5. We bring our characters to life through some of the verbs we use.
Fred casually sauntered into the boss’s office VS Fred rushed breathless into the boss’s office. Please note I am taking a lesson from the brilliant Mark Brown who taught us in a recent EDGE lesson about the importance of adjectives and adverbs.

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Surprise guest Bill Clinton said, “Ed Bradley was a brilliant, insatiable, curious traveler on a relentless quest to get to the bottom of things. He was like the great jazz musicians he so admired. He always played in the key of reason. His songs were full of the notes of facts; but he knew to make the most of music you have to improvise. We’ll never forget what his solos were: the disarming smile; the disconcerting stare; the highly uncomfortable stretches of silence, the deceptively dangerous questions, and the questions that would be revealing, no matter what your answer was. Watching him was mesmerizing — because you knew you were watching a master at work.”

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Q. When did you first start speaking? How long until speaking became your full-time job?
In 1976, when I was San Francisco’s #1 men’s hairstylist, I started delivering seminars to hairstylists for a hair product company called Markham. Through recommendations from my executive clients, Rotary Clubs and men’s breakfast clubs invited me to speak. Afterwards, the audience members often came into my salon. I quickly realized that this was an inexpensive way to promote my business.

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Previously, we discussed the components of speech preparation and delivery that will make your presentation shine when you are addressing your association audiences. However, the speech only becomes truly vibrant when you tie all of the pieces together and package them into a compelling presentation. Remember humor helps freshen content, movement keeps the audiences’ eyes […]

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Whether you’re writing or speaking, clichés will weaken your message and cause your audience to tune out. Here are Fripp’s Four Foolproof Tips for making your point: You MUST use original material. The audience will forgive you ANYTHING but being boring. If someone else has already said it, say it in a completely different way. […]

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Congratulations! You’ve been chosen (or drafted) to deliver a speech. Don’t panic — Fripp is here! What Do I Talk About? Start by asking yourself three questions: Who is my audience? (What do I know about the corporate culture or collective personality of the group?) What do they want or need to know from me? […]

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In-Between Time by Craig Valentine In-between time is what I refer to as the time between your major points. Of course you need to use this time to transition into the next story or example, but how you use this time can make the difference between a dry speech and an exciting one. One effective […]

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