Nick Morgan's Blog, page 7

Are You Afraid to Speak Your Mind?

Are Americans afraid to speak their minds?  According to a recent study, the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’ has become a place of self-censorship.  Two-thirds of us say that we are afraid to say what we believe in public because someone else might not like it. These dispiriting results come ...

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What makes a good introduction?

A good introduction is essential to get a speaker off to a good start. The tendency for event hosts to go casual and say a few non-substantive words — or worse, to try to make a joke at the speaker’s expense — hurts both the speaker and the meeting. Here’s why, and how to give ...

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Speakers, Do You Know Your Audience?

When we think about our audiences as speakers, we think about their demographics, or the industry they are in, or their functional roles in their organizations, or their positions in the hierarchy.  So, for example, we might be talking to millennials in health care, working in HR, and heads of the talent division with a ...

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In Defense of Freezing

Those of us in the speaking world talk variously about stage fright, or nerves, or adrenaline, but when we’re getting technical with our peers, we’ll say the “fight or flight response” to be accurate.  And then inevitably one of us will correct that to say “the fight, flight, or freeze response” because those are indeed ...

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How’s Your Poker Face?

The benefits of a poker face are widely extolled in poker but also in life. Poker faces help in cards, of course, but also in negotiations and dealings around the conference room table when the stakes are high. And poker faces are widely supposed to come in handy when asking for something from the boss ...

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A Counter-Intuitive Way to Deal with Stage Fright

I was instructing the mid-career executives on “Persuasion and Influence” recently at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, and I was encouraging them to dive deep and asked the questions that mattered to them and their own personal development.  No one asked about performance anxiety, AKA stage fright. I thought, “hmmm, they’re either in denial or ...

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To End All Wars

This is the second of an occasional series on storytelling. As I headed off to college at 17, I was carrying the worries of certain members of my family with me. I had long hair, and a rebellious attitude, and so they naturally thought I was going to Hell in a collegiate handbasket. My grandmother, ...

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How Good Are We at Detecting Liars?

How good are we at reading each other’s body language?  This is an essential question for communication, since we convey content with our words, primarily, and intent with our body language – facial contortions, hand gestures, motion, and so on.  And we humans care about intent even more than content, because intent can either reinforce ...

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Speakers Need to Pick the Right Colors!

Speakers can use the emerging science of color to enhances effects during their speeches and produce stronger impressions on their audiences. For example, there’s a widespread impression that soft hues and gentle colors are relaxing, and that relaxation is a good state to be in for paying attention and learning in an optimal way.  But ...

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5 Keys to Good Storytelling

The first of several posts on storytelling.   I’ve been writing, coaching, and teaching about storytelling for over 25 years, and I thought it was time to distill what I’ve learned down to a handful of takeaways that might help you on your journey to becoming a great storyteller.  These insights come from repeated mistakes, stories ...

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