Heart Book Series

A breakthrough came while a consultant was preparing me for a radio interview on parenting, the topic of which was to be a concept I call “The Trophy Child.” In our practice session, I kept saying the problem of using our children to gain status was systemic, and she kept saying the word systemic was inaccessible and preventing me from connecting with the audience. She was right and this “a-ha” lead to the development of a mental filter. A little bell began to go off when the wrong motive was behind a lavish word. Now I work to make impact without pomp. I have found simplicity and brevity are harder.

The tendency to be verbose can come from other roots. Many industry and business experts are so familiar with their own jargon, they cannot see how thick and impenetrable it is to the listener. Professorial trivia buffs have trouble with arcane references that create separation and leave folks behind (seen any Dennis Miller lately?).

Step three is eternal. As our presentation careers progress our word choice becomes more perfect and more natural. Eventually we move from Thermometer to Thermostat. A thermometer constantly checks to see what the room feels like. A thermostat hovers at the right mark by making constant adjustments automatically.
And after all of this reflection; Redesign! Here are a few tips to get you started…

12 Stops on the Road to Eloquence

Upgrade your Source: Don’t stop at your computer thesaurus. Purchase The Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale and Nancy LaRoche. This juicy tome is the difference between the spatula aisle at Vons and William Sonoma.

Off your Offspring: Writers fall in love with their own words. But, when it comes to editing the common thought is, you must “kill your children.” Go through your presentations and edit listening for overkill, showing off, repetition and repeating.

WWMAD: What would Maya Angelou do? If I were one of the great masters of clarity blended with poetry, how would I say it?

Practice Makes Perfect: Don’t feel strange about rehearsing what you are going to say whether it is to an audience of 1, 3 or 1000. Nerves can hijack your eloquence in a heartbeat unless they are tamed by practice. Use this discipline especially when speaking in front of anyone that is particularly intimidating to you or who presses that Daddy/ Big Brother/ Hot-Guy-Who-Rejected-You button.

Go Low: Ladies, be aware of when you are chattering away in your high register. To empathize with the male perspective on this sound, try calling to mind the last time your children were whining. Use your low tones. Then give yourself positive and affirming self-talk to add the confidence to back them up.

Follow Through: You know how to follow through in sports. Do the same in speaking. Once the perfect eloquent words are in your speech infuse them with good full breaths. Let your weight drift forward to the balls of your feet. Linnnger slightly on the right consonants and exlooore your vowels.

Cut That Out: When striving for eloquence on paper try to cut out the word “that” whenever you can. It is unnecessary 90% of the time.

Write It- Edit It: You have 100 words to make a point to a man. Any more and you venture into the territory I like to call “The Avalanche;” pouring tons and tons of info into their very action-oriented minds. Try this- write out everything you want to say and then edit it down to 100 words. When you read it back you will get the felling of the brevity and directness that makes men listen.

Go Easy on Quotes: If you crave more splash in your words, don’t borrow them too liberally to meet this need. Too many quotes in a presentation smacks of amateurishness. They came to hear you.

Drop the Cookbook: I love to bake because it is an opportunity for instinct and nuance. A good recipe partway through is abandoned, like a guidebook that at some point is tossed to the tour-bus floor so one can run off and explore. The point is…Improvise a bit; even through content you have already written.

Identify your Recipe: One more baking analogy and then I am going to have to go whip up a lemon bundt cake so I can get back to concentrating. There are different flavors of eloquence. Ask yourself, what is your eloquence recipe? A spoon of wisdom? A pinch of sweetness or sarcasm? Just a dash of subtlety?

Warm Up: Why write it if your lips can’t say it? The most beautiful words need a warm and flexible vocal instrument to be heard. You can sing scales. You can hum a note, sliding up and down. Don’t forget the tongue twisters. My favorite; “She stood on the balcony inimitably mimicking him, hicupping and amicably welcoming him in.”

Welcome to today’s words. “Punked” is a verb and Paris Hilton a role model. We need every well-spoken syllable we can find. So don’t give up the fight. Carrying the torch of moving and relevant language is, as it always has been, up to you, to me and the occasional odd guy on a box in a public square.

-Juliet Funt, Speaker, Author

Heart of a Woman in Business is an inspirational collection celebrating working women and their unique contributions to the global workplace. This “here’s how,” sisters-sharing-with-sisters book shares their authentic stories, and offers “here’s how” and “I did it, you can too!” Selections offer strategies, practical information, career-bolstering lessons, insights, affirmations, poems, prayers and quotations.

Whether you already own a business, planning to start one, or working in a job you love.

Chapters include: The Driving Force; Fulfilling Your Soul; Polishing Business Skills; Workplace Wit; Best Practices; Transitions from the Day Job to Your Own Job; The Entrepreneurial Spirit; Business Builders; Nurturing Our Mind, Body & Spirit; and Whispers of Wisdom.

Submissions include: career dreams come true; self-worth; goal setting; the history of women in business and as inventors; leadership and ambition; humor in the workplace; change, stress and time management; inner guidance and intuition; business promotion; hiring and firing; ways to rejuvenate and recharge; fitness tips at your desk; mid-life career transitions; and being a working mother.

The 240-page book features top talent and experts, including: celebrity personal trainer Jeanie Callen Barat; financial alchemist Morgana Rae; presentation skills from Juliet Funt (daughter of Candid Camera’s Alan Funt); having a leap of faith, from Sharon Wilson of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Life Lessons for Mastering the Law of Attraction; Life at the Pentagon from Jo Condrill; Hill Street Blues costume designer Karen Hudson; and sage advice from Oprah.

Quotations of inspiration include: Mary Kay Ash; Debbie Fields; Steve Forbes; Michael Gerber; Louise Hay; Kathy Ireland; Andrea Jung, Avon; Anthony Robbins; Martha Stewart; Donald Trump; Madam C.J. Walker, first black female millionaire; Marianne Williamson; plus the Founders/CEOs of Amazon, com, Apple, Craig’s List, Dell Computer, Google, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Starbucks; The Body Shop, Virgin Airlines, and Wal-Mart.

ISBN: 978-1-880878-19-4
$16.95 US, releasing October 1, 2008, 288 pages
Trade Paperback, 6×7”
Inspiration/Business/Self-Help
Sparkle Press

Other Books by Sheryl L. Roush:
Heart of a Woman, ISBN, 978-1-880878-13-2
Corazón de Mujer (Heart of a Woman in Spanish),  ISBN 978-1-880878-16-3
Heart of a Mother, ISBN, 978-1-880878-14-9
Heart of a Mother–Book & Music CD, ISBN 978-1-880878-18-7
Heart of the Holidays, ISBN 978-1-880878-15-6