Momophobia is the fear of speaking off the cuff (impromptu speaking)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an interesting little book from 2021 by John Koenig titled The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. One of them is momophobia, which he defines as:

 

“the fear of speaking off the cuff or from the heart; the terror of saying the wrong thing and having to watch someone’s smile fade as they realize you’re not who they thought you were.

 

Ancient Greek μῶμος (momos), blemish, disgrace + -φοβία (-phobía), fear. Momus was the Ancient Greek god of mockery and harsh criticism. Pronounced 'moh-muh-foh-bee-uh.' ”

 

As shown above (via a Venn diagram), this twenty-first-century fear is a subset of a twentieth-century fear - glossophobia. There are six other fears in the book with a -phobia suffix (nouns listed in alphabetical order):

 

antiophobia - page 116

a fear you sometimes experience while leaving a loved one, wondering if this will turn out to be the last time you’ll ever see them, and whatever slapdash good-bye you toss their way might have to serve as your final farewell.

 

apomakrymenophobia - page 91

fear that your connections with people are ultimately shallow, that although your relationships feel congenial at the time, an audit of your life would produce an emotional safety deposit box of low-interest holdings and uninvested windfall profits, which will indicate you were never really at risk of joy, sacrifice or loss.

 

fygophobia - page 145

the fear that your connections with people will keep dwindling as you get older; that one by one, you’ll all go flying off the merry-go-round in wildly different directions, sailing through various classes and jobs and interests, ultimately landing in far-flung neighborhoods where you’ll hunker down with your families plus a handful of confidants you see a few times a year, perpetually reassuring each other, “We should keep in touch.”

 

koinophobia - page 49

The fear that you’ve lived an ordinary life.

 

nachlophobia - page 91

the fear that your deepest connections with people are ultimately pretty shallow, that although your relationships feel congenial in the moment, an audit of your life would reveal a smattering of low-interest holdings and uninvested windfall profits, which will indicate you were never really at risk of joy, sacrifice, or loss.

 

The description for this fear closely resembles the description for apomakrymenophobia.  

 

nodrophobia - page 241

the fear of irrevocable actions and irreversible processes—knowing that a colorful shirt will fade a little more with every wash, that your tooth enamel is wearing away molecule by molecule, never to grow back.

 

The word momophobia seems to first have appeared in a 2005 magazine article by Elaine Roth in the Quarterly Review of Film and Video (Volume 22, issue 2) titled Momophobia: Incapacitated Mothers and Their Adult Children in 1990s Films.

 

A ludicrously overstated claim that Chapman University found 91% of Americans fear public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Jannik Linder at Gitnux on July 17, 2024 titled Statistics reveal widespread public speaking fear among individuals globally which contains a claim that:

 

“91% of Americans fear public speaking, according to a Chapman University study.”

 

But that is nonsense. Annually (except for 2020) from 2014 to 2023 Chapman University did their Chapman Survey of American Fears. They asked a random sample of U. S. adults about their fears at four levels: Not Afraid, Slightly Afraid, Afraid, and Very Afraid. In their press releases they reported the sum of percentages for Very Afraid and Afraid, as is shown above on a bar chart. Those nine values ranged from 23.3% (2017) to 34% (2022) with a mean of 27.9%. The claimed 91% is more than three times too high!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What if we added the percent for Slightly Afraid? On October 23, 2023 I blogged about What do American adults fear at some level? Results for the Grand Sum of Very Afraid + Afraid + Slightly Afraid levels (everything but the kitchen sink) in the ninth 2023 Chapman Survey of American Fears. Public speaking was ranked #44 at 65.0%. Results for all nine surveys are shown above in a second bar chart. They range from 57.9% (2017) to 69.2% (2022) with a mean of 62%. Compared with the mean, that 91% is 29% too high!

  

Another problem with this article is that although there is a long list of references they only contains links to home pages, like one for Chapman University.

 

In this article there also is a claim that:

 

“77% of people have anxiety about public speaking.”

 

On October 12, 2020 I blogged about Do 77% of Americans fear public speaking? No! That percentage described stage fright in Swedes who also had social anxiety disorder.

