Misinterpreting what an audience member in the front row was doing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful 2026 book by Michael Lynton and Joshua L. Steiner titled From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning your past so it doesn’t own you. Google Books has a preview. They describe a worst moment where a speaker misinterpreted what an audience member in the front row actually was doing:

 

Chapter 6: The Front Row, pages 81 and 82

 

“Tony Schwartz works with leaders around the world to help them manage their energy by better understanding what’s in their way physically, emotionally, and mentally. Through books, speeches, leadership programs, and consultations he provides insights into what internally blocks us and the stories we tell ourselves when challenged. For all the passion he brings to his subject, Tony’s demeanor and success make him the kind of person you would not expect to lose his cool in front of an audience.

 

Many years ago, a company asked Tony to speak to a group of high-potential young leaders about the power of absorbed attention, and the myth that multitasking increases efficiency. As Tony paced the front of the room and scanned the audience, he saw heads nodding and basked in the mix of appreciation and laughter. Everyone seemed engaged.

 

Everyone except one young man in the front row who avidly scribbled on his phone. Worse still, Tony noticed that the man wore earphones and occasionally seemed to be mouthing words. Tony assumed that the man was catching up on emails or texts. Perhaps he was even listening to music – and singing along silently as he did. As much as Tony tried to focus on his talk, he felt himself getting more and more upset.

 

Finally, and impatiently, he walked over to the man and grabbed the phone out of his hand. As Tony held it up to the audience, he said, ‘This is exactly the problem I’m talking about. It’s not possible to do two things at the same time.’

 

Tony and the man locked eyes. To Tony’s surprise, he noticed that the man seemed remarkably unembarrassed.

 

‘Why don’t you take a look at what’s on the screen?’ he said calmly. Tony looked down at the phone, only to find nearly verbatim notes of his speech.

 

‘So, what about the earphones?’ Tony asked.

 

The man hesitated. ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

 

‘Yes,’ Tony heard himself reply sheepishly, instantly realizing that he should have cut his losses.

 

‘Well, I served in the military. On my last tour in Afghanistan, I led a scouting mission with my troops along a road. While we rested, I bent down behind a tank to tie my boots. Just as I did, one of my soldiers stepped on an IED. It exploded, killing him instantly, and injuring several other soldiers. I didn’t get injured because I was behind the tank, but the explosion pierced my eardrums and left me hard of hearing. I’m wearing hearing aids, and I also read lips.’

 

Tony felt a sickening wave of embarrassment wash away the positive energy that had animated the first part of his talk, He apologized.

 

So, what exactly went wrong?

 

For starters, it’s not great to grab anyone’s phone, and particularly not for an experienced speaker to do it in front of a large audience.”  

 

The cartoon was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

A half-dozen brief articles about networking in Toastmaster magazine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fairly recently there have been a half-dozen brief and useful articles about networking in Toastmaster magazine. 

 

One by Maureen Zappala on pages 22 to 25 in the June 2019 issue is titled Building Meaningful Connections: Techniques to try when networking. 

 

A second by Victor David on pages 24 and 25 in the March 2022 issue is titled How to Network Like a Pro: Use your Toastmasters training to make a connection. 

 

And a third also by Victor David on pages 18 and 19 in the December 2022 issue is titled Next-Step Networking: How to develop meaningful and useful connections with new contacts. 

 

A fourth by Shannon Dewey on a web page in the July 2023 issue (but not the .pdf for the entire issue) is titled Be Confident in Casual Conversations: Talk to anyone, anywhere with these tips from the Toastmaster. 

 

A fifth by Jennifer L. Blanck on pages 24 and 25 in the April 2024 issue is titled Preparing for Successful Networking: Take these steps to build your connections. 

 

And a sixth by Matt Abrahams on page 6 in the May 2026 issue is titled Quick Networking Tips: How to calm your nerves before connecting with others.

 

 

Are 99% of people more terrified of public speaking than death?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course not! But there is a three-minute YouTube video by imlaunchguru on August 9, 2026 (featuring Trevor Ambrose) and titled 99% of People Are More Terrified Of Public Speaking Than Death. Here’s How To Beat It in 30 Days.

