Biz Communication Guy Podcast II

Dr. Bill Lampton Ph. D.
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Every week Bill Lampton, Ph.D.–the “Biz Communication Guy”–interviews renowned communication experts about their areas of expertise. Listeners learn tips, strategies, and guidelines for sales, management, customer service, presentation skills, technology, and persuasion. Catch every lively episode, so you will jet-propel your business communication skills–and profits!

Episodes

  1. JAN 7

    Deb Krier Doesn’t Let Cancer Get the Final Word

    Bill Lampton: Hi there, welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz communication guy, once again bringing you communication tips and strategies that will boost your business. And as is the case always with the Biz Communication Show, this is not a solo act. I bring you those highly useful tips and strategies through conversations with a highly qualified guest. And today we do have a highly qualified guest coming to us from the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area. In fact, buckle up, friends, because today’s guest is a force to be reckoned with. Deb Krier is an entrepreneur, outspoken cancer advocate, three-time cancer survivor, and a certified integrated cancer coach who brings equal parts strategy, humor, and sass—how about that?—to the cancer conversation. She’s the founder of tryingnottodie.live because, let’s face it, “suddenly” has never been her thing. She now serves as a strategic advisor to business owners and executives facing cancer, helping them keep their businesses, their sanity, and their spark intact. With decades in marketing and PR under her belt, Deb knows how to command a room, and she’s here to remind us that cancer doesn’t get the final word—she does. Hello, Deb! Deb Krier: Hello, sir! I am so honored to be a guest on your podcast. We’re going to have such a fun conversation. Bill Lampton: Yes, we are going to, and you’ve been referred to me by other podcasters who have discovered how well you inform and inspire, and I know that will be the case today. Deb, one of the points I think that’s so important to begin with is when someone gets a diagnosis of cancer, there’s a variety of reactions that they can have. And of course, we will talk some about mindset, and that’s what we’re really talking about now because that’s a central part of our reaction and even our recovery. When you first got the diagnosis of cancer, what were the thoughts that went through your mind? Deb Krier: I was annoyed. I really was. It was like, “Excuse me?” And I literally told my doctor, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time for this.” And she looked at me like, “Well, darling, you’re going to have to make time.” But the fear, the anger—all of that didn’t come until a little bit later. But yeah, I was just annoyed. It was like, “Excuse me, you must have the wrong person.” Bill Lampton: “You’re interrupting my life.” Deb Krier: I know, I know. How rude! Bill Lampton: And is the question often among cancer patients, “Why me?” Deb Krier: Oh, yeah. You know, and I think we all feel that. There’s a little bit of guilt: “Did I do something to bring this on?” And of course, we didn’t. We all know people who smoke two packs a day and don’t get lung cancer, right? And there’s all of those things. Sure, there are things that we can do to make ourselves healthier just in general, but we certainly never want to do anything that has caused us to have cancer. And so I think there’s that, but yeah, there is the “Why me?”, even though the stats show that it’s a good portion of us. But yeah, it’s the “I’m sorry, go pick on somebody else” type of thing. Bill Lampton: As I mentioned to you when we got acquainted, I empathize with you because I’ve come through successfully two types of cancer: prostate cancer and colon cancer. And I remember so well waking up from a colonoscopy and the doctor said to me, “You have a cancerous polyp that we’re going to have to remove,” and it was eventually soon, really, remove twelve inches of my colon intestine. And you do have a range of thoughts, and of course, anger comes into that as well. Your life was going along quite smoothly—why does this happen to you? Which leads me next to what came of this. There are many people who could get cured, fortunately, and that’s it. But it really led to a new lifelong mission for you. Describe that mission to us, please. Deb Krier: Well, way back when I was just a wee little person, I worked for an oncologist and I worked for the American Cancer Society. And so I tell people, “I know just enough about this to be dangerous,” right? But I have a fabulous business coach, her name is Kathleen Caldwell, and it was her idea that I do this, and I went into it kicking and screaming. When she would say, “You need to help people,” I would say, “Oh, but I don’t want to be Cancer Girl. Ugh.” And I really did just want to get back to business as usual. But I realized I was helping people. I would be in the doctor’s office and they would have me talk to students or they would have me talk to new patients. I’m actually still in active treatment even after 10 years. I go in every 21 days and I go in, I’m the person going to, “You need some water? Do you need some crackers?” I’m bebopping around the infusion room. And it’s just kind of something that I have always done. But I really did realize that I could and should use what had happened to me to help others on this journey. And so that was when I decided to start tryingnottodie.live because we all get so caught up in trying not to die, whether it’s with cancer, whether it’s just with life in general or something else, that we forget that we have to live. And so that’s really the premise behind it: how are we going to live through this process? Bill Lampton: Tell us about your “Trying Not to Die… Live!”