 

There is a second article, also by Jannik Linder at Gitnux and from July 17, 2024 titled New findings reveal staggering public speaking fears statistics impact globally. It doesn’t have the 91% claim, but does say:  

 

“Public speaking is the number one fear for 25.3% of people.”

 

If you look at my first bar chart, then you will see that this percentage really is a result from the 2014 Chapman Survey of American Fears!

 

Five pros and five cons of joining Toastmasters International

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Castanet on July 22, 2024 there is a balanced article by Wade Paterson titled The pros and cons of Toastmasters. It is accompanied by a 13–1/ 2 minute YouTube video titled BEST and WORST Things About TOASTMASTERS. Wade is from Kelowna in southeast British Columbia and has been a Toastmasters member for a decade.

 

His five pros are:

 

1] The constant practice

2] Constructive feedback

3] Reduction of speaking anxiety

4] Affordable cost

5] Leadership and development opportunities

 

His five cons are:    

 

1} You can get too comfortable

2} Limitations/formalities

3} Inconsistent feedback

4} It’s not free

5} The repetitiveness

 

The cost is indeed quite affordable. International dues are just U.S. $10 per month. Semi-annual international dues are U.S. $60, with a new member fee of U.S. $20. There also possibly are club dues to cover items like supplies and rental of a venue.   

 

Under You can get too comfortable, at 12:10 in the video Wade says: 

 

“We know that Toastmasters is always five to seven minutes.”

 

That is not quite true. At Level 4 in the Pathways educational program there is an elective project titled Question-And-Answer Session (Item 8413) where the speech and the question-and-answer session together must take 15 to 20 minutes.

 

And at Level 5 there is a project titled Prepare to Speak Professionally (Item 8509) that calls for an 18-to-22-minute keynote-style speech. It is required in the Presentation Mastery path, and is an elective in the other ten paths.

 

Lessons in storytelling from Jon Favreau - Barack Obama’s speechwriter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three lessons are described by Jonathan Edward Favreau in his BKB lecture given in Amsterdam on September 14, 2014:

 

“Now, when I first started speechwriting, I would always start by asking myself, ‘What’s the clever line? What’s the snappy soundbite? What’s the most unique, catchy, memorable thing I can write?’

 

The President taught me that really, those are the wrong questions to ask, and trying too hard to answer them can produce writing that sounds forced, artificial, and too cute by half. If you’re only focused on lines and soundbites, you can easily miss the forest for the trees.

 

The correct first question to ask is, ‘What’s the story I’m trying to tell?’ I’m not talking about the interesting anecdotes we often use to humanize a speech – though those are important too. I’m talking about knowing your central theme and core message. I’m talking about building a speech with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Whether you’re into outlines or not – and I’m not – you should always be able to sum up your entire speech in a few very conversational sentences before you start writing it. And later, if you find yourself adding words that don’t directly build on that initial, central summary, go ahead and delete them.

 

So that’s the first lesson I learned from the President – the importance of telling a short, simple, compelling story about what you want to say.

 

The second valuable lesson I learned from the President was about the importance of honesty and authenticity in writing and communications.

 

….And this brings me to the final major lesson I learned from the President – storytelling is fundamentally about maintaining your idealism.”   

 

Another five topic headings are described by Steve Seager in an excellent article at Medium on June 1, 2017 titled How to Become a Better Storyteller: Tips from Obama’s Speechwriter, Unpacked. They also are in a .pdf at with the same title at Storywise:

 

Outcome first, words last

Structure a logical argument

Test your argument from your audience’s point of view

Use their language, not yours

And so, to Storytelling

 

There is a 2021 HBO documentary series titled Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union. For it there is a long interview of Jon Favreau with the Kunhardt Film Foundation, that can be read here as a 29-page .pdf file.

 

An image of a man with a laptop computer was adapted from Openclipart.

 

Celebrating 2,700 blog posts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the beginning of July I passed a milestone of having made 2,700 posts on this blog. The graphic shown above has nine groups of 300 stars, arranged in a 20 x 15 pattern. Back on July 12, 2023 I had blogged about Celebrating having published 2500 blog posts.