 

I blogged about a similarly outrageous claim (lacking any backing via surveys) in a post on February 7, 2017 titled Bursting a hilariously overblown claim that 99% of the world fears public speaking. And there was another even worse one in another post on May 21, 2017 titled The most arrogantly overblown statement about fear of public speaking. That one had said:

 

“99% of the population is afraid of public speaking, and of the remaining 1%, 99% of them have nothing original and interesting to say.”

 

 

Figures are an important part of scientific ‘show and tell’

 

 

 

 

  

There is a brief article by Julija Hmeljak and Kirsty Cooper in Disease Models & Mechanisms magazine on November 8, 2023 titled The importance of figures in scientific ‘show and tell’. Its topic mostly is articles for magazines, but it also will be useful for preparing speeches. Eight tips and tricks are discussed in Box 1 and can be paraphrased as follows:

 

Structure graphics logically. Keep in mind that each figure tells a story. Make information flow logically by using a left-to right and top-to -bottom arrangement. Avoid arranging in a circle - unless you are showing a cycle or presenting a mind map (spider diagram).

 

Help readers perceive the graphic structure by using a clear hierarchy in your text. Use larger and/or bold font for headings and sub-headings. Bold is preferable to underlining.

 

Your fonts should be large enough to be easily read and have good contrast with the background.

 

Avoid overcrowding your images, and remove unnecessary details.

 

Minimize text, and include recognizable landmarks.

Use colors mindfully. Use the same color to group objects or show relationships, and use different shapes to distinguish individual elements.

Beware of red-green and blue-yellow color combinations which can confuse the color blind.

Be consistent within and between figures.

An image was cropped from OpenClipArt.

 

 

Living your life sideways - The joy of orthogonality

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

The Wikipedia page for Orthogonality says that:

 

“In mathematics, orthogonality is the generalization of the geometric notion of perpendicularity. Although many authors use the two terms perpendicular and orthogonal interchangeably, the term perpendicular is more specifically used for lines and planes that intersect to form a right angle, whereas orthogonal is used in generalizations, such as orthogonal vectors or orthogonal curves.”

 

There is an interesting 2026 book by Ian Bogost titled The Small Stuff: How to lead a more gratifying life. A Google Books preview from it goes through page 27. The book has the following sections and chapters:

 

Preface: What If Contentment Were Easy?

 

The Sensory Enchantment of Everyday Life

C01 The Small Stuff 7

C02 Happiness, Satisfaction, Gratification 20

C03 The Problem with Marshmallows 28

 

How You Got Dematerialized

C04 The Decline of Sensory Life 43

C05 Why You Can’t Open Doors 50

C06 You Can’t Control What You Do Not Own 58

C07 Working Anywhere Means Working Nowhere 66

C08 Every Place Is the Same Now 75

C09 Adrift in the Data Sea 83

C10 Automated Away 92

 

The Path Back to Gratification

C11 Reclaiming Sensory Life 105

C12 Heap Wonder on Everything 115

C13 Get a Haircut Every Day 126

C14 Talk About Anything 137

C15 Keep Some Junk Around 147

C16 Live Your Life Sideways 155

C17 Spend Your Day in Its Moments 164

 

Conclusion: Build a Relationship with Everything 177

 

In Chapter 16, Live Your Life Sideways, Ian says on page 157:

 

“A concept from mathematics, which my colleagues in engineering, computer science, and even game design have borrowed, can help explain that feeling and offer lessons for applying it to gratification in your downtime. The idea is called orthogonality, and its just a fancy name for a perpendicular – such as a line intersecting another at a ninety-degree angle. Applied to more concrete domains than geometry, one thing is orthogonal to something else when it contains distinct elements that complement but do not interfere with those of the other.

 

Consider the difference between chess and checkers. Both games are played on the same grid. In checkers, every piece moves in an identical way, forward in a diagonal. Even when you ‘king’ a checker by reaching the other side of the board, it still moves in the same way, just backward, too. But in chess, the pieces move in varied ways. Pawns and rooks can both move forward, but rooks can move forward as much as they want, until reaching an obstacle. Bishops can move diagonally. And knights move in that distinctive, L-shaped way -they can also jump over pieces.