—what is that? Deb Krier: Well, the name came from when I was initially undergoing treatment. I’m special, and so I had to develop every complication, every serious life-threatening thing, all sorts of things that you could get. And at one point, I was in the hospital for over seven weeks. And my mother—I am an only child, my mother has since passed, but I am an only child—she of course came because I was in very critical condition. And one of the times when my fabulous medical team came and went, I got the disapproving mother look, you know, the “Hmph.” And I went, “What?” And she said, “You did not say thank you.” And I said, “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Mom, I’m trying not to die here!” And so that kind of just stuck in my head that there was that. But then I really did think we need to live. Maybe it’s five hours, maybe it’s 50 years—whatever it is, how are we going to live during that time? Whether we’re on a cancer journey or not. Are we going to say, “I’m going to put stuff off. I’ll do it at some point. I’ll take that vacation whenever.” No, we need to live now. Bill Lampton: I was reviewing this morning a story that I imagine you’re familiar with. An American journalist and author, Norman Cousins, he was an editor. Quite a few decades ago, he was diagnosed with severe rare arthritic disease. And instead of just staying absolutely serious about it, he started watching television at the time—the Marx Brothers television, Jack Benny and Bob Hope—because he said laughter was a good way to handle what otherwise could be a totally grievous situation. Deb Krier: Right. Humor really is one of the things—I mean, we hear that laughter is good medicine. It’s more than good medicine; it’s great medicine. And there are very real benefits from laughing: it, for some reason, lowers your blood pressure—right? You’d think it would raise your blood pressure, but it lowers your blood pressure. There are certain chemicals in your body that are activated when you laugh, and those help you heal. And it’s one of those things where we sometimes develop kind of a weird sense of humor about some of this, but we do have to laugh. And the funny thing is, even if you fake laugh—”Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” right?—your brain doesn’t know that you’re faking it. And so the healing benefits are still released. And so they do things like laughter yoga and things like that. But yeah, watch I Love Lucy, watch—my favorite is Big Bang Theory, right?—some things like that. But how can you laugh? And one of the things that I always try to do is to make my care team laugh because they have really hard jobs. Really, really hard jobs. And so can I give them a giggle or a chortle for the day? Bill Lampton: Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors. I’ve got three of his books on my shelf. And you just reminded me of an experiment he reported by some behavioral scientists. And the experiment was this: they prompted people who were working with them to smile, even though they really had nothing to particularly smile about. But he said, “Let’s find out what happens when you consistently smile.” And what happened was their mood changed. And he said the outcome of that was that we always think that a smile or laughter comes from our mood, but he said very perceptively that if we laugh or if we smile, that can elevate our own mindset, as we’re talking about. Deb Krier: Right. And let’s be honest, this is not fun. You know, it’s—there’s just times where I just want to crawl back under the covers and not come back out for several days or weeks. And but how can we have fun with it? And I tell people, you know, we’re not saying that it’s huge. Sometimes the micro-gratitudes are enough. You know, just find something. Somebody the other day asked me, “What was I grateful for for 2025?” Right? It’s the end of the year as we’re doing this. And I said, “The fact that I’m still alive.” And they knew my story, and they said, “Well, we’d hope that would be what you would say.” But yeah, just something little. You know, I have a new puppy—oh my gosh, he is the cutest thing in the world, and getting a little puppy kiss from him, you know, just whatever that what is happening. And and now here’s the thing: you can when you smile, you kind of it’s you make other people smile too. Bill Lampton: Yes, and that’s true. And one thing I found when I was a patient diagnosed wit