 

The Top Five posts of all time now are:

 

23,600 views - October 27, 2009: The 14 Worst Human Fears inthe 1977 Book of Lists: where did this data come from?

 

22,000 views - July 5, 2009: Two types of speech outlines:speaking and preparation

 

15,900 views - February 6, 2019: Is flap-chart a racist term?

 

8,600 views - December 29, 2011: How can you easily draw dotted chalk lines on a blackboard?

 

6,370 views - December 11, 2009: Does homeopathic Argentum nitricum reduce anxiety?

 

Curiously three of them have come from way back in 2009.

 

Being a tour guide can make you a better speaker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In her The Master Communicator Blog on July 15, 2024 Rosemary Ravinal has a post titled How tour guiding can make you a better speaker. She says to do a half-dozen things:

 

Tell unforgettable stories

Delight diverse audiences

Build confidence

Improve non-verbal communication

Find your unique style

Handle questions with grace

 

An article by Karen Friedman on January 3, 2024 titled What business communicators can learn from tour guides discussed the topics of having a connection, being memorable, being engaging, using differentiation and creating trust.

 

There also is another article about tour guides by Barnaby Davies on pages 22 to 24 in the December 2018 issue of Toastmaster magazine titled Entertaining Travelers Around the World.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do these three items have in common? They all ignore the broader jargon for describing a tour guide. Back on December 19, 2010 I blogged about Heritage interpretation and public speaking. Interpreters are people who explain natural or cultural resources to visitors at places like parks, nature centers, museums, zoos, botanical gardens, aquariums, and tour companies. As shown above via a Venn diagram, a tour guide is at the intersection of public speaking and heritage interpretation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you search under heritage interpretation, you will find there are organizations with much useful information. In the U.S. there is the National Association for Interpretation (NAI), which publishes two magazines, Legacy and the Journal of Interpretation Research. Most articles and issues are at their web site and for members only. There is a long article by Marc J. Stern and Robert B. Powell in the Journal of Interpretation Research for 2013 (Volume 18, number 2 pages 9 to 44) titled What leads to better visitor outcomes in live interpretation? For it they surveyed 3,603 visitors from 312 live interpretive programs at U. S. National Parks. As shown above, Figure 1 describes fifteen best practices.

 

Interpretation Canada (IC) has an eighty-page 2015 book titled The Interpreter’s Big Book of Disasters. Their IC blog has a post by Munju Ravindra on June 12, 2019 titled IC Blog: Lessons from the Interpreter’s Book of Disasters: Intertidal Stranding. On July 3, 2024 I blogged about how A public speaker can tell us a story about being in a seemingly dangerous place. But a heritage interpreter can actually take us there.

 

Interpret Europe has a forty-page ebook by Thorsten Ludwig titled The Interpretive Guide – Sharing Heritage with People (2nd edition, 2015).

 

An image showing a tour guide and wall painting came from 3DeyeNET at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Juliana Turchetti crashed and died while fighting a Montana wildland fire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 9, 2020 I blogged about how Fighting wildfires from the air is dangerous. An article by Kelly Anderson at Fire Aviation on July 11, 2024 titled SEAT crashes in Montana reservoir described how a single engine air tanker (SEAT) flown by Brazilian pilot Juliana Turchetti, age 45, crashed on July 10, 2024 near Helena.

 

As shown above, she was flying an Air Tractor AT-802F FireBoss, which is a twin-float water bomber plane that can scoop water from a lake. Her LinkedIn page shows her in a FireBoss. There is another article by Jackie Coffin at Yellowstone Public Radio on July 11, 2024 titled Coroner identifies FireBoss pilot killed fighting Horse Gulch Fire.

 

The image of a FireBoss was adapted from this one by Agesch at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Making fine distinctions: Using the right word versus the almost-right word

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Twain once said:

 

“The difference between the almost-right word & the right word is really a large matter - it’s the difference between the lightning-bug & the lightning.”

