When she was a year old, I held my daughter Georgia at the closed window of our 30th floor New York City apartment so we could look out over Times Square.

Across the street, stretching the full length of a 40-floor building, was a painting of Dwight Gooden, the ace Met’s pitcher, coiled in his wind-up with his eyes staring straight at us from under his cap.

I had the habit of asking Georgia, “Is it a cloudy day or a sunny day?”  Soon enough, however, it got more complicated, and our conversation evolved.  In other words, sometimes it was not all cloudy or all sunny.  Sometimes, it was both.

So it is with effective communication.  Not in terms of sun and clouds, but in terms of assertiveness and empathy.  We need both—the will to assert and the sensibility to speak into the listeners’ capacity to hear. 

We do the audience a service to be assertive because we give them something to push against, to poke holes in, and thus create a dialogue between our experience and theirs. 

And we do ourselves a service to understand their capacity to listen—to see the world as they see it—so that we can clothe our assertions in terms that will help them see more clearly the validity of our view. 

Some of us lack empathy and find it hard to comprehend what the audience is able to hear. 

And some of us lack assertiveness and find it hard to engage constructively in intellectual combat. 

But those who can do both earn the respect and trust of followers and opponents alike.  We call these people leaders, movers and shakers, high potentials, charismatics, persuaders, influencers, top guns, visionaries, sales stars. 

My daughter and I thought Dwight Gooden was staring at us, but in reality he was staring at the catcher’s mitt, trying to hurl his pitch where the catcher could catch it.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Look at this ad from Microsoft.  It appeared in a newspaper exactly as it looks, I have not done anything to it.

At first glance, it looks like a mistake.  It doesn’t belong in a newspaper or a magazine.  It’s imperfect and unfinished.  It even says, “Draft,” in red at the top.

I read it because I was curious.  I thought I might read something secret and personal.  And for a while, I believed that I was. 

Then I just sat back in amazement.

They put backstage behavior on stage.  They made the rehearsal process the show.  They confessed that they are human, that messages and products are created through trial and error.

They used form to imply content.  They used art and craft to create authenticity.  They made something artificial look real. 

Not only that, they linked the marketing message to both the image and the text.  They even say that their product can’t make a great company—only that it can help to make that happen.

That’s true and honest.  They are not making exaggerated claims.

Makes me think about spoken communication.  Makes me think that our messy eccentricities may be our greatest strengths as speakers.  That our pretense of polish and perfection may be our greatest weakness.

And if not, at the very least, it points us to the fact that if we want to get attention and arouse curiosity in our audience, we must say, do, or show something that is in contrast to what is expected.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

I spent last Thursday with Patricia Fripp, a great speech coach and friend of mine.  We were at the National Speakers Association, New Jersey Chapter. I can’t get her out of my mind.  She is a presence!

Someone with  presence makes you pay attention. You don’t have to work hard to listen to them or watch them.  In fact, you can’t help being engaged by them.  Fripp is one of these people.   

She does it in at least two ways:  intellectual and emotional. 

Fripp says interesting things in interesting ways, such as, “The enemy of the speaker is sameness.” 

Then she tells you why she phrased it the way she did.  She will say that the last word in your spoken sentence should pack the punch.

That’s a powerful thought, one that will change the way I talk.

To be a presence in someone else’s mind on a substantive level is a good thing.  It means you have made them think, aroused their curiosity, and stimulated further dialogue.

Great conversationalists, (I am thinking of Barbara Walters, Leonard Lopate,  and Dick Cavett) can carry on a dialogue on a wide range of topics.  In other words, they can be present in almost any discussion.

There is more to presence than animal magnetism.  We take for granted intellectual presence, yet it is the currency of success for many of our most accomplished colleagues. 

Read the first blog in this series:  Presentation Skills:  Stay Tuned for a Month of Presence.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.