    33 min

  2. 12/08/2025

    Elizabeth Cottrell Champions the Value of Handwritten Notes

    Bill Lampton: Hi there. Welcome to The Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the biz communication guy, bringing you business communication tips and strategies that will elevate your business. And I don’t do this solo. I do it through a lively conversation with a communication expert who has excelled in business. And I’m very happy today to welcome Elizabeth Cottrell from Woodstock, Virginia. Elizabeth’s career path has been, I’ll definitely underscore this, anything but straight. With a graduate degree in human anatomy, she has been a leprosy researcher, published scientist, wife, mother, grandmother, community leader, and yes, there’s more. Freelance writer, desktop publisher, musician, and amateur radio operator. Since 2016, she has also served as the first woman to chair First National Corporation and First Bank in its 118-year history. Elizabeth is the author of Heartspoken: How to Write Notes that Connect, Comfort, Encourage, and Inspire. And it’s a terrific book. I’ve given it a five-star review on Amazon and I encourage everyone to order that book. Elizabeth speaks and writes widely about the lost art of personal notes through her Heartspoken movement. She encourages people to use note writing as a powerful way to strengthen relationships with family, friends, clients, employees, and donors alike. So I know that you will join me in welcoming Elizabeth Cottrell. Hello Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cottrell: Hello Dr. Bill. What a treat to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this. Bill Lampton: So have I and I know in the meantime you’ve been writing a lot of meaningful notes. Elizabeth Cottrell: I I do my best. I do try to practice what I preach. Bill Lampton: I want to ask you with that, yes, not a straight path career, with all that I just described, it certainly takes strong business communication skills. So I’m curious, where did you and how did you develop the communication skills that have put you even as a as an image breaker in the banking industry? Did you have courses? Did you have coaches or explore on your own? What what was the your path to the incredible wide range of business success that you’ve had? Elizabeth Cottrell: What a great question and and it took me um I’m I’m going down memory lane here but I mean I have to give my father tremendous credit, Jim Herbert, who lived to age 95. Um I’m the oldest of five, uh, and he came from a family of strong women, so he believed in me and my sister and that we could do anything our brothers could do. And, um, and Bill, he taught us, and I hope nobody thinks this is trivial because I think it’s extremely important, he taught us to hop up when somebody came in the room, to shake, shake their hand with a firm handshake, and look them in the eye. And he made us practice handshake because how often have all of us in business scenarios shaken hands with somebody who either had a very unimpressive handshake or broke our hand because it was so strong? So, um, I I think those are the those are the two things that immediately come to mind. But, um, I think he also had a philosophy which I think is really interesting for all of us children. He believed, he said, you don’t need I don’t need to teach you to be the best at anything, but I want to teach you how to do a lot of different things so that if somebody invites you to go water skiing, to go hiking, to go canoeing, you won’t have to say, oh, I don’t know how, I don’t want to do that. And so he gave us confidence in a whole wide range of things that I think then I took that into my later life. Bill Lampton: That’s a blessing and and so you had 96 years of valuable advice from your father. Elizabeth Cottrell: Absolutely. And and then I would have to say in terms of applying, um, that confidence later on to anybody I would any young person I would say is be yourself. We talked about this before we went live. Be yourself, um, show up, and be prepared. And those who have served me well. Bill Lampton: You remind me so much of my childhood because my father managed a department store. And he taught me, and he taught my brother, that when we came back from out of town when we’d become adults even, that it and we came into the store, we were to shake hands with every employee. Elizabeth Cottrell: Ah. Bill Lampton: We were to talk with them about what was going on with them, not what was going on with us. And early in my 20s, that was at first a little bit challenging and maybe awkward, but it it became something after a while. It was so rewarding to to renew contact with people in that store. Maybe if I hadn’t seen some of them in a couple of years, I’ve lived away. So, the the initial contact is is so valuable, and it’s as you say, the handshake is important because Elizabeth Cottrell: It is. Bill Lampton: just walking by and waving or but the handshake and and