 

At the Boise Public Library I got an excellent, little, two-hundred page, 2024 book by Eli Burnstein titled Dictionary of Fine Distinctions: Nuances, Niceties, and Subtle Shades of Meaning. It has a long subtitle, An Assorted Synonymy & Encyclopedia of Commonly Confused Objects, Ideas & Words, Distinguished with the Aid of illustrations [line drawings by Liana Finck]. I’m enjoying learning about those distinctions.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above via my illustration, page 179 distinguishes between poisonous and venomous, which also is shown on the cover, as seen in an excerpt at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. And page 16 distinguishes between ethics and morality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the distinctions are best shown via Venn diagrams, like page 173 where canapes are a subset of hors d’oeuvres, and on page 32 comparing how other types of numbers fit inside real numbers.

 

Images of canapes, hors d’oeuvres, and a death cap mushroom came from Wikimedia Commons. The snake was adapted from an image at Openclipart. From Andrew Comstock’s 1846 book, A System of Elocution, I got the images for ethics (page 88 #32) and morality (page 90 #43).  

 

Where were you on September 16, 1963, when The Outer Limits first was shown on television?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will never forget precisely where I was. My four siblings and I were sitting in our TV room, next to the kitchen. The front had our 17” 1950 black-and-white television set, while the back had a long sleeper sofa. The television picture had started to flutter and roll vertically, as usual for after about ten minutes.

 

One of my brothers got up from the sofa and started walking over to the set to fix it. Then he got startled, and jumped straight up into the air when he heard the Control Voice first begin reciting the following introductory message for The Outer Limits:

 

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to - The Outer Limits.”

 

The best-known episode was Demon with a Glass Hand, which you can watch here on YouTube.

 

Over the Fourth of July holiday a local TV station had a Twilight Zone marathon, which reminded me of The Outer Limits.

 

The TV set image came from Openclipart.

 

 

Marjorie Taylor Greene was mocked by historians over her claim about who signed the Declaration of Independence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conservatives love preaching to us about the Founding Fathers. For Independence Day, Far-right Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted (Xed):

 

“The average age of the signers of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 was 44 years old, but more than a dozen were 35 or younger:

Thomas Jefferson: 33

John Hancock: 39

James Madison: 25

Alexander Hamilton: 21

James Monroe: 18

Aaron Burr: 20

Paul Revere: 41

George Washington: 44.”

 

But only Jefferson and Hancock actually signed the document. The other six didn’t. And why didn’t she list them all? An article by Talia Jane at the The New Republic on July 8, 2024 is titled

Marjorie Taylor Greene Roasted After Flunking Basic History Lesson. And another article by James Bickerton at Newsweek on July 10, 2024 is titled Marjorie Taylor Greene Trashed by Historians over Independence Declaration Claim.

 

There is a web page at the National Archives titled Signers of the Declaration of Independence that lists ages (and occupations) for all 56 signers. Their mean age is 44.52. Thirteen were 35 or younger, as Marjorie claimed:

 

Samuel Chase: 35

Elbridge Gerry: 32

Thomas Heyward Jr.: 30

William Hooper: 34

Thomas Jefferson: 33

Thomas Lynch Jr.: 26

Arthur Middleton: 34

William Paca: 35

Dr. Benjamin Rush: 30

Edward Rutledge: 26

Thomas Stone: 33

George Walton: 35

James Wilson: 33

 

Divided into ten-year ranges, and listed alphabetically they are as follows:

 

25 to 34: 10

Elbridge Gerry: 32

Thomas Hayward Jr.: 30

Willian Hooper: 34

Thomas Jefferson: 33

Thomas Lynch Jr.: 26

Arthur Middleton: 34

Dr. Benjamin Rush: 30

Edward Rutledge: 26

Thomas Stone: 33

James Wilson: 33

 

35 to 44: 18

John Adams: 40

Carter Braxton: 39

Charles Carroll of Carrolton: 38  

Samuel Chase: 35

George Clymer: 37

William Floyd: 41

Button Gwinnett: 41

John Hancock: 40

Francis Hopkinson:38

Francis Lightfoot Lee: 41

Richard Henry Lee: 44

Thomas McKean: 42

Robert Morris: 42

Thomas Nelson Jr.: 37

William Paca: 35

John Penn: 36

George Read: 42

George Walton: 35

 

