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Every year people make resolutions about steps, sleep, inboxes, diets, finances, habits, fitness, mindfulness… Communicate. We speak in meetings. Yet very few people ever say: “This year, I’m going to be better at this.” So here’s your one resolution for 2025: Be better at sharing your ideas. And here’s how you start. 🔴 READY — Before you open PowerPointWhen you're crafting a talk, it's easy to fall into the trap of saying everything you know—especially if you’ve worked hard to become an expert. But clarity doesn’t come from sharing everything. It comes from asking the one question that cuts through everything else: “So what?” 🟠 SET — Shape your talkDesign your talk with intention, not habit. This is the moment where most people autopilot straight into PowerPoint and start building a museum exhibit of bullet points. Design choices aren’t decoration. They’re pedagogy. A slide with one message respects cognitive load. But SET isn’t just slides. • The amount of text (less is merciful). Your “set” is the container the message lives inside. A talk doesn’t need to look clever. Most speakers overbuild their talks. 🟢 GO — Deliver the damn thingSlow down. Then slow down again. Your internal tempo is lying to you. Audiences don’t crave speed — they crave space. This is processing fluency. Slow is smooth. Smooth is memorable. 🧭 ASK YOURSELF THISIf you did nothing more than these three moves all year — one sentence, one story, one slower delivery — how much better would your talks be? PS If 2026 is the year your talks need to actually land, I can help you start strong. Send me your next idea. |
One idea a week to help you teach and present with more clarity, confidence, and calm. No fluff. No scripts. Just practical tools that land.
I’m giving the first talk of the day soon.08:35. A general audience. Coffee not quite doing its job yet. It’s meant to be about common ENT presentations in children.Things that are better out than in ears, noses, or throats. But I’m not starting with the anatomy.I’m starting with the approach. Because first thing in the morning, people don’t need a data dump. They need orientation. And that’s not a failing of motivation or preparation. It’s biology. Early in the day, attention is still...
I finally finished Stranger Things. And like a lot of people, I felt… flat. Not because the show was bad. In fact, most of it was brilliant—especially the early seasons. The world-building. The music. The quiet moments with Steve and Dustin. The heart. The hair. The hero. But that final episode? It dragged.It fizzled.It didn’t stick the landing. And it reminded me of something I see in talks all the time. A speaker holds the room for 20 minutes—clear message, great rhythm, engaged audience....
The talk that made your brain work too hard Most presentations don’t fail because the speaker doesn’t know enough. They fail because the speaker is trying to impress you with the sheer breadth of what they know. I used to do this too. Before I started writing a talk, I’d open five tabs on my laptop and try to work out how I could cram all of that information onto the fewest possible slides. It’s easy to tell when someone has done it. They put up a slide full of dense text in a barely readable...