the right firmness of the handshake, that is that’s a signal of a closer relationship that you want, a closer interaction that Elizabeth Cottrell: It is. And I will add that I also, in a networking situation, will always say my name, even if I’m pretty sure they know it already, because we all have been in situations where um it just slips our mind what the other person’s name is. And my my dad again used to say, well you know you you know your name, usually they know theirs, but not always. Bill Lampton: Well, yes, I’ve I’ve uh of course in the last three decades I’ve been an entrepreneur. I’ve been to many, many networking events. And sometimes when you’ve been going to the same networking event, say a chamber of commerce for a year or so, you’ve met a good number of people. But when you walk into the room of all 100 or 150 at a reception, you just might not remember every name. Elizabeth Cottrell: That’s exactly right. Bill Lampton: But if you walk up and say, “Hi, I’m Elizabeth Cottrell,” or “Hi, I’m Bill Lampton,” they almost automatically will give their name. Elizabeth Cottrell: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great a great tip. Bill Lampton: There’s something that I came across, I believe it was in your book, where you talked about there was a surprise incident that you had that really led to what I would call your mission that you’ve been engaged in so actively, not just writing a book but speaking and leading seminars and coaching people. And that’s your mission about our writing handwritten notes and letters. What was that event that got you on this track, Elizabeth? Elizabeth Cottrell: Oh, it it makes me emotional just thinking about it. Um, so Dr. Bill, I am of an age that I was taught to write notes. It was it was considered good manners and it was considered um it was expected. And I always thought of it that way, but um the day that I got a letter from a stranger was the day that it shifted my whole thinking. And that letter came from a woman who had lost her son to suicide. And I didn’t know the woman, I didn’t know her son, but I knew her son’s fiancée and had been so um saddened to learn about it and had written to the fiancée a note. Dr. Bill, if I had $100 to know what I said, I’d like to know, because I but I don’t. But whatever it was, the the young woman shared it with her fiancée’s mother. And that woman wrote to me and she said, “I’ve read your note over 25 times and it has helped me through the toughest time in my whole life.” And and like a light bulb going off in my head, it or a lightning bolt, it made me realize that a handwritten note has the potential to be so much more than just good manners. And that really was the beginning. It planted the seed. It was a while before some of the other things happened, but that planted the seed that put me on the trajectory of where I am now. Bill Lampton: It’s a marvelous impact. And I I often I write about all types of business communication, and of course, business people are going to face the loss by death of some of their associates. It might be people they work with, it might be people they work for. And I’ve often heard people say, “Well, I would go to that reception at the funeral. I would but I wouldn’t know what to say.” And I use an illustration. There was a friend of mine who died uh about two years ago and there were over, I would imagine, there were over 400 people at his funeral. And the reception went on two and a half hours with the family greeting people. Now, did the family remember anyone thing that anybody said? No. It didn’t matter what they said because these are cases where your your presence means so much. Elizabeth Cottrell: Absolutely. Bill Lampton: And then again, in those cases, a week or two later, writing what that person meant to you, that’s that’s a great reinforcement, isn’t it? Elizabeth Cottrell: It absolutely is. And and Dr. Bill, I’ll tell you another story that is on a happier end of things, but it’s a kind of a note that some people don’t think about. My husband is a retired physician, and, um, when we first came, when he was a young physician, there was a pharmacist, um, who had been in the area for ages. And about 10 years after we my husband started his practice, that pharmacist retired. And my husband wrote him a note to congratulate him on his retirement. And he also mentioned in it, um, and it was actually a letter, um, rather than a note. But he said, um, “And I want you to know that I I know from from my patients how often you would deliver medicine to them at night and on the weekends and I and I also want you to know that I remember the time that I made a mistake writing a prescription and you called me and said, ‘Doc, is this I just wanted to check and make sure this was something that you meant to do.'” Well, fortunately, that pharmacist had many years of happy retirement before he passed. And, um, my husband and I went to the funeral home and barely walked in the door

