The Ultimate Creativity-Sparker and Procrastinator-Killer

You might not be able to have something exactly like Michael Pollan's writing house, but it is worth your time to find something similar to it...








Here are some tips on how to get closer to Michael's recluse paradise:

1. Shut down your mass weapons of distraction.
Phone, email, Facebook, twitter, visitors, TV, web browsing, etc. These elements are designed to attract and control your attention. Unless you have the will power of a Supermonk, shut them off. Give your focus a fighting chance.

2. Find a physical location that has built-in distraction minimizers.
To achieve number one, you might need to do number two. Michael's Writing House works because of the recluse nature of the structure itself. It is physically removed from people, possibly Internet, etc. From the look of it, he pretty much has access to a handful of books, his laptop, a printer and oxygen. When I was in college, this was the fifth floor of the library. Your options are endless if you choose to seek them out: a restaurant, a library, a neighbor/friend's house, your backyard, the hood of your vehicle in the middle of a field, etc.

3. Surround yourself with sights, sounds and smells that inspire YOU.
I don't know, but I would venture to guess that Micheal is inspired by nature, especially since he is a green movement advocate. His Writing House is built of natural material and looks to be in the middle of Sherwood Forrest. These sights, sounds and smells are simply muse fuel. There might even be a certain time of day where he is most prolific. You need to do some self-evaluation and figure out what sights, sounds and smells most inspire you to be creative and/or ultra productive in solo projects. It might be in the middle of a bright, loud, and busy cafe or it could be in your grandma's dark, damp, and quiet basement.

American Dreamin'

There are three reasons why I have some (read: 48 out of 2,735 songs) Hip-Hop/Rap on my iPod...

1. I am a lover of all types of music.

2. Variety is the spice of life and sometimes the stuff is a welcome change to my normal Jack Johnson, George Strait, Michael Buble, AC/DC, Third Day rotation.

3. When it is done without a ton of garbage language or outright ignorant thinking, the artistry, storytelling and ninja-level lyrics are inspiring and highly entertaining.

Like Jay-Z's VH1 Storytellers episode. If you have VH1 or Palladia, watch for it and then watch it. You can also see clips on YouTube. He has a song called American Dreamin' on the episode that is elegantly written. Here is the best piece:

You're now in a game where only time can tell.
Survive the droughts. I wish you well.
Survive the droughts? I wish you well?
How sick am I? I wish you health.
I wish you wheels. I wish you wealth.
I wish you insight so you could see for yourself.

If you read the full lyrics, listen to the full song or even listen to the full album (American Gangster - available in digital download format on Amazon.com, but not iTunes), you will figure out quickly that the story here is about the movie American Gangster. I'm obviously not lifting up and celebrating the story itself - crime, drugs, etc. But the storytelling techniques of the VH1 show are undeniably intense. Its the type of watch that makes a communicator think about how you can tell your story using more visual, creative and intelligent resources.

Starting with the one between your ears and the two attached to your arms.

TED Conference Videos - Invaluable Resource!

If you are a teacher or professional trainer/speaker and don't know about TED, consider yourself informed...

TED is an annual conference in California. TED stands for Technology, Education and Design. Each speaker has only 18 minutes or less to tell about their innovative idea, their life's passion, the part they play in the world of technology, education or design.

BEST PART, their web site (www.TED.com) has hundreds of their speakers' videos in streaming or downloadable format. They are perfect for showing to your students or peers to reinforce your idea and/or enlighten their world. Even if you aren't teaching/speaking on their exact topic, they are all grounded in a ton of great leadership, creativity, education ideas/concepts.

Here are a few of my favorite...


Sir Ken Robinson - Creativity Expert

"Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."


Nalini Nadkarni - Tree Researcher

"Nalini Nadkarni has spent two decades climbing the trees of Costa Rica, Papua New Guinea, the Amazon and the Pacific Northwest, exploring the world of animals and plants that live in the canopy and never come down; and how this upper layer of the forest interacts with the world on the ground. A pioneering researcher in this area, Nadkarni created the Big Canopy Database to help researchers store and understand the rich trove of data she and others are uncovering."