 

The relationships between the different chess pieces are orthogonal. Rooks and pawns move along one axis, bishops along another one, the queen and king across both, and the knights according to a different logic entirely. The combination of all these creates the strategic depth that characterizes chess. Whether it is a better game than checkers is not the point; rather, orthogonality makes chess feel bigger, richer, and more complex.

 

Orthogonality can help explain all sorts of phenomena, even some that are not deliberately designed to be orthogonal. Fashion works well when it is orthogonal. If you want to look good but vary your dress for different styles, seasons, and situations, then you want a supply of separates and accessories that you can combine in creative ways. You can dress down a pair of jeans with a T-shirt and sneakers or dress it up with a shirt or blouse and a jacket or sweater, along with a pair of pumps, boots, or loafers. Capsule wardrobes, which first became popular in the 1970s, have been revived as a way to mix and match more easily, economically, and ecologically. Capsule outfits are composed of core pieces, often in neutral tones, that can be worn alongside colorful or style-specific accents.

 

Food, too, benefits from orthogonality. Sweet things are beneficially offset by saltiness; fatty ones by the freshness of citrus. A gooey or wobbly dish such as flan is improved by a complementary crunchy element, such as a shard of toffee. Delightful though a schnitzel or a steak might be, their brownness benefits from accompaniment by creamy white mashed potatoes and a forest of green asparagus. Contrast is good. A thing is better alongside its complement. Your life is better when it includes a version of itself done sideways.”

 

Page 161

“….Othogonality – the art of living your life sideways – is not meant to create hard rules or unbreakable guidelines. As you search for gratifying complements in your life, focus less on the output of the practices you undertake than on the moment-to-moment experience of doing them. That’s where orthogonality lives, in the sensory encounters, not in the work or leisure itself.” 

 

 

 

Having 17.5% of kindergartners in Idaho opting out of vaccinations is not a victory, instead it is a tragedy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an awful article by Sarah Clendenon at the Idaho Freedom Foundation on September 3, 2026 titled Victory! Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Work in Medical Freedom Shows Nearly 1/5th of Kindergartners Opt-Out of Vaccinations, per CDC. (There also is a brief YouTube video titled Idaho leads the nation in vaccine exemptions!)

 

Why? The Wikipedia page on Herd Immunity says that for measles a threshold of 92 to 94% is needed. Look at the map of which states have various vaccination rates (shown above) from a September 4, 2026 CDC web page about Measles Cases and Outbreaks. Just 11 states have over 95%, 20 states have 90 to 94%, 18 states have less than 90%, and data for the remaining two were not available. Idaho already has less than 90%. We don’t have herd immunity now, and things probably will get worse.

 

The sixth paragraph of the Freedom Foundation article claims:

 

“Measles is a mild, short-term infection. Contracting it naturally creates true, lifelong immunity. This is why our grandparents were all exposed and recovered easily in about 7 to 10 days.” 

 

An article by Jamie Hansen at the Stanford Medicine News Center on May 12, 2025 titled Five things to know about measles, and its risk to the young and old says to the contrary that:

 

“During the current U.S. measles outbreak, nearly one in five children under 5 with measles has been hospitalized.”

 

The about web page for the Idaho Freedom Foundation reveals that Sarah Clendenon also is the Director of Legislative Affairs at another dubious organization, Health Freedom Idaho. It says her education background is not medical, rather it:

 

“…includes an Associate's Degree in Criminal Justice Administration and Bachelor Degree work in Public Law and Political Philosophy at Boise State University.”

 

To learn more about measles, we instead should look at an article by Steven Novella at Science-Based Medicine on May 6, 2026 titled Measles Surging As Vaccine Rates Drop. There also is a four-page article by Diego R. Hijano, Walter A. Orenstein, and Carlos R. Oliviera in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society for October 17, 2025 titled Measles Resurgence and the Fragility of Herd Immunity: Implications for Pediatric Infectious Disease Practice. Figure 1 has another map showing both vaccination rates and case counts, including a county map for Texas.

 

And there is still another article by Kevin Richert at IdahoEdNews on July 30, 2026 titled ‘A concern, but not a surprise:’ A resurgence of measles looms over Idaho schools.