    31 min

  3. 10/20/2025

    Media Master Mike Sammond Gives Guidelines Business Leaders Need

    Hi there. Welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy. In our eighth season of hosting outstanding business communication professionals who share tips and strategies that will boost your business. And today it’s an extreme pleasure and privilege to welcome Mike Sammond from the greater Atlanta metropolitan area. For the past 13 years, Mike Sammond has been the President and CEO of Gwinnett Business RadioX, a company that produces, distributes and markets online radio shows and professional podcasts for businesses of all sizes in the Atlanta area. Mike Sammond is an award-winning radio and television sportscaster. It’s impossible to mention all the places he has been a headliner. I can mention CNN Headline News, ESPN, he’s been a sports highlight reporter and broadcaster, announcer for Olympic Broadcasting services, and they have heard his voice and his expertise in faraway places like Vancouver, London, Rio, Tokyo, Beijing, Paris, Singapore. In fact, there are quite a few people who say that they have worked internationally, but they may have crossed the border once. Here’s a guy who has been an international voice and presence for 13 years. Mike Sammond’s play-by-play experience, uh, covers all sports, baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. He’s announced games for Major League Baseball, Arena Football, International Hockey League, Southeastern Conference, and the list, as they say, could go on. Additionally, Mike has been a minority owner in professional minor league sports, such as hockey and Arena Football while serving as a top executive in sports management. So, I know you will be excited as I am to welcome Mike Sammond. Hello, Mike, how are you doin’? Hey there, Dr. Bill. How are you? You know, it would have probably been a lot easier just to say, he’s a jack-of-all-trades but a master of none. Uh, that would have been inaccurate, sir, because you are a master of many. I’ve had the wonderful privilege of being with you when you first started Business Radio X. I remember very well, a Gwinnett Business Radio X. I remember very well a reception that was held after your first year or so, and it was so impressive, the number of leaders that you had brought into that program, and many of them now have their own network of listeners and admirers. The the first thought that comes to me today, Mike, is with all of this and looking at the fact that at the University of Georgia, where I once taught speech communication, your bio on LinkedIn shows that you were a broadcast journalism major. So, the thought comes to my mind, and I’m sure to our viewers and listeners, exactly when did you start getting interested in journalism as a professional? I sometimes wonder if maybe in your baby crib there was a camera and a microphone. What what really stirred your interest? Was it maybe watching some highly competent broadcasters or sensing the impact of the media? What what really got you into this exciting and dramatic business? It’s it’s funny, Dr. Bill, because you see people today and like my my kids, you know, and they’re in their 20s now and, you know, when they were going to college, they didn’t know what they wanted to do or had no idea. I I didn’t have a a microphone or a TV camera with me in the crib, but I kind of knew at a very early age, growing up, uh, outside of Boston. I was a big-time hockey fan, and so back then, I used to watch the Boston Bruins. And this was back when they had, uh, the great Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito and the big bad Bruins. And then, and then I I played hockey every single day, and I loved it. And for some reason, you would think a young kid in New England, uh, who loves hockey, would wanna grow up and be a professional hockey player. But for me, watching the telecasts on TV, I wanted to be Fred Cusick and Johnny Pierson. Those were the announcers for the Boston Bruins back then. And I thought, “How cool is it to have a job where you’re paid to go see hockey or paid to go see sports?” And so, for whatever reason, I just decided as a young kid, now going back and knowing how much they get paid these days, I probably should have gone that route, but I, you know, I never had the big size or anything like that, and I was a decent hockey player, but I wasn’t good enough. Uh, so from the age of six, seven, eight, nine years old, I knew I wanted to be a sportscaster of of some way. And when I was a sophomore in high school, my dad took a job in Atlanta, so we moved, uh, down south to the Atlanta metropolitan area, Alpharetta. I’m a graduate of Milton High School. And it turns out, I didn’t know at the time, but I was very fortunate that to move down here because UGA and I’m sure you know this, had one of the top journalism schools in the the country. Uh, back in the day, back in the the late 80s, if you wanted to be a