Juan Enriquez - Futurist
"A broad thinker who studies the intersection of science, business and society, Juan Enriquez has a talent for bridging disciplines to build a coherent look ahead. Enriquez was the founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project, and has published widely on topics from the technical (global nucleotide data flow) to the sociological (gene research and national competitiveness), and was a member of Celera Genomics founder Craig Venter's marine-based team to collect genetic data from the world's oceans."


Elizabeth Gilbert - Writer

"Elizabeth Gilbert faced down a ­premidlife crisis by doing what we all secretly dream of – running off for a year. Her travels through Italy, India and Indonesia resulted in the megabestselling and deeply beloved memoir Eat, Pray, Love, about her process of finding herself by leaving home."



Bill Gates - Philanthropist

"Bill Gates is founder and former CEO of Microsoft. A geek icon, tech visionary and business trailblazer, Gates' leadership -- fueled by his long-held dream that millions might realize their potential through great software -- made Microsoft a personal computing powerhouse and a trendsetter in the Internet dawn. Whether you're a suit, chef, quant, artist, media maven, nurse or gamer, you've probably used a Microsoft product today."


Scott McCloud - Cartoonist

"If not for Scott McCloud, graphic novels and webcomics might be enjoying a more modest Renaissance. The flourishing of cartooning in the '90s and '00s, particularly comic-smithing on the web, can be traced back to his major writings on the comics form. The first, Understanding Comics, is translated into 13 languages, and along with Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, its playful and profound investigations are justly revered as something like the Poetics of sequential art."


Tim Brown - Designer

"Tim Brown is the CEO of Ideo, a design firm founded by David E. Kelley in 1991. Brown carries forward Ideo's mission of fusing design, business, and social studies to come up with deeply researched, deeply understood designs and ideas. Ideo is the kind of firm that companies turn to when they want a top-down rethink of a business or product -- from fast food conglomerates to high tech startups, hospitals to universities. Ideo has designed and prototyped everything from a life-saving portable defibrillator to the defining details at the groundbreaking Prada shop in Manhattan (IDEO designed those famous see-through dressing rooms)."


Jonathan Harris - Artist, Storyteller, Internet Anthropologist
"Brooklyn-based artist Jonathan Harris' work celebrates the world's diversity even as it illustrates the universal concerns of its occupants. His computer programs scour the Internet for unfiltered content, which his beautiful interfaces then organize to create coherence from the chaos."


Johnny Lee - Human-computer Interaction Researcher

"To understand Johnny Lee, just take a look at his personal Projects page. Aside from his Wii Remote hacks -- voted the #1 tech demo of all time by Digg -- you can see all the other places his mind has turned: typography, photography, urban renewal ... to say nothing of his interesting sideline in Little Great Ideas, like the hypnotic "___ will ___ you."


Jill Bolte Taylor -Neuroanatomist

"One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness..."


Raspyni Brothers - Jugglers

"The Raspyni Brothers' inventory of international championships, TV appearances and national tours may seem a lot to juggle, but then, Dan Holzman and Barry Friedman are jugglers by trade. Their waggish humor, irresistible stage presence and "panther-like reflexes" have turned these jesters from openers into the headline act."


Hans Rosling - Global Health Expert, Data Visionary

"Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling. A professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, his current work focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which (he points out) is no longer worlds away from the west. In fact, most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did."


Robert Ballard - Oceanographer
"From an early age, Robert Ballard was intrigued by the deep. He's perhaps best-known for his work in underwater archaeology; in addition to Titanic, he has found the wrecks of the Bismarck, the USS Yorktown, the nuclear sub Thresher (on a top-secret mission for the Navy -- for which the Titanic was his cover story) and John F. Kennedy's PT-109."

Is it Really Substance They Want?

