn’t it fascinating that while so much goes right, our minds will still focus on the one thing that doesn’t? If you are anything like me, you chastise yourself endlessly when things don’t go perfectly.
That’s what happened to me recently, when a guest I had booked left the CNN set just just before his second interview. It turned out his phone was off, and he hadn’t seen my texts giving him his updated schedule.