broadcaster, you would go to Syracuse was the number one school. That’s where Bob Costas and all the great announcers came from. But the other top schools were Missouri and the uh, Henry Grady School of Journalism at UGA. So I was very fortunate to move to this area with Georgia right down the road. And so I went there, got my broadcast degree. As soon as I started college there, I worked at the campus radio station, and I did as much as I could. Um, got to call a lot of sports at the campus radio station. That turned into a job with a commercial radio station in Athens, and I’ve been in sports broadcasting in some form or fashion, uh, ever since. Every time I host someone, I I find some common ties that that I didn’t know about. Mike, when I was at, um, on the speech communication faculty at the University of Georgia, my first year there, uh, they launched WWOOG, the campus radio station. So I listened to it for a year, and after a year, I went to the station manager, who was a student, and I said to him, “You’ve called this a campus radio station, but you’re leaving out a significant factor. It’s all students who are doing the broadcasting. I think they’re doing a fine job, but what about having a faculty program?” And so they agreed, and for a couple of years, I started hosting a weekly one-hour interview show. And I interviewed students, I interviewed faculty members, I interviewed some of the star football players of the time. The name of the program was “Dialogue,” because that’s what I wanted. It was it was a wonderful experience. And in those days, maybe not later on for your era, but in those days, to continue in broadcasting, we had to get a broadcasting license. I remember having to study for that and go to downtown Atlanta and take a um a written test, and I had no idea what what some of the terminology was, but I had had to learn, did did you have any entrance uh, qualifications like that into radio? We didn’t need any kind of a license or anything like that to be a broadcaster back then. Um, yes, our days of WWOOG, uh, so you’re familiar with walking up all the stairs to the top of Memorial Hall. Oh yeah. Yeah. And and and I I was fortunate as a freshman, I I came in and again it was it was a student-run station. So what a great benefit, uh, for the students that wanna be broadcast majors. And I started in news, I got to work sports. Uh, my senior year, I was the station manager of of the campus radio station, and my only goal was not to screw it up and to make sure we stayed on the air. I probably wasn’t the best general manager. Um, but I got so much great experience that when I left UGA, I was able to get a job right out of school, uh, as a sports director at a TV station, uh, because of the experience I had, the hands-on experience. So, you know, my advice to anybody that wants to get into the field of broadcasting is take any job, whether it’s news or sports, it doesn’t matter, you want to get your foot in the door and just get on air as much as you can. And it’s okay if you’re not good. You’re not supposed to be good when you start. Don’t, you know, I I we were on a campus radio station. I also worked on some AM radio stations, so a lot of people probably didn’t hear a lot of the things I did, which is probably a good thing. But the more reps you can get, the better. So you always want to do as much as possible. And, uh, it’s it’s been a great experience at my my my four years at UGA were a lot of fun, and it laid the groundwork for the rest of my career. It reminds me of a um of a subsequent radio show that that I was privileged to host. I I moved to uh, professionally, to a small town in Kansas, McPherson, Kansas. And they had a very small population. They had one radio station. So after I’d been there a couple of months, I decided that there wasn’t much else to do on weekends, and I loved radio. So I went to, um, a friend who took me to the station manager. The station manager interviewed me and we talked a little about my radio experience, and he wanted to find out, of course, how I would sound on the air. So, this was maybe on a Wednesday, and I can still remember him saying at station KINX, “Okay, you’ll start Saturday morning. Be here at 5:30.” And, uh, like many of us who start in the media, I ran the AM and FM station from for 12 hours on on Saturdays, and that was in the days of reel-to-reel tape. One of the fun things about it is thinking back to some of the early mistakes we made, not you, of course, but I I can remember some that I made, but like in any profession, we learn from our mistakes, don’t we? You’re going to make mistakes. We’re human, and that’s fine. Uh, I make mistakes to this day, but you’re you’re never going to be perfect. If you shoot for perfection, you’re you’re going to fail. Um, but those are the fun days. Uh, you know, I I did, you know, when I was at UGA, we learned how to do reel-to-reel, cutting the actual tape with a razor blade. Yeah. Yeah. At U

