How to supercharge your career in 17 minutes

“We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.”

– Eric Hoffer

Tom Peters has an interesting post on his blog -“Get To (Serious!!) Work … On Your Presentation Skills!”

He points out how one Seventeen Minute speech in 2004 catapulted Sen. Barack Obama’s career. Sen.. Obama delivered the Keynote Speech at the 2004 Democratic National attention and he “caught fire.”  He went from a virtually unknown young politician to becoming the presumptive Presidential nominee of his party in less than 4 years!

Fueled by his 17 minute speech!

In 1988 another relatively unknown politician first caught our eye when he delivered a (very long) nominating speech for Gov. Michael Dukakis. That was our first national notice of (then) Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas.

Yes, it is time to “Get Serious – really serious – about working on your presentation skills.” To quote from the Tom Peters article:

“Fact, in “our” more modest worlds: Poor or average or even “okay” presentation skills trip up or hold back an incredible number of very talented people at all levels, including the highest in big orgs—and yet it is rare to see someone launch a martial-arts-training-like, no-bull, I’m-gonna-master-this-or-die-trying offensive on presentation skill improvement.

Why not?”

Indeed! Why not? Why don’t you put more effort into improving your presentation skills? What is holding you back? Do you realize how much your “so-so” presentation skills are holding you back – from advancing in your career? Holding you back from getting what you really want in your life?

It’s not enough to say, “they are a naturally gifted speaker and I just am not.” That is just BS!

Talent, alone, does not guarantee success. It is the intense desire to work on fully developing our talents that determines our long-term success.

Will Sen. Obama’s desire to become President of the USA drive him to improve his natural speaking talents? He will need to improve his debating skills and to work on his responses to questions if he is to succeed.

I’ll be blogging about the presentation skills (or lack of skills) of our Presidential candidates up until the November election.  I will be interested to see which candidate shows the most desire to succeed.

Which candidate will really commit to fully developing his communications skills? Which candidate is is most interested in supercharging his career?

 

 

Yes We Can! – Learn How to Give Better Presentations

What makes an effective speech? Is it the content? The context? The delivery? Or some combination of each?

Want to learn how to improve your public speaking skills? Want to pick up a few inside pointers that will really “punch up” your next presentation? Just watch television and read the newspaper. Learn to analyze politics and politicians – not the politicians themselves and not their political positions. Just study their speeches and watch their delivery.

This is the first in a series of articles that I will post on the topic of campaign speeches and presentations. I learn a lot by observing the candidates. I read the text of their key speeches and replay the video to analyze their delivery. Please share your comments with the readers. This is not a partisan blog – I am not advocating for any candidate or party. Please keep this in mind when you post a comment.

Here is a quick overview of the four remaining candidates: Continue reading “Yes We Can! – Learn How to Give Better Presentations” »