5000 people sit watching a mind-bending video on their virtual reality headsets at Samsung’s Galaxy S7 launch. As they watch, Mark Zuckerberg is rushed from the green room onto the enormous cube-shaped stage. When people remove their VR glasses, the room goes nuts (in a good way; Zuck was still a rock star then). Dozens of people rush the stage to take selfies with him in the background. It was chaos. Rewind a few hours, and I was at practice, watching the Facebook Founder walk the stage and read his lines from the teleprompters, while his 12-person entourage followed (and complimented) his every move and word. At GrahamComm, we’ve been lucky to have worked some big events and rubbed elbows with some big names (CEOs of Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Instagram to name a few). So I thought I’d share with you some of what happens backstage AND what you can do before speaking at any event–even your weekly team meetings. http://rb.gy/4wqlc

Did you know that there are seven times more words in English than in French (500,000 versus 70,000)? Are you aware that alcohol is one of the key ingredients to building strong relationships in Japan? And would you believe that in parts of Nigeria, business meetings are scheduled only after the Muslim Supreme Leader looks at the moon and announces the holiday schedule? Welcome to The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures by Erin Meyer Erin has consulted on international business for decades and has laid out the mistakes people make in multicultural communication while working with other cultures and what we can do to avoid them. She analyzes 8 dimensions of business and where different countries fall on each spectrum. http://rb.gy/k7nop

How do you recover when you feel you are blowing a presentation? How do you project more confidence in front of the room? And what does a rubber ducky have to do with being a great presenter? Well, we've got your answers right here. This is the second in our new series of presentation videos. The topic today is how to manage your mind when presenting. It covers the three rules to follow for mastering your speaking psychology, often the most difficult part of presenting. Oh, and don’t forget to watch until the very end for the bloopers, always the most interesting part. Please pass it along and let us know which part was most useful and what you’d like to hear about in future videos. http://rb.gy/h609j

As you tear through 2023, many of you have probably thought to yourself, “Where can I see more GrahamComm videos?” Wonder no more! Because we have many short, useful and possibly entertaining videos on our YouTube channel. - The Key to Mastering Public Speaking–Eye Contact - The Psychology of Speaking - Managing Your Nerves, Part I - Managing Your Nerves, Part II - Managing Your Nerves, Part III Be sure to watch till the end of each one for the outtakes so you can see how badly even the professionals screw things up! Hell, we even made an entire video comprised just of our mistakes and bloopers! http://rb.gy/qs9zr

Picture this: You’re about to deliver a remote presentation to your boss, the CFO and the CTO. You’ll be pitching a new service that you feel could radically change your company’s path. You log onto Zoom an hour ahead, turn on your camera, check your mic, share your slides, and walk through your entire presentation out loud. Everything is working, and you feel confident. The recordings from the practice sessions you did yesterday were rough, so you made a few good changes, practiced again, and now you feel ready... Sound familiar? Probably not. That’s because, though everyone’s presenting virtually these days, most of us aren’t doing a great job at it. http://rb.gy/usl2n

People love frameworks. We love easy-to-remember and easy-to-use processes for helping us quickly do stuff well. Like the old, “Tell them what you’re gonna tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them.” One of the most useful frameworks we teach in our Presenting to Executives Course is “What? So what? Now what?” Let’s say you’re running to a meeting, and you didn’t prepare for the conversation (shame on you). You have to ask senior management for additional budget for 2 new hires to the team when they’re already strapped for capital. Very quickly, you can lay out a complete conversation that is clear, compelling, supported with data, and actionable. https://www.grahamcomm.net/blog/tools-of-influence

According to a 2016 study, of the 41% of Americans who make New Years resolutions, by the end of the year only 9% feel they are successful in keeping them. And what, you ask, are the most common resolutions? >Being healthier (eat better, regular exercise, sleep more) >Saving money >Becoming a better public speaker http://rb.gy/z43fi

All right, let’s call this what it is: a gratuitous opportunity to show off my new obsession: Wing Foiling! But there are also a few lessons I want to share with you around learning, so bear with me. Wing foiling is a 2-year-old sport that is insanely exhilarating but also really hard to learn. The feeling of hydrofoiling is a lot like flying. It’s fast, silent and kinda feels like magic. It also leads to never-ending, unexpected crashes. So many, in fact, that I wear a helmet and an “impact vest” for protection! http://rb.gy/508u2

A few years ago, I did a four-day Tony Robbins seminar (UPW in San Jose, CA) that was so powerful, enlightening and downright outrageous, I wanted to share the experience with you. Now if you’re like the guy in a recent training I did who said, “He’s the most repulsive human being I’ve ever seen,” feel free to wait for the next blog post. Or watch the documentary “I Am Not Your Guru” and you might just change your mind. http://rb.gy/zeo23

A few years ago, I coached a 23-year-old rapper who had been asked to give a TEDx talk at his university. Matt is an extremely intelligent and gifted rapper from Chicago’s South Side, where I grew up (in fact, his mom and I went to the same high school!) The TED People sent out a thorough list of recommendations for how to build and prepare for a TED talk. The problem was, the more Matt read the list, the more uncertain and anxious he became. So, we focused on just 5 things that would help Matt share his ideas, engage the hearts and minds of his audience and challenge their thinking around a controversial topic. Matt’s talk received the first standing ovation ever for a TEDx NIU talk. http://rb.gy/xtuhe