    36 min

  4. 10/08/2025

    Darlene Drew Shares Her Keys to Effective Leadership

    Hello. Hello. How are you? Well, I’m just thinking what a privilege and pleasure it is to host you for the second time on the Biz Communication Show. And I’d like to start with what I I consider a great illustration of persistence when you want something. And I’m referring to the fact that when you first applied for a position major position with the Corrections Bureau, you received a letter stating that you were not selected. Eventually, you received notification that you were accepted for that position. It will help us to know what happened in the meantime. How did you transition from being rejected to being accepted and oh my gosh, how many people in the job market today want to hear that. How did that happen? What happened? Well, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bill. Um, that’s a wonderful question, and I love answering that. Um, having received a letter, I asked each person for you to think about a time when you applied for a position and you were so excited about it and anticipating after that great interview as you saw it, that you would be receiving a call or a letter. I certainly, if you’re saying, “Yes, that’s me,” I’m with you because that was me as well. And so I waited with anticipation for that letter, and finally, after waiting and waiting, it it was delivered to me by my dad who used to work for the post office, that made it that much sweeter to me. And anxiously, I I got the envelope, and I opened it up, excited to to read the letter, and it said this is notification that you were not selected. So, to your question, how did it go from not selected to being selected? I believe it started with my disbelief, my disbelief. I did not believe that what it said in that letter, me not being selected, could anyway possibly be accurate. I read the letter. I paused and contemplated it, I thought about it, and I did what naturally came to me at that time, and that was quite some time ago, and I would imagine in this age and time, it would certainly be what comes to younger people. I didn’t believe it, and so I picked up the phone. I picked up the phone doing what I believe millennials, Zoomers today would do. Instead of texting, we want texting then, I called the person, the Human Resources Administrator’s name who was on the letter. I called him and said, “I believe this is a mistake.” I believe it’s a mistake, and I ask you to please re-evaluate my interview packet, give it another look, and please call me later to notify me that I’ve been selected. And oddly enough, he listened to me, and later, some weeks later, I received another letter. And that other letter was the right letter that said, “Congratulations, you’re hired.” That is a marvelous lesson for each one of us in in believing first of all in ourselves, believing in our credentials, believing that we are the right person, that we can do the job. And then taking that next step, which so many of us probably would be reluctant or reticent to take, but you took it and then began an incredible career in corrections. You’re reminding me, Darlene, of an instant where there was a client that I really wanted to serve. I went to high school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I went to McCallie school, a secondary school there. And that’s the home of Crystal. And so naturally, I loved Crystal Burgers. Well, eventually, I thought since I love Crystal and the company so much, I would love to present one or more seminars for them. So, I got the phone number of their trainer. I had an initial conversation, and while he was courteous, he said, “Nothing now.” So, a year later, I called again, “Nothing now.” And then because he lived rather close by my location in Gainesville, Georgia, I said, “Well, all right, you’re, you’re not going to hire me now, but I would like to have a few minutes visit with you to find out more about what your training program aims to accomplish with your employees.” And he said, “Okay, we can do that.” So, I I went to his home office here near Gainesville, Georgia. We sat, and I mostly asked questions, but every now and then when he would say, “Here’s one segment of our training,” I would say, “You know, I I’ve got something similar to that.” And without being pushy, I described my approach. And this happened for about 20 or 30 minutes. I didn’t dominate, but when there was an opportunity, I said, “Well, here’s what I would be doing if I were doing that program.” And at the end of our conversation, he looked at me and he said, “You know, I believe we need to hire you.” So, I was able then to go back to my home home high school home base and work with the Crystal company for half a day. It it all of us who are in either service or products business, I suppose the underlying lesson here is the first no should not be the final word. And you’ve illustrated that so well. Have you had any other instances such as the one I just described where you of course, you were once you got into the system, did you have any instances similar to mine or not? No. I I would say that that initial no, uh, and because once I started working there, I literally worked uh through all three decades of my life. Um, and uh, and so that disbelief, you know, changed everything. Of course, as an entrepreneur, uh, I’ve I’ve heard no or the delay in it, and my approach to it is pretty much the same. Um, I recognize the words “not now” could mean later, and so now it’s a matter of nurturing the relationship, but not being a stalker if you will, uh, giving people time, um, but still keeping the possibility, uh, top of mind for me. Let’s get to your experience now as Warden of the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. I’ve mentioned to you before that I had an opportunity when I was on the faculty of the University of Georgia, I had the opportunity of teaching their extension course one summer in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. So I know the territory we’re talking about. In our conversations off camera, I have heard you say several things about your initial uh stint there as as the warden. And one that I like very much is where they ask, “What do we call you?” What was your answer to that? Oh, what a lovely question, lovely question. Um, my response to, “So, what do we call you?” was a pretty short, clear response. And it was a question to the question. My question to that question was, “What did you call the guy before me?” And it was like an aha moment. “Oh.” And the staff member said, “Warden.” And I said, “That works.” That simple. Yes, if that’s what they called your predecessor, that’s what they should call you. That settled that pretty quickly. Yes. Yes, a lot of it was um, the the idea that this, this CEO, uh, this warden, in the world of corrections, is a girl. It’s a woman. So what do we do? Call me what you called the guy. And that cleared it up. It was clear ever since. Good strategy. Good strategy. Darlene, in in just a minute or so, I’m am going to get you to share with our viewers and our listeners what might be some of the greatest leadership challenges that you have faced during your career and what was your solution to them. We’ll be back for that in just a few seconds. Do you wish you felt confident about giving speeches? Do you want to deal with difficult people constructively? And what about becoming more persuasive in sales? Then keep listening now to Dr. Bill Lampton. He spent 20 years in management, so he knows the communication skills you need for success. I urge you to call the Biz Communication Guy today for a no-cost, but very valuable, 30-minute discussion about your communication challenges. Call now 678-316-4300. Again, that’s 678-316-4300. We’re here on the Biz Communication Show. I’m Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy, your host for the show on video and on podcast. And our guest is Darlene Drew. Darlene, I noticed, of course, in the bio that you provided that you teach leaders and you teach leaders how to teach other leaders. And of course you have the credibility to do this because of your gosh, 32 years in the correctional system. What would you say were a couple of, maybe huge challenges that you faced in leadership in your career and how did you handle these one or two challenges that would come to mind? Sure, thank you for that question. Um, the biggest challenge was uh, with actually my last assignment, uh, before I retired. And the challenge came in the reason of staff being very concerned about this leader coming in, which is, which is common. And the concern was the incoming leader, one is a woman. So that was their challenge. It made it, it was a challenge for them, and it was something that I had to educate uh, staff on, so that they could understand that this will be okay, uh, with a woman serving in the position of a CEO, a woman serving in the position of warden. Uh, it was two parts, it was actually three parts to it. The second part of the concern of staff and the challenge uh, for me was staff understanding that it’s a process, so they had a fear of the big word “change.” Uh, there’s a new leader who’s a woman, and she might change something. Uh, and that ties to the third part of it uh, because there was a mindset and there was a practice that’s employed in so many different organizations, and that mindset and practice was, “But we’ve always done it this way.” So therein, what do you, what did I do in terms of the awareness of the fears, the concerns, the objections uh, that staff had for those particular things? Um, it was about how I led. And I embraced a leadership philosophy and practice of accessibility. So we have staff members who have these fears and concerns and in some cases, uh, misgivings. Uh, how do you debunk that as a leader? Uh, one, it’s all about being accessible. It was about me being accessible to the staff, me being visible to the staff, so they cou