The 72 Ounce Steak at the Big Texan in Amarillo, TX. The perfect example that more is not always better. Of course, if you can eat it with a shrimp cocktail, salad, baked potato and roll in under 60-minutes, its free.

I recently had a client give me feedback after a program that said they wanted more substance after a lunch keynote I did.

I replied and said I totally agree with how she is feeling and with how the program was structured. As a person with not a mild case of OCD, I wish we could cover every single angle of a concept, every action needed, and every single acre of space for each of the points delivered in a keynote.

My question though is whether substance is really what they wanted? (Read: substance as in more, not substance as in valuable.) If substance is the end goal, then a speech is not the way to deliver that. Just have someone stop by the local Barnes and Noble, buy every book on leadership (or cooking or mouse-trap building or whatever), bring those books to the luncheon and have everyone read while they eat.

I believe what they really want is action taken by the audience after the program. And action is not a by-product of more substance. Of course the presenter has to cover important, meaning, and relevant information, but not a great big load of it.

If action is the end goal, the way to get there is:

1. Provide evidence that the content is relevant to the audience's life (goals, challenges, authentic make-up, etc.) If I am going to be able to take action, I have to first answer the question "why?"

2. Give a handful of relevant, interesting and visual/concrete points. Remember, more information does not equal more value. There is a certain point (and it is different for everyone) where more information given actually results in less information retained. A famous trial lawyer was quoted as saying, "If I give 10 great reasons to the jury why they should vote for my guy, I might as well give them none."

3. Allow the audience to interact with the content, the presenter, the people beside them, and a piece of paper. This gives the information a fighting chance to be remembered and acted upon. It is a fact that if you want to remember something, you need to say it, read it, hear it, hear yourself saying it (out loud or in your mind), and talk about it with someone else.

Authenticity Rule #6 - Know Your Enemies

One of the biggest enemies of rookie presenters who don't know which piece of content is worth going in or not AND veteran presenters who thinks everything they know about a topic carries equal weight is giving too much information.

The Impact of Delivery

Your words comprise 100% of what you say, but only 15-25% of what the audience hears.

Therefore, work tirelessly to perfect your paralanguage, body language and presentation tools (Power Point, handouts, audience interaction techniques, visuals, props, etc.).

Happy Holidays

This blog is on vacation until January 2009. Until then, please peruse our more than 100 posts on how to be the best of the real you when presenting.

Happy holidays!

Do They Get It?

A recent question at one of my speaking skills workshops:

"How do you assess comprehension of your main point/content throughout? My problem: I say 'does that make sense?' and with silence I move on."

Couple of things here:

1. Never ask "does that make sense?" The reason is, as an audience member, I don't know how to respond. Do I say yes or no? Do I raise my hand? Do I throw something at you if it doesn't make sense? Etc. If it doesn't make sense and you want me to tell you so you can clarify (which is ultimately what you are looking for), I don't want to raise my hand or let you or my peers know that I'm not understanding something that, if I am the only one raising my hand, everyone else is getting. That is an uncomfortable situation most audience members don't want to be in and will avoid by simply doing nothing (which is why you are getting silence.)

2. So, how do you assess comprehension? Well, it starts with knowing what level of comprehension you need them to have. Google "Blooms Taxomony" to learn more about what I mean by that.

3. After you establish what level of comprehension you want, then you will know if you need to do a little processing or a ton. A strategy I use for comprehension is called SPG. Solo. Pair. Group. After you cover something, give them some time and space to reflect on it. Maybe ask them to take a few extra notes about what you just covered. Then have them pair up with someone and discuss what they learned or ask their partner to paraphrase. Just get them talking to someone in a safe zone (i.e. - not in front of the entire group). This will give them space to validate their internal questions or dialogue. Then the Group is simply asking for comments. Your chances of getting them will increase dramatically by going through the SPG formula.

These Shoes Were Made For Talking

Two (of the many) tools you need to be a great orator.

