I would place Steve Jobs way up there in my list of powerful public speakers. I think Steve is somebody well worth study because his presentations are so powerful because of how much hard work he puts in to making them that great. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Barrack Obama are great speakers but somehow … Read more
The conclusion: it doesn’t matter how good the idea, it matters what the “buyer” thinks of you as a person in the first few seconds of your pitch. I have just read “How to Pitch a Brilliant idea” by Kimberly Elsbach in the Harvard Business Review. In 150 miliseconds a “buyer” will have categorized you … Read more
The brain: 3 pounds, you could hold it in the palm of your hand… but it can contemplate the vastness of the universe, the reason for its own existance or why I am writing this post at midnight when I need to be up at 5am tomorrow. How? There are 100 billion neurons in the … Read more
I came across the concept of Personal Branding via the blog of Dan Schwabel about 6 months ago and have been a regular reader of his blog. Some ideas have been percolating up through my unconsciousness and drifted into consciousness during a day skiing with my friend Javi. (Thanks to Ana, Piero and friends for … Read more
Yep, I have been watching more TED talks. This time… Daniel Pink. Thanks to Tim for the link. Daniel Pink describes a 1945 Karl Duncker social science experiment called the Candle Problem. Subjects are shown into a room and given the objects as seen in the image to the right and are asked to attach … Read more
Most days are much the same. However, great changes in our world don’t come from normal days – they are driven by the extreme events, the outliers. Something like 70% of all the drops in the US stock exchanges are due to 6 particular days of extreme share price drops. The course of my own … Read more
I am a regular user of Apple iTunes University. On the late night Aer Lingus flight over from Barcelona to Dublin yesterday, I was listening to Jeffrey Anderson of Regent University deliver a lecture on Persuasive Communication. I like his thinking on audience analysis. The 4 Types of Audience There are four types of audience, … Read more
Seth Godin asked a group of thought-provoking people to provide a word (and a 200 word essay) on what they’re thinking about as the new year rolls in. He’s turned that into a pdf called What Matters Now. Read more about the project at Seth’s blog. I have embedded a version of the document hosted … Read more
6 Reasons to Start Blogging Now “We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret” Jim Rohn Clarity of Thinking – It will force you to become a better thinker and get clear on your beliefs. It will force you to read to gather material. It will … Read more
I read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres when I was 23 years old. It changed an idea I had about life. This scared me. My Summary of the Book’s Story The book tells the story of an lieutenant that is stationed on a Greek Island as part of the Italian occupation during the second … Read more