45 to 54: 19

Samuel Adams: 53

Josiah Bartlett: 46

Abraham Clark: 50

William Ellery: 48

Lyman Hall: 52

Benjamin Harrison: 50

Joseph Hewes: 46

Samuel Huntington: 45

Lewis Morris: 50

John Morton: 52

Robert Treat Paine: 45

Caesar Rodney: 47

George Ross: 46

Robert Stockton: 45

William Whipple: 46

William Williams: 45

John Witherspoon: 53

Oliver Wolcott: 49

George Wythe: 50

 

55 to 64: 6

Francis Lewis: 63

Philip Livingston: 60

Roger Sherman: 55

James Smith: 57

George Taylor: 60

Matthew Thornton: 62

 

65 or more: 3

Benjamin Franklin: 70

John Hart: 65

Stephen Hopkins: 69

 

So 28 were aged 26 to 44, while the other 28 were aged 45 to 70.   

 

An image of the Declaration came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Grease versus Gunk in The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On July 5, 2024 I blogged about the Drawbacks of jargon monoxide (hollow and impenetrable babble). In that post I discussed Chapter 7 from the 2024 book by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao titled The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder. They describe how leaders can add grease to reduce friction and make it easier for desirable things to happen (as shown above). Leaders also can add gunk (sand) to increase friction and make it harder for other, undesirable things to happen.

 

There is a nine-page ChangeThis manifesto on January 31, 2024 adapted from the book, titled The Wisdom of Slowing Down. There also is an article (interview) with Robert Sutton at strategy+business on April 8, 2024 titled Jargon monoxide, friction fixers, and the meeting that could have been an email.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On page 243 of the book there is a table comparing how differently Grease People and Gunk People handle rules, risks, and monitoring. On page 244 there is a discussion of another article by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate on June 8, 2012 titled Chaos Theory: A Unified Theory of Muppet Types. She says people either are Chaos Muppets (corresponding to Grease People) or Order Muppets (corresponding to Gunk People). In the science fiction television series Babylon 5, there are two ancient races (First Ones) called Shadows (lords of chaos) and Vorlons (lords of order). They ask different questions when they meet people. I have modified that table as shown above.

 

The grease gun and sand bucket were adapted from images at Wikimedia Commons.

 

A prop can be as simple as a sheet of paper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a one-minute TikTok video from Nicole at TeachingLittleWonderz titled Teaching my students an important lesson using a piece of paper. John Zimmer wrote about it an article a at Manner of Speaking on January 3, 2023 titled The Power of a Prop. She crumples that sheet and says:

 

“I want you, and it’s going to sound silly, say something mean to this piece of paper. You look ugly. You smell bad. I hate you. You’re the worst one ever. You don’t deserve to be here. Now I want you to apologize. Everybody say sorry. Will this paper ever go back to the way it was when we first started? No. Right? It’s never going to go back to the way it was in the beginning.

 

And the reason I’m doing this with you today is because this week we’re talking all about how our words and our actions affect other people. Your words affect people so much, even after you leave them, even after you say sorry. They can stay inside that person for a really long time. So, we need to think about how our words and the things that we’re saying to each other are affecting each other. And that’s why it’s important that we use nice, kind words.”     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And back on August 22, 2008 in a post titled Give ‘em props I said that:

 

“Ellen Hermens describes a speaker who just placed a paper circle on the floor and stood on it to show that ‘this is my point of view’. Then he stepped away and took a critical look at that point of view from another angle.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You also could fold that sheet of paper to make an airplane or an origami crane, as shown above.

 

Chapter 37 of the Advanced Public Speaking book by Lynn Meade is titled Props: It is more than just setting stuff on a table. There are 16 embedded videos and 23 references!

