‘The compassionate Fool’ by Norman Cameron , is one of my favourite poems. It’s beautifully written. When I first got to know the piece I thought that it was about me, as teenagers tend to. About how difficult I found it to get out of relationships in case I hurt the other person’s feelings. Then I passed through…
As a part of my speech for UBS in London in March 2011, I developed a set of simple things that anyone can use to help them make a better impact in their professional and social lives. Here are those few things- In your head- Assume every person you meet is important, and treat him…
It happens a lot doesn’t it? We have a proposal to present to a group of clients, and we know that the clients don’t agree on how to proceed, but we have a plan and we have to present it. Our success depends on our ability to find favour with all of the influential interest…
Here’s a great clip from YouTube with Michelle Pfeiffer explaining how she got the most important role in her life- Elvira, in ‘Scarface’ with Al Pacino- It reminded me that- Acting is a very tough business. Constant rejection, sometimes hundreds of auditions without success and often with no feedback on why you didn’t get the…
My name is James, it’s what my mother called me, it’s what my 2 sisters, my twin brother and my creaky old dad do too. I prefer James, but almost nobody asks before they call me Jim. I gave up trying to put people right years ago, but I do notice when someone bothers to…
But if you want to get more of it it’d be pretty useful to have an idea of what people with great personal impact actually do, wouldn’t it? Well here, without varnish, is the answer to that question from my personal and professional point of view. People with great personal impact have- Energy- in the…
I once saw charisma defined as- “the ability to transfer an emotion that the speaker has to his audience.” I thought it was a pretty good definition too because it covers all of the angles that you might need, positive and negative. Let’s think about Gordon Brown for a moment. Gordon must be charismatic by…
I know it might sound glib but it just came to me sitting here. Focus is about all of those things that I mentioned yesterday, and here’s why: If you concentrate on doing things that you really enjoy then the chances are that you’ll also be really good at them. I know this flies in…
If you buy into the fact that charisma is a skill that can be learned just as simply as walking, juggling and whistling, then how do we get good at actually doing it- Try 1- Connecting with your own emotional state– ie recognising how you feel about you, your subject and the place you’re in…