Authenticity Rule #6 - The Mask Rule: Know Your Enemies

Authenticity Rule #6
The Mask Rule: Know Your Enemies

You have a variety of forces working against your ability to be the best of yourself as a presenter. These forces mask your authenticity and should be viewed as enemies, i.e. you need to know them intimately and you need to fight them.

Following are three of the most enduring enemies presenters have battled for centuries:

1. Tepidness

You must be engaging as a presenter, especially in today's busy and noisy world. If you take a tepid approach to either your content, your topic, your audience or the actual act of presenting, you are telling your audience to not listen. This tepidness comes across primarily from your non-verbals, which make up 60% of the meaning of your message for your audience members.

Lukewarm Non-Verbals

• Monotone speech pattern
• Lack of eye contact
• No variety in facial expressions (as well as no smiling)
• No variety in volume
• Lack of gestures

Tepidness is also revealed by using weak language. Weak language includes wishy-washy words like "kind of, sort of, maybe, possibly." These words suggest that you may be saying one thing, but either you really don't firmly believe it or you aren't passionate enough about what you are saying to take sides. Effective, authentic presenters don't sacrifice passion for diplomacy.

2. Separation

Our second enemy is the most relevant to your audience because it concerns their world - not connecting with your audience. You should be very concerned with separation from your listeners. This enemy can be defeated both on location and during the preparation process.

On location you can start connecting with your audience even before you start speaking. Mingle with them, ask questions, demonstrate interest in their answers by asking follow-up questions and learn names (and use them in your presentation). During your presentation, make direct eye contact, avoid using a podium, and be aware of any sensory needs they might have (lights, temperature, microphone volume, outside noise level, etc.)

You can also help ensure a strong connection with your audience by doing your homework far in advance. Ask yourself questions about your audience and then build both your content and your technique around the answers. Nancy Duarte, author of the great presentation slide development book Slide:ology, suggests putting together an audience persona. Click here to view a PowerPoint slide with her seven audience research questions.

3. Blandness

Your job as a presenter is to move your audience in one or many of the following ways:

Intellectually (to teach)
Emotionally (to inspire)
Physically (to direct)
Conceptually (to show)

Movement requires attention. Attention requires motive. Your audience will listen to you, believe you/your content and even act upon this belief if you give them a good enough reason. One of the best reasons to listen is newness, freshness, creative ideas, etc. If your presentation is bland, your audience will start checking out the second you start. The blandness enemy shows up most commonly in two areas, logistical and content.

Logistical Blandness - When a presenter does things the way they have always been done: same room set-up, same visual aids, same presentation length, same audience interaction, etc.

Content Blandness - When a presenter uses content that is safe, but over-used: commonly used quotes, stories, facts, data, etc.

Your audience members' brains require fresh stimuli to motivate attention. Give it to them. Give your presentation some life, zest, excitement, and flavor. They will not only thank you for it, but they will also be more willing and able to take action. This is the hallmark of all truly authentic presenters. The experience and their content have a long life because it is unique and thus easier to remember.



This list of enemies is in no way complete. However, if you tackle just these three enemies, you are well on your way to creating a room full of friends.

Developing Your Stories

I just picked up a great book that every speaker should digest: The Story Factor by Annette Simmons.

Here is a strategy from Annette on how to develop two of your six important stories:

Developing “Who Am I /Why I’m here” Stories:

Step One: What personal qualities make you a trustworthy person? Are you compassionate, smart, courageous, honest, etc?

Step Two: Since you can hardly walk into a room and expect people to believe “I am a trustworthy person”, choose one of these qualities and develop a three-minute story that delivers evidence of that quality:

A time in your life when this quality was tested.
A person/event in your life that taught you the importance of this quality.
A time when you failed your own standards and decided to never let it happen again.
A movie/story/event that exemplifies this quality for you.

Step Three: Find someone to listen to your story. Ask them to tell you what they like about the story and what this story tells them about you. Ask them to refrain from making suggestions or giving a critique. Tell it again to someone else.

Step Four: Tell your story the next time you give a presentation or try to influence someone…if it works, tell it again.

If you found that valuable, you will love her book!