In my ongoing occasional series on the persona that a speaker presents to the audiences she addresses, I’ve talked about finding the right balance of warmth and expertise, as well as a touch of humor. Those attributes, in the right mix for each individual, form an excellent basis for the…

We are still in the early days of understanding how our brains work. Neuroscience adds to our bank of knowledge at a steady clip, but there is so much we don’t understand — and that contradicts our common-sense guesswork on how the brain might work — that we do well…

We humans smile a great deal. We smile when we’re happy; we smile when we’re sad, to disguise the feeling from others or perhaps to try to cheer ourselves up. …

I am an anxious person. I like things to go well, especially social situations, and I put energy into trying to keep everyone around me comfortable. When that doesn’t work, I get anxious. Heck, I get anxious just thinking about all that. I’m a pro, like many of you I…

The only people who crave change are wet babies. I first heard that maxim from my grandmother, and it has remained a favorite of mine ever since. At first, I heard it as a way to heap opprobrium on my elders, including grandma herself, who refused to see how my…

Every now and then I run across a neuroscientific study that makes me think in a new way, because it tries a fresh angle or studies something no one has studied before. A study from 2014 I just encountered accomplishes exactly that, thanks to a wonderful blog anyone interested in…

How good are you a spotting a liar? Most people think they are above average, but the research clearly shows that we are no better than 50–50 — a flip of the coin, pure chance — at detecting lies. …

In my last post, I talked about the importance of determining what kind of persona you wished to put forward as a speaker (or indeed as an executive, or consultant, or employee — doesn’t everyone need a personal brand?). …