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As you may know, one of my main hobbies is jazz dance – I’ve been taking classes since 1983. At the moment, we are learning a lovely routine to ‘Feeling Good’ by Michael Bublé. So Read more…

My dad tells a story about a friend of his who visited the United States. As you may know, the US visa entry form you fill in on the plane has some tick boxes where you declare yes/no to such things as ‘carrying guns’, ‘running drugs’ or ‘assassinating the president’, presumably so they can sue you if you do any of these things. I can’t imagine a real gun-runner, drug-dealer or assassin would tick ‘yes’, but my dad’s friend wrote ‘sole purpose of visit’ and of course was immediately deported. It seems customs people do not have a sense of humour  – you have been warned!

I had a call from a fellow professional speaker the other day, asking for advice on the content of her next speech. She had been given a topic by the organisers, knew I was going to be in the audience and – rightly – was checking with a sample of the attendees to find out what they needed to know so she could tailor her content to suit.

I told my caller it was all about objectives. I asked her what she was hoping to get out of the (free) presentation. Her objective was to show the audience what she could do, so they could recommend her in future. So I suggested – as my mentor once (more…)