 

 

Liquid stage fright and sticky stage fright are discussed in an interesting book from Sarah Ruhl titled Lessons from My Teachers

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, a poet, and a teacher (professor at the Yale School of Drama). In 2025 she published an interesting book of essays titled Lessons from My Teachers: From Preschool to the Present. One essay, on pages 116 to 118, is titled Stage fright and mothers and daughters:

 

“When she was six, my daughter Anna was invited to participate in a small violin recital in our friend’s apartment in our Brooklyn building. Anna waited her turn, walked to the front of the room, picked up her bow, played three notes, looked around, and froze. Then she fled the room, leaving her violin behind, and ran up two floors to our apartment, where she hid behind a chair. I ran up the stairs to follow her. Anna wouldn’t speak to me, but she wrote notes, which she passed to me from behind the chair.

 

After an hour, she emerged, and told me that there were two kinds of stage fright: sticky stage fright and liquid stage fright. She said, ’Liquid stage fright is when you feel scared before you go onstage, but once you begin to act, the fright falls off you like liquid.’

 

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘And what about sticky stage fright?’

 

‘Sticky stage fright,’ she said. ‘is when the fear stays on you in front of the audience and can’t be rubbed out.’

 

‘And you had sticky stage fright just now?’ I asked.

 

She nodded solemnly.

 

I guess sticky stage fright runs in my family. One time a theater threatened to put me on stage in my play Eurydice because the leading lady had vocal-rest issues and we had no understudy. I was the only one who knew the lines. I was beside myself with anxiety. Thankfully a shot of cortisol came at the right moment for our leading lady, and I did not have to go onstage.

 

My father often told us a story about his first piano recital, when he was playing ‘I Got Rhythm’ at the age of seven in Davenport, Iowa. He got onstage, played the first four notes, froze, and ran out of the room. His mother made him come back and apologize to the whole auditorium. Apparently, he never played the piano after that.

 

Stage fright is such a bizarre phenomenon; we do something quite happily without being watched, and then while being specifically watched, we cease to function. Before having children, my mother acted constantly in Chicago, no stage fright. After having children, she would go onstage and her heart would pound and she would feal clammy, like she was going to die. She learned later that these episodes were anxiety attacks. They kept her from the stage for a good fifteen years.

 

When I was twelve, we were about to go on a family trip to New York City on the train from Chicago to see theater and take in the sights. My mother longed to go to New York City and devour plays. But this time, when we arrived at Union Station in Chicago, about to board, my mom started hyperventilating. She sat down and breathed into a paper bag. Her heart pounded, and she felt like she was going to die. It was quickly determined that my father would take my sister on the trip, and I would stay home with my mother, her helpmeet. I gravitated toward the caretaker role even at that tender age. My mom and I ate brownies for breakfast, popcorn for lunch, and watched movies all day. I was a little wistful for Neew York City, imagining my sister roller-skating in Central Park. Now that I’m about my mother’s age, I wonder, more psychologically, what induced her panic attack en route to New York city. Was it that she was anxious to see the theater she probably wished she could have been acting in?  

 

I have a photograph of my mother from her college years, looking glamorous and joyful, visiting New York City, the lights of Broadway on her face. She would have loved to have lived and acted in New York City. When she married my father and moved to Chicago from Iowa, professional theater in Chicago was just beginning, and my mother acted in that fledgling scene with great excitement, doing the work of Megan Terry and Maria Irene Fornes, acting in plays that protested the Vietnam War.

 

She continued to act when we were little, but took a solid break from acting for a decade, because of stage fright. In retrospect, I wonder if she was having hormonally induced panic attacks during menopause; she never suffered from them after her fifties. She started acting professionally again in her seventies, never lacking for roles. No more sticky stage fright.

 

Sometimes mothers watch their daughters perform, but their daughters want privacy; and sometimes daughters want their mothers to perform bring brave.”

 

The cartoon was adapted from pouring coffee and a glue stick at OpenClipArt.  

 

 

Three joys that you can count on to bring you success

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On May 12, 2001 the Vice President of Boeing, Scott E. Carson, gave a speech at the Washington State University commencement titled Three Joys You Can Count On. The full text by the speechwriter, Andrew B. Wilson, is in a web page at Andrew B. Wilson Communications with that same title. He said:

 

“….What is the opposite of fear of the unknown, or fear of change?