 

Images of a paper airplane and origami crane came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

The magic of reading books – stories told by librarians and booksellers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the new books shelves at my friendly, local public library I just found the 2024 book by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann titled The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading. I have been enjoying that collection of about sixty brief stories. Here are two examples.

 

Lorrie Roussin is a librarian at Luna Middle School, in San Antonio, Texas. There is an story by her starting on page 11 (in the preview at Google Books). Pages 15 and 16 say:

 

“ ‘Ms. Roussin! Ms. Roussin, Ms. Roussin, Come here!’

 

The student storms into the library, calling for me at the top of her lungs. ‘Ms. Roussin, you’ve got to come here!’

 

What did I do? This is the same girl who came to me a few days ago, reluctantly looking for a book to read for class. I’d handed her All American Boys, by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely.

 

She stands in front of me, still worked up. ‘Ms. Roussin, this is the first book I’ve read that had me in it.’ It just blew her away.

 

The same thing happens with another student. Over the Thanksgiving break, he takes home a stack of books, including All American Boys.

 

‘Ms. Roussin,’ he declares when he returns, ‘I read this book. Then my brother read this book. And then my mother read this book. And then my grandmother read this book. And now she says she’s going to by me all of this author’s books.’

 

There’s no better feeling than knowing I helped make this connection, not only for my student, but for his entire family.”

 

The Wikipedia article about Jason Reynolds says of All American Boys that:

 

“The book depicts a black teenager assaulted in a convenience store by a white police officer who wrongly suspects him of stealing. The book is written in two voices, with Reynolds writing from the point of view of the teenaged victim, Rashad Butler, in a hospital bed, while Kiely wrote the character Quinn Collins, a white teenager and family friend of the police officer, who witnessed the violent attack.”

 

Susan Kehoe is the owner of Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Her story starting on page 29 says:

 

“ ‘It’s great that you love books and want to work at a bookstore,’ I tell the potential employee sitting across from me. ‘But do you also like to clean toilets?’

 

It’s a valid question.

 

People always say they’d love to open a bookstore or work in one because they have this romantic notion of walking around all day with their nose in a book or sitting in a big, overstuffed chair drinking tea and talking about Dickens.

 

That’s not the reality. Part of the job is dealing with unexpected problems like clogged toilets and other little disasters that happen every day at the store – like sweeping sand.

 

A lot of sand.

 

Browseabout Books is located a block and a half from the ocean, in the middle of a mile-long boardwalk. In the summer months, we have a constant influx of sand. People coming up from the beach wearing bathing suits and bikinis are covered with it – and, when making purchases, they pull moist money from strange places.

 

Our 13,000 square-foot store attracts a mix of locals and tourists. In addition to books and menu items from a small café, we sell a little bit of everything – toys, games, even stationery. Working with an artist, we’ve created a line of jigsaw puzzles and other higher-end, gift-quality items that people want to take home with them. We’re big on changing up merchandise because we want everyone who comes into the store to have a unique experience.

 

But books are the heart of what we do, and books offer a way to escape reality and immerse the reader in another world. There are millions and millions of books out there, and people keep returning to the store because they trust our recommendations.

 

Especially those for kids. Everyone says kids don’t read anymore, which I don’t find to be true. We have so many enthusiastic kids leaving the store with stacks of books. They’re staring at computer screens all day long, so having a physical book in their hands, I think, allows them an escape.

 

I love it when a parent comes back and says, ‘My kid wasn’t a reader, but you guys suggested a book, and I gave it to him, and he hasn’t stopped reading. It’s like this whole new world has opened up for him.’

 

Knowing we can literally change someone’s life is pretty cool.

 

And it never gets old.

 

….We’re well known in beach-reading circles. Elin Hilderbrand, the bestselling author and ‘queen of beach reads,’ is a store favorite. I felt like we made it when she gave us a little name drop in her book Golden Girl – her main character, an author, mentions starting her book tour at Browseabout Books.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back in high school I found a life-changing little book by George Polya titled How to Solve It: a system of thinking which can help you solve any problem. It gave me a whole new intellectual toolbox – which I used in my careers in applied research and engineering consulting.

 

The toolbox cartoon came from Openclipart.