Category: communication
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I talked before about finding your voice in the written word and will explore that further in the future. Today, I want to speak about audio. Audio is ubiquitous with more and more people starting podcasts, posting live videos, and presenting live in meetings and during the course of their lives. As we develop our…
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As we engage in telling our stories, we can use creative design features to communicate more authentically and effectively. The key is to find the form and function that best tells our tale. Color plays a major role in that process. Design ideas for palette, look, and feel can come from anywhere. This butterfly inspired…
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How to balance your checkbook How to navigate IRAs, 401K’s and their importance How to listen to your friends, partners, lovers when you are in the middle of an argument How to generate invoices, contracts, and other financial transaction related pieces How to keep track of your credit card debt, determine the best credit cards…
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Welcome to today’s Physical Talks. Why do we sometimes look off into space during our conversations? Hint: It’s to improve those communication moments. See more below. Some people say that someone who won’t look you in the eye must be lying. That’s not necessarily true. There are a lot of other possibilities. Ever been caught…
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Are you a sender or a receiver? How can you tell? Do you find yourself getting “feelings” or hunches about situations and people? If you do, you might be a natural receiver? If you get those vibes, those belly clenching moments, listen to them. They are trying to give you information. Armed with that knowledge,…
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I recently read Derek Siver’s excellent, short book, “Anything You Want.” One of the chapters is titled, “If not hell yeah, then no.” It means that unless you are excited to do something, don’t do it. Say no. Then, you leave yourself open to cool new opportunities that you will be thrilled to accept. I…
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Everything in my life has been coming back to relevance. As I develop this new phase of my life, I am trimming away anything that doesn’t serve me. I have modified my patterns of behavior, thought modes, and emotional triggers. My motto is: If it doesn’t serve me, it goes. That perspective makes things easier,…
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Yesterday, I facilitated my “Present Out Loud” workshop at Balticon (the Maryland Regional Science Fiction/Fantasy convention). The workshop is on how to present/read your work at bookstore events, interviews, audio narrations, and workshops. We worked on breath technique, voicing, characterization, and how to differentiate your narrator from your characters and their dialogue. But mostly, we…
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Yesterday, at Balticon, I had the honor of sitting on a panel that discussed how to adapt fiction to stage or screen. One of the questions the moderator asked was to define the nuts and bolts of doing that sort of adaptation. One of the other panel members said that you needed to only the…
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In the previous post, we talked about proper posture when standing or sitting to communicate. To recap: stand with your feet hip-width apart (draw an imaginary line from your second toes, through the center of your ankles, the center of your knees and then up to the hip points [the parts that just out to…
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Oh my goodness there are a ton of posts on mindfulness, meditation, and anxiety reduction. Almost all of them have some form of, “stop, be still, and breathe to calm yourself.” It’s great advice. And it works. The trouble is, how do you stop, be still, and breathe when you might be scared, anxious, nervous,…
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I love Voice-to-text (V-t-T). As the technology improves, conducting business via V-t-T becomes easier and more accessible. Business and communication become more portable and that creates more flexibility in how and where we manage our affairs. For example, I can now write emails and texts while walking my dog. I can give quick answers to…