 

You wouldn’t be wrong if you said ‘courage.’ But I am going to say ‘joy.’ Why joy? It matches up with fear of the unknown in the following ways: Where one denies, the other affirms; where one inhibits, the other inspires; where one contains, the other overflows.  

 

Here are the three joys that you can count on to bring you success in your future endeavors. They will never fail you or let you down in any way.

 

The first is joy in work. Whenever I read about some multimillionaire retiring at the age of 35, I shake my head in disbelief. Why would anyone in his right mind want to quit working? Work is, or ought to be a superior form of play – not only useful, but altogether stimulating and fun. I applaud the attitude of Isaac Asimov, the great science fiction writer, who had more than 500 books to his credit. ‘If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live,’ Asimov said, ‘I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.’

 

Next is joy in learning. Regardless of age, learning is always the key to improvement … the key to self-improvement and to the improvement of everything you touch. As the anthropologist Jacob Bronowski has written, ‘The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well and, having done it well, he loves to do it better.’

 

Third is joy in others, and this is absolutely essential to the other two. For instance, to experience the joy of learning, you must be open to and strongly interested in the ideas and thoughts of others. In much the same way, you will find no joy in work if you cannot communicate and cooperate with others. Nothing is worse than knowing engineering and only being able to talk with other engineers, or knowing accounting and only being able to talk with other accountants. To cause things to happen, you must learn to think and talk in the language of disciplines and professions other than your own.”

 

The smiley emoticons were adapted from this yellow one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

Radical Listening: The art of true connection is an interesting 2025 book

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an interesting 2025 book by Christian Van Nieuwerburgh and Robert Biswas-Diener titled Radical Listening: The art of true connection. There are six core skills in a framework: three each internal and external. As shown above, they are:

 

INTERNAL

Accepting

Noticing

Quieting

 

EXTERNAL

Acknowledging

Interjecting

Questioning

 

They also are discussed in an article by Christian Van Nieuwerburgh at The Conversation on June 30, 2025 titled Radical Listening: two big ideas and six core skills that could help you connect more deeply with others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there also is a Memory Aid for the six core skills at the end of the book, as shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, Mitigating Obstacles to Listening is discussed in Table 2.2., as shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And six categories for Listening In order to… are discussed above in Table 2.4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seven Levels of Acknowledgment are described in Figure 6.1. as shown above.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three categories of questions (closed, narrowing, and open-ended) are discussed in Table 7.1. as is shown above.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five types of interruptions are described above in a graph, Figure 8.1, on scales ranging from Polite to Rude and Small to Large.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helpful (cooperative) and Unhelpful (intrusive) Interruptions are discussed in Table 8.1

 

What is missing from this book? There is no discussion about history - where the phrase Radical Listening and concept came from. It goes back at least three decades to 1995. I found an article by Vicki Dickerson at Re-Authoring Teaching titled Radical Listening: An interview with Kaethe Weingarten [from 1999].

 

There also is a 2014 book by Katherine Morgaine and Moshoula Capous-Desyllas titled Anti-Oppressive Social Work Practice: Putting Theory into Action which has the following discussion on page 210:

 

“Radical Listening

 

Radical listening goes beyond reflexive listening. It requires inviting and attending to all aspects of a participant’s stories in order to understand the meanings they make of their life experiences (Weingarten, 1995). Radical listening recognizes the participants are experts in their own lives (Dewees, 2006).

 

According to Wood and Tully (G. Wood and C. Tully, The Structural Approach to Direct Practice in Social Work, A social constructivist approach, third edition, 2006), radical listening involves three skills:

 

Listening through social consciousness: being emotionally, mentally and physically responsive to the complexities of the participants’s life: taking a genuine interest in and seeking to understand their experiences through their intersecting identities.  

 

Attending: focusing entirely on what the other person is saying, as well as what they are not saying, from their subjective experiences in life.

 

Immersing: fully entering the space when you are with the participant. Immersion can also be described as entering a mental zone where you fully bring yourself to enter the participant’s world and deeply focus on their stories.”

