The Blog / Archive

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” Spock, the rational thinker, makes decisions based on the greater good. Who will benefit? One individual, or many? A moment may come when you need to start preparing for a speech, presentation, meeting, or event. You won’t feel like it. You may think there’s plenty of time later, or that this is just a weekly meeting so why bother, or that you have too many other pressing tasks to take time to prepare. When this moment comes, it’s worth thinking about Spock’s wise words. The needs of … Read more

My husband Charlie and I have many of the same cultural interests. We like the same kinds of plays and movies, for example. But when left to our own (literal) devices, we often choose to watch different things.  Recently Charlie said that he wanted to show me a video of this guy, Matt, whose YouTube channel is called “Matt’s Off Road Recovery.” This YouTube channel is exactly what it sounds like: Matt’s company specializes in recovering vehicles that have gotten stuck while off roading. At first glance, this is…not something I would be interested in. At all. But a few … Read more

They say that, when you start running for exercise, you need to give yourself ten minutes to get warmed up and start feeling good.  I suggest you apply the same formula to practicing. Give it ten minutes of focused effort to get over the hump of not wanting to do it, feeling silly, whatever.  Ten minutes of focused practice. By the time your timer goes off, you might want to keep going! I love to welcome new people to the blog! If you know someone who’d like what I share, please send them here!

Once upon a time, about fifteen years ago, I completely flubbed a curtain speech I had to deliver before a play. I had given many curtain speeches as the co-founder and Producing Director of North Carolina Stage Company, but that night, something went wrong. The lights on my face were unusually bright, and I was suddenly, horribly aware of all the people in the audience looking at me. In spite of this distraction, I opened my mouth to speak and almost immediately said something I didn’t mean to. I don’t remember the words that came out, but I know that … Read more

As you might imagine from the title of this post, I’ve been watching the Olympics. The gymnasts’ skill and focus always blow me away, and I enjoy watching them compete.   Of course, the phrase “stick the landing” comes from gymnastics competition. In order to really finish the routine with an exclamation mark and not lose points, the gymnast must land firmly and cleanly on both feet, without taking extra steps.  The phrase has come into common usage for any other endeavor where you want to finish cleanly, to end well. In my work, it usually means that the speaker … Read more

“If you do it in practice, you’ll do it in a game.” I don’t know who said this originally, but it’s a piece of sports wisdom that jumps right off the page at me. When I came across it recently, the person saying it meant that if you do it right in practice, you’ll do it right in the game. But the opposite is true, too. (And of course, I’m now not thinking about football but about communication.) If you phone it in when you practice, you won’t be dynamic when it’s time to do it for real. If you … Read more

If you haven’t thought:   That’s not how I want to say that This part will work better in a different place I need to pause That phrase worked better on paper than when I said it out loud Let me try this again   Then you haven’t practiced enough.   Ignite can help you practice! Read more here!