Are you getting excited? Giving a presentation often seems like an olympic event – the preparation, the nervousness, the adrenaline rush….
During the Olympics I will write a series of blog articles relating the sport of speaking to what’s happening in Vancouver. It promises to be fun, creative, and packed with great presentation tips. Don’t miss it.
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I stayed in a hotel for three nights over the weekend – I was competing in a dog agility competition. As I often do when I’m on the road, I try to guess what people do for a living, why they are staying in the hotel, and how they are connected to the people they are with. This turned out to be an extremely intense adventure.
Day 1: Riding down the elevator with my Sheltie and young Golden Retriever, I was trying my best to keep the white hair on the Sheltie and the muddy paws on the Retriever from annoying …

You are invited to enter my new website scavenger hunt with a chance to win up to $250 cash. The deadline is December 15, so don’t miss this opportunity to have some fun, and maybe even win some extra money for the holidays. It takes less than 5 minutes! The questions are listed below. Check it out:
Prizes: $250, $100, $50
Rules: Answer the 3 questions correctly and you will be entered in a random draw for the prizes. One entry per person. It’s OK to forward to your colleagues and friends, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Deadline: December 15, 2010 at 5pm Pacific …

Get to the point, please! That’s what I was thinking as my family and I were listening to the long-winded audio tour of the famous Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg, PA. I bought the condensed version, but it was way too much information for our needs. We sat in the car for ten minutes at Stop #1, then Stop #2; by stop #8 we abandoned the man on the CD. It was getting dark, and we wanted to finish our tour – on to Devil’s Den, and the Peach Orchard, and the Eisnehour Farm. We were very disappointed in the …

What’s the best way to recover from a huge mistake? The most recent example is Kanye West grabbing the microphone from Taylor Swift at the Video Music Awards and blurting out that Beyonce’ really should have won the award. Kanye’s reputation instantly plummeted to negative numbers. What could he have done to redeem himself? What can you do the next time you make a really big mistake with a customer? This two-step guide will get you out of hot water every time. First apologize sincerely and immediately. Second, do something that will overwhelmingly delight …