 

There is another article at the University of Edinburgh Transitions and Mentoring Toolkit titled Active listening and radical listening that explains how:

 

“An extension of active listening is radical listening. Radical listening grew out of critical pedagogy and was first coined by [Joe L.] Kincheloe (2008).  It holds within it a deeply held desire to understand the speaker’s standpoints and axiological positions (Tobin, 2009).  That is, when listening, the speaker must try to not only hear intent, but hear the underlying assumptions, life experiences and values.

 

It repositions the listener as learner, as being a radical listener re-theorises teaching-learning spaces as multidimensional and heterogenous spaces with a possibility of transformation.  That is, even in cases where there is seemingly little to no shared experience or even a possible confrontation, the conversation is reframed as a field of listening and learning (Winchell et al, 2016), where both the speaker and listener try to learn about the other’s point of view and work together toward new understandings. 

 

While radical listening might sound complex, it is an approach that people can choose to take to conversations by listening for intent and remaining non-judgemental and humble.  This will create a space where both people are learning and developing together.” 

 

And there are more recent articles by Marlene Chism. There are two LinkedIn Pulse - one at February 14, 2018 at titled Radical Listening is an Act of Leadership Love and another on November 19, 2024 titled Radical Listening: A Leadership Superpower.

 

Also, there is another 2025 book by Patricia Plude and Kinari Webb titled The Art of Radical Listening: Revealing Collective Wisdom for Change, with an excerpt at Resilience.  

 

 

Useful Phrases for Speeches is a 22-page pdf guide from the Finnish Government

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a 22-page pdf guide dated May 22, 2025 from the Finnish Government that is titled Useful phrases for speeches. Thirteen categories include:

 

Opening your speech

Presenting your topic and outlining the structure of your speech

Presenting the main body of your speech

Summarising your ideas

Closing your speech

Using hedging phrases

Giving details or showing emphasis

Expressing point of view, agreement, or disagreement

Expressing cause or consequence

Giving examples or explanations and indicating importance

Comparing ideas or showing similarity

Expressing time or place

Quoting or referring to sources

 

References include an article from Smart Words about Transition Words, and the University of Manchester’s Academic Phrasebank.

 

And the Finnish Government also has a 2025, 128-page pdf English Style Guide: A handbook for translators, revisers, and authors of government texts.

 

The image of a Finnish man speaking was cropped and colorized from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

A very useful book by Greg Harden on how to Stay Sane in an Insane World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a very useful book from 2023 by Greg Harden titled Stay Sane in an Insane World: How to control the controllables and thrive. The book jacket blub says that:

 

Greg Harden is a Peak Performance Coach, motivational speaker, and executive consultant who is best known for his work with seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady. He also worked with Heisman Trophy and Super Bowl MVP Desmond Howard, and twenty-three time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps.”

 

One brief chapter is:

 

CHAPTER 32 FACING THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLIC SPEAKING (pages 176 and 177)

 

“What if I told you, you’re going to stand up in front of five hundred people tomorrow, and you’re going to speak to them for twenty minutes?

 

What are you feeling right now?

 

Are you sweating? Are your hands shaking? Do you have to change your pants?

 

The fancy Latin term for fear of public speaking is glossophobia, and I read somewhere that three out of four people suffer from it. So you’re not alone! But at some point in your life, you’re probably going to have to face it. And I have some concrete ideas to make it a lot easier.

 

Leah Robertson, a water polo player at Michigan had maybe the worst case of glossophobia I’ve ever seen. She was tall, attractive, and athletic, mind you – one of the best players on the team and an all-around fantastic person. But the thought of standing up in front of an audience at the end of the season was giving her nightmares.

 

The first thing I told her was that she needed to expect the demons of fear and self-doubt to show up that night. She wouldn’t be human if they didn’t.

 

And because those demons are predictable, they are therefore manageable. (I think you’ve probably heard me say this before.)

 

‘Expect them,’ I said, ‘and in fact embrace them. Shake their hands, tell them they’re a little late, tell them you don’t have time for them no. They can have a seat and you’ll be back with them when you’re done.’

 

Because, of course that’s what real courage is. Not the absence of fear, but proceeding with your business despite fear (‘Chapter 25: Fear, Courage, and ‘Buck Fever’).

 

Ultimately the challenge really has nothing to do with the audience at all. There’s probably nobody out there with a weapon to hurt you. In fact, every single person in that room wants you to do well. The challenge is completely inside your own head.

