Tools

My brain is crap for details like lyrics to songs (remind me to tell you about the time I didn’t realize a song I sang around the house was about morphine… even though the word “morphine” was literally coming out of my mouth when I sang it), what Alexa JUST told me the temperature was (seriously, […]

Imagine you’re in this situation: You have a big idea. It’s not one people have heard before, but its impact could be huge. You have an opportunity to talk about it (say, to present it to your boss, or in a session at a conference), but your time slot is short. On top of that, your […]

Back when we were talking about making your message measurable I suggested you answer one question about every message or piece of content you put out there: What does this particular message need to do? Ideally that outcome flows two ways: there’s a benefit to you (why you’re creating that content or message in the first place) and a benefit to […]

Ah, that New Year smell, when everything is fresh and new and only possibility lies ahead. But you’re not satisfied with possibility, are you? No… not you! You want to get things done. So, here’s a little New Year’s present for you: instead of the regular #swipefile, here are my top 5 tools from 2019 that […]

This post first appeared around this time last year. I’ve updated with this year’s results and my Red Thread® for next year, too.  Yep. That time again. New Year’s Resolution time. Everyone’s goal-setting, theming, three-wording, and all-around resolving. Fun fact: when I was a Weight Watchers leader, all the new folks didn’t usually show up […]

If you’re a regular reader of my newsletter, you’re familiar with my #swipefile–a collection of articles, both helpful and absurd and everything in between–that I gather from around the internet and share with you. (Not a reader? Sign up to receive my newsletter here.) Recently, a friend asked me how I organize my #swipefile. And I had […]

Not one but TWO of my recent #swipefile items ended up in the new keynote I just debuted (“Getting the Green Light“). They were the one about “shooting the messenger” and the one about Game of Thrones and the coffee cup. Both had to do with something I’ve been talking about a lot here lately: not making your audience […]

I know you don’t want your ideas (or worse, you!) to fail… do you? No. And yet that success can feel crazy elusive. I mean you know your ideas (and you) have value. You know they can help people. So why don’t they know it, too? There’s lots of reasons, of course, and I can’t be precisely sure what’s going right […]

My husband, Tom, recently re-shared a classic post on “The Hazards of Overconfidence” by the economist Daniel Kahneman. Fair warning, I loooooove me some Kahneman and consider his book Thinking Fast and Slow to be required reading for anyone who has, shares, or regularly makes the case for ideas. So, you know, everyone. As you may guess from […]

The world was supposed to end in 1954. It didn’t, obviously. But that didn’t seem to matter much to the people who believed it would. Remember that. It’s important, especially if you want to change people’s opinions or behavior. Looking back at 1954, though, you might not be surprised that some folks thought we were facing […]