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Personal Self-Expertise is a front porch for two reasons: 1) It equips you with the confidence of knowing exactly who you are; and 2) It magnetizes others to you because they admire and respect those who know exactly who they are. (Read the first article in this series here.) Here are 12 exercises that will help you enhance your self-expertise. 101 Goals Make a list of 101 Goals for…

Viola! I just finished a program with Junior Leadership University of YPO in Leysin, Switzerland. It was amazing! The city was THE most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. And the pizza…ohhhhh the pizza…MAN it was good stuff. Unfortunately, Leysin wasn’t as friendly as I’d hoped. The only Bonjor Scotts I received were from a nice lady who sold me a Swiss Army Knife and a group of European tourists…

When I was seven years old I wanted to be an author. Not a writer, but an author. As in, “guy who writes books.” Why I chose that career, I’m not sure. Maybe I liked writing. Maybe I thought books were cool. Or maybe it was just the first answer I could come up with. The truth is, I never really gave it much thought. That is, not until…

Today was a long day: St. Louis to Newark, Newark to Geneva, and Geneva to Leysin. Total travel time: 14 hours. Ouch. This morning I dragged myself onto the plane, already tired from a restless night. (I always get that way before giving a speech.) All I wanted to do was find my seat, turn on my Ipod and pass out for the next 8 hours. Unfortunately my master…

Whooooooo! What a week! I just got back from this year’s fantastic conference of the National Speakers Association. The sessions were informative; the speeches were inspirational; the activities were fun and the late night parties were…well…unforgettable! Because there was such an explosion of knowledge, experience and insight, I thought I’d share some of the most memorable one-liners from this year’s speakers. After all, we can only quote Ben Franklin,…

I’m about halfway through my favorite week of the year: the annual convention of the National Speakers Association. And as I sit here in the lobby of the Atlanta Hyatt, MAN are these business cards piling up! But this is a good thing – a surefire sign that networking is in the air. HOWEVER, how many times have you returned home from a 4 day convention, whipped out your…

Yesterday I was having lunch with a colleague when the topic of business attire came up. As a 25 year veteran of the corporate world, she was curious about my thoughts on power suits. So, when she asked what I chose to wear during meetings, speeches, conferences, etc., I told her that I wasn’t a “suit and tie” kind of guy. But I also thought it was important to…

According to last week’s Big Question, 50% of the respondents have, at some point, missed out on a business opportunity because they DIDN’T have a business card with them. Several participants of the survey also contributed the following feedback: “Actually, [not having a card] gave me the opportunity to converse more and get more info from them.” “I have frequently forgotten cards, as I usually run out. So I…

It was 8:00 PM and I’d hit a creative wall – hard. But there was so much work to be done! And I just had to get out of the office or else my article would never get finished. So I knew the only way to stimulate my mind was to practice a technique called “displacement.” You’ve no doubt heard of (and probably practiced) this creativity booster before: take…

We do it every day. Sometimes 20 times a day. But how many of us actually know where the handshake originated? According to author/speaker Melvin Murphy… “The handshake has origins more anthropological than historical. Because they carried knives, spears, and rocks, when land was scarce and sacred males would extend their hand to show that they were not attempting to kill their neighbor. To add to that, the classical…