 

Which mean what?

It’s the one thing you can control.

CONTROL THE CONTROLLABLES.

 

If you need help doing that, here’s the best tip I can give you: Make sure that you have the first two minutes of what you’re going to say completely memorized, forward and backward. Own that first two minutes. Prepare it; learn it; practice it obsessively until it’s a part of you. Until you can recite it standing on your head.

 

Now, when you begin, you’ll have those first two minutes down cold. You’ll be flying on autopilot for 120 seconds. And you’ll see an amazing thing happen during that time:

 

You’ll relax. You’ll ease into yourself. You’ll see that the people in the room are with you, not against you.

 

(And then the next time you get up to speak inn front of a group of people, it’ll get even easier!)

 

Leah Robertson got up in front of that audience at the end of the season and sailed through those first two minutes, and then kept going. She’s a business owner now. She does public speaking all the time and never thinks twice about it.

 

Try this technique the next time you’re faced with the same challenge, and I am confident you’ll nail it!”

 

There is a succinct summary in the next-to-last chapter:

 

“CHAPTER 36  PLEASE REMEMBER THESE SEVEN THINGS (pages 188 and 89)

 

“I read in a psychology textbook that the human mind has just enough short-term memory to easily remember seven things, so as I near the close of this book, I’m going to give you exactly seven things to remember:

 

BECOME THE WORLD’S GREATEST EXPERT ON YOURSELF, so that you can become the very best version of yourself.

 

CONTROL THE CONTROLLABLES. Never forget that you are the only person who has control over your own mind – over your thoughts and ultimately over your feelings.

 

PRACTICE, TRAIN, AND REHEARSE giving 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. Because if you make this your mindset, then on your absolutely worst day, you’re still going to be better than the average person on their best day.

 

COMMIT, IMPROVE, MAINTAIN. Commit, right now, to improving your life. Make the changes, one at a time. Consistently maintain those changes, every single day.

 

STOP BEING AFRAID OF BEING AFRAID. The demons of fear and self-doubt are predictable, therefore manageable. Fear is a part of being human, and courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is facing fear.

 

PRACTICE SELF-LOVE AND SELF-ACCEPTANCE. They are the keys to replacing self-defeating attitudes and behaviors with self-supporting attitudes and behaviors.”

 

BECOME THE VERY BEST FRIEND YOU EVER HAD IN YOUR LIFE, because your very best friend has to be you.”  

 

The cartoon of madness was adapted from OpenClipArt.

 

 

Reaching my limit for meetings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a Savage Chickens cartoon by Doug Savage on September 4, 2026 titled My Limit and shown above. I previously blogged about two other cartoons of his on meetings: one on November 15, 2024 in a post titled Getting an award for surviving the most boring meeting ever and another on July 14, 2025 in a post titled Please don’t snore when you fall asleep at a meeting.

 

Seriously, there is some advice on meetings given by brief articles at Nonprofit World magazine. One by Erika Oliver on page 21 of the January/February 2012 issue is titled It’s Not Over till It’s Over: Five Strategies to Improve Your Meetings. A second by Steven G. Rogelberg on pages 18 and 19 of the March 2023 issue is titled The Surprising Science of Meetings. A third by Rick Horwath on pages 10 and 11 of the October/November/December 2024 issue is titled Follow These Steps for Better Meetings.

 

 

Whoever tells the best story wins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful 2023 book by Morgan Housel titled Same as Ever: A guide to what never changes. Google Books has a preview through page 18 and pages 21 to 25.

 

The first page about its contents is titled 23 Little Stories about Things That Never Change, and those stories and their starting pages are:

 

Introduction

The Little Laws of Life.  1

 

Hanging by a Thread

If you know where we’ve been you realize we have no idea where we’re going.  5

 

Risk Is What You Don’t See

We are very good at predicting the future, except for the surprises – which tend to be all that matters.  16

 

Expectations and Reality

The first rule of happiness is low expectations.  25

 

Wild Minds

People who think about the world in unique ways you like also think about the world in unique ways you won’t like.  36

 

Wild Numbers

People don’t want accuracy. They want certainty.  44

 

