By Doug Staneart How would you describe meetings you have attended in the past? Last Tuesday, I was facilitating a workshop on how to facilitate more successful meetings, and to start things off, I asked the group that very question. The answers that they provided were very similar to answers that I have received from [...]

By Doug Staneart 95% of the population has some type of fear of public speaking, and a great deal of this nervousness or anxiety comes from well-meaning friends or coworkers who offer constructive criticism as a way to help a new presenter improve his/her public speaking. Public speaking is not unlike any other new skill [...]

By Doug Staneart Many myths about public speaking have been passed along from person to person over the years, and the one thing that is consistent about these myths is that the people who pass them along are still nervous about speaking. After facilitating over 200 public speaking classes and never having a single person [...]

By Doug Staneart If you take only one piece of advice about public speaking, make sure that it is this pearl of wisdom. If you focus on this one simple thing, the number of times you say “uhm” won’t matter. If you focus on this one thing, your gestures and not knowing what to do [...]

By: Doug Staneart In past decades, the contractor who had the lowest bid typically got the job. And while low bids are still critical, today that same contractor is likely to be placed on a “Short List” where the contractor will have to sell himself and sell his company to the potential clients. This is [...]

By: Doug Staneart Right or wrong, people form a perception about how competent you are by how you present yourself when you stand and speak. They also form perceptions about the company you represent based on your performance. In fact, public speaking is an easy way to set yourself apart from your competition, because when [...]

By: Rick Highsmith “I can’t believe I agreed to do this speech. Look at all those people out there! My knees are shaking, and my stomach feels like I just went over the top of a roller coaster. My heart is beating so fast and hard my tie is jumping. I just want to scream [...]

Hey Everybody, I’ll be teaching a number of classes coming up in the next couple of months as will a number of our senior instructors. The much-anticipated Leader’s Institute Leadership and Public Speaking Boot Camp is coming up in about a month. We still have a few seats left, but hotel space is very limited. [...]

By Connie Timpson/Sr. Instructor/The Leader’s Institute What?! Snow in Florida? Inside the gates of one of America’s most visited attractions? Yes, Cinderella lost her slipper in the slush, and it is raining Iguanas in the sunshine state. I dressed most of our plants as blanket mummies hoping to keep freezing temperatures out and plant life [...]

The Art of Persuasion More Effective Than “Pushing” or “Demanding” Just do it!      Don’t Leave Home Without It!    You’re In Good Hands Be The First To Know Slogans like these play on emotions that prompt us to buy. The advertising world has perfected the art of persuading us to believe in products, [...]