Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

“The Next Message I Wish to Share is … Er … Umm … And So …”     How to Reduce Those Dreaded Pause-Fillers   Most, if not all, of you would have heard of the dreaded “pause-fillers”. You are smoothly delivering your speech when out of nowhere, a wild “umm” jumps in and derails […]

How To Keep Your Presentation On Time      Now, one of the first important lessons that I learned as a speaker, was time management was more than just a good habit, but time management is really the responsibility of every speaker who has to present a speech or presentation. Now, the additional 2 […]

Competition, Courses or Class? – The Best Place to Learn Public Speaking   It is a common experience in our role as public speaking trainers to have parents asking whether public speaking, as a skill, is best taught through a course, in school or by joining a competition. The answer is not that straightforward – […]

How to Craft that Compelling Story for your Presentation   Public speakers have shared this trope many times – it never hurts to add a story into your presentation. There is a temptation to focus on data, statistics and credibility content, but I firmly believe that every presentation has a space for a story. From […]

Lessons from the Classroom 3 Common Habits of Young Public Speakers   In developing young public speakers, it is important to identify specific habits to address and correct at the outset. The common refrain for young public speakers is that they are generally “not confident” and are, accordingly, not good public speakers. The reality though […]

Sharpening that Persuasive Edge – 3 Simple Steps to Start Speaking Convincingly     Being a persuasive speaker is one of the more common goals of our students. Almost everyone wants to be that person who can convince a team or a large audience to buy into their product or anything that they are saying. […]

How To Capture The Audience’s Attention?     Most, if not all of you, would have been an audience member once before. As you are sitting in and getting ready for a long presentation, you realise that paying attention as an audience member is already a huge challenge. Imagine instead that you are the presenter […]

“My Child is Too Quiet!”  How You Can Help Your Child Gain Confidence?     “You know, my kid is always noisy and talkative at home but once in front of a group, he/she keeps quiet. I am worried about him.” In all my interactions with our students’ parents (including those who attend our trial […]

Present with Pizzazz – How to Present with Power & Panache with your PowerPoint Slides     “Not another PowerPoint slide …”, cursed someone under his/her breath. A cacophony of sighs “argh…” then broke loose… We have all been in that situation. A coffee in hand, a pack of mints in another and your pen […]