Best Story Wins

Stories are always more powerful than statistics.  56

 

Does Not Compute

The world is driven by forces that cannot be measured.  67

 

Calm Plants the Seeds of Crazy

Crazy doesn’t mean broken. Crazy is normal; beyond the point of crazy is normal.  78

 

Too Much, Too Soon, Too Fast

A good idea on steroids quickly becomes a terrible idea.  88

 

When the Magic Happens

Stress focuses your attention in ways that good times can’t.  96

 

Overnight Tragedies and Long-Term Miracles

Good news comes from compounding, which always takes time, but bad news comes from a loss in confidence or a catastrophic error that can occur in a blink of an eye.  109

 

Tiny and Magnificent

When little things compound into extraordinary things.  115

 

Elation and Despair

Progress requires optimism and pessimism to coexist.  122

 

Casualties of Perfection

There is a huge advantage to being a little imperfect. 129

 

It’s Supposed to Be Hard

Everything worth pursuing comes with a little pain. The trick is not minding that it hurts.  136

 

Keep Running

Most competitive advantages eventually die.  144

 

The Wonders of the Future

It always feels like we’re falling behind, and it’s easy to discount the potential of new technology.  152

 

Harder Than It Looks and Not as Fun as It Seems

‘The grass is always greener on the side that’s fertilized with bullshit.’  159

 

Incentives: The Most Powerful Force in the World

When the incentives are crazy, the behavior is crazy. People can be led to justify and defend nearly anything.  164

 

Now You Get It

Nothing is more persuasive than what you’ve experienced firsthand.  171

 

Time Horizons

Saying ‘I’m in it for the long run’ is a bit like standing at the base of Mount Everest, pointing to the top, and saying, ‘That’s where I’m heading.’ Well, that’s nice. Now comes the test.  178

 

Trying Too Hard

There are no points awarded for difficulty.  184

 

Wounds Heal, Scars Last

What have you experienced that I haven’t that makes you believe what you do? And would I think about the world like you do if I experienced what you have? 192

 

Chapter 6, Best Story Wins, says on page 56:

 

“The best story wins.

 

Not the best idea, or the right idea, or the most rational idea. Just whoever tells a story that catches people’s attention and gets them to nod their heads is the one who tends to be rewarded.

 

Great ideas explained poorly can go nowhere, while old or wrong ideas told compellingly can ignite a revolution. Morgan Freeman can narrate a grocery list and bring people to tears, while an inarticulate scientist might cure a disease and go unnoticed.

 

There is too much information in the world for everyone to calmly sift through the data, looking for the most rational, most correct answer. People are busy and emotional, and a good story is always more powerful and persuasive than ice-cold statistics.

 

If you have the right answer, you may or may not get ahead.

 

If you have the wrong answer, but you’re a good storyteller, you’ll probably get ahead (for a while).

 

If you have the right answer, and you’re a good storyteller, you’ll almost certainly

get ahead.

 

That’s always been true, always will be true, and it shows up in so many areas of history.

 

[and on page 63]…When a topic is complex, stories are like leverage.

 

Leverage squeezes the full potential out of something with less effort. Stories leverage ideas in the same way that debt leverages assets.

 

Trying to explain something like physics is hard if you’re deadlifting facts and formulas. But if you can explain things like how fire works with a story about balls rolling down hills and running into one another – that’s what physicist Richard Feynman, an astonishing storyteller, used to do – you can explain something complex in seconds, without much effort.

 

Stories do more than persuade others. They can help you just as much. Part of what made Albert Einstein so talented was his imagination and ability to distill complexity into a simple scene in his head. When he was sixteen he started imagining what it would be like to ride on a beam of light, holding onto the sides like a flying carpet and thinking through how it would travel and bend. Soon after, he imagined what your body would feel like if you were in an enclosed elevator riding through space. He contemplated gravity by imagining bowling balls and billiard balls competing for space on a trampoline surface. He could process a textbook of information with the effort of a daydream.

 

Ken Burns once said, ‘The common stories are one plus one equals two. We get it, they make sense. But good stories are about one plus one equals three.’ That’s leverage.”

 

An 1856 painting by Vincenzo Cabianca of a Napoleonic Legionnaire was cropped from Wikimedia Commons.