Over the past two years, I have had the good fortune to get to know Bert Decker. He is an amazing person with an incredible background. If you haven’t heard of him before, Bert Decker is a national communications expert, best selling author and entrepreneur. He founded the 100 person communications training company Decker Communications, Inc. He has been featured in the NY Times, Business Week, and on 20/20, as well as being the communications commentator for the NBC TODAY Show for the Presidential Debates. He has been a communications coach to Charles Schwab, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Mattel CEO’s John Ammerman and Jill Barrad, Olympians Bonnie Blair and Tom Dolan, SF 49er All-Pro Brent Jones, and dozens of other executives And he is the best selling author of “You’ve Got to Be Believed To Be Heard” and “Speaking With Bold Assurance“. Bert graciously agreed to do a ten question interview with me and here are his insights on a wide range of topics.  Read the rest of this post

I was working from home yesterday and my 3-year old convinced me to go with him to Story Time at our local library. He’s so cute, I couldn’t resist. I hadn’t been to Story Time in years. In fact, the last time I was at Story Time was back in the early 90′s when I was a regular guest reader at the New York City Public Library. I went to Story Time thinking this’ll be a great half-hour with my little guy. I never thought I’d walk away thinking that I learned some valuable lessons myself. Ah, the expert mind…it always convinces us that we can’t learn from “simple” experiences. But after it was over, and I reflected a bit on Story Time, I realized that there were valuable lessons to take away from it that we can all use in our presentations. Believe it or not, librarians and others who read to children at Story Time may be some of the best presenters in the world, and we’ll never see them on TED or hear much about them (plus they have some of the toughest audiences in the world). If you really want to get your presentation game on, maybe you should start reading books to the itty-bitties at your local library. In any case, here’s what I learned from my trip to the library with my 3-year old:  Read the rest of this post

I used to love School house Rock when I was a kid. Looks like PBS Kids has updated it a bit. Here’s a cute little ditty about charts that I think everyone who uses PowerPoint can learn from (read: Keep it simple). Check it out:

I know I’ve definitely run into my fair share of writers block trying to keep this blog going and I always come up with mental blocks as a trainer and coach when I’m trying to come up with fresh ideas to convey my messages. I usually get around these blocks by either going for along bike ride, or looking for inspiration somewhere. In today’s guest post, Lisa Braithwaite, a successful public speaking coach, author of the blog Speak Schmeak, and fellow cycling fan, talks about the places she goes for her inspiration.

GUEST POST FROM LISA BRAITHWAITE:  Read the rest of this post