    30 min

  5. 08/05/2025

    Kevin Williams Discusses His Business Communication Skills

    Hi there. Welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy. The Biz Communication Show is now in its eighth season. And during that time I’ve had the opportunity to interview, and I really like to say have conversations with outstanding business professionals who share with us the communication keys and skills that have given them that success. And as we talk over those tips and strategies, you and I can benefit from them. Today, our guest is one that I happen to know, I’m acquainted with. Often the people that I interview globally, I don’t know, but I met Kevin Williams several years ago when we were members for a while at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce near Atlanta, and we formed a professional affiliation and friendship, which is still going. This is his second appearance on the show, and we’re delighted, delighted to have him back. Kevin Williams is a seasoned global executive and franchise consultant with a career that spans continents and industries. Kevin has held leadership roles at some of the world’s most respected companies, including President of a German manufacturing firm in Mexico, Senior VP of Sales and Marketing for a Japanese enterprise, and a pivotal role at Eastman Kodak during its time as the top global brand. Now, Kevin serves as a trusted advisor in the world of commercial real estate and franchise consulting, helping entrepreneurs and investors navigate opportunities with precision and integrity. His expertise bridges franchise development, consumer goods, healthcare, capital equipment, and startup strategy. He’s worked in 10 countries. His expertise is known worldwide, and he comes to us now from the greater Greensboro Winston Salem High Point area in North Carolina. He’s worked directly with powerhouse retailers like Walmart, Target, CVS, and Costco, giving him a unique edge in helping clients grow even in the midst of the most challenging markets. Kevin brings a sharp business mind, a love for problem solving, and a commitment to surrounding himself with like-minded individuals. So I know that you will join me in welcoming Kevin Williams. Hello, Kevin. Bill, how are you? Good to see you again today. It’s good to see you. And I again thank of how I our association performed several years ago. Sometimes those introductions at networking meetings and chambers, sometimes they happen and they disappear, but I have the good fortune that ours has continued. To begin with today, Kevin, I know that I have watched, of course, your intro video on LinkedIn, which I encourage our viewers and listeners to watch and to get connected with you on LinkedIn. And in that video, you talk about your humble beginnings in life. And you say that uh a mop and a broom were quite familiar to you early in life. With what you call that humble beginning, you have used that as a springboard to worldwide prominence as a an executive and a leader. What do you think are early lessons that you learned in your boyhood and early manhood that really equipped you to succeed later on as you have? Well, Bill, you know, you talked about uh working for Kodak as a number one brand. Um, really we are our own brand. and a mop in the bucket is uh where it all starts. If you want uh people to know who you really are, uh you demonstrate even at the level of uh cleaning floors, a sweeping floors, a mopping, dusting, all those different components. Uh when the job is done, that’s your brand. You want something that looks like you want to put your name on it. you want to put your picture on it and you want to say job well done and for others to come along and really do the bragging on you. but that that’s your brand from the very beginning. And it’s kind of like, you know, when you own a a restaurant and uh as a guest, you’re walking in and you see fingerprints and smudges all over the door and they’re dirty and you go to the restroom and uh the restrooms are are not clean or kept. And your first thought is, oh my, I know kind of at this point what the kitchen looks like and they’re about to prepare my food. So, you know, it’s uh mop and bucket, It’s uh my wife used to tell me, you know, how how do you know how to run a business if you’ve not done the jobs in it? And I’ll tell you if you start with a mop and bucket, uh you really understand it. You might see somebody uh sitting down taking a break and you as a senior level uh manager might want to go, you know, why why are they resting? Well, if you’ve been there done that, you might clearly know it is a break, you know, a back breaking job and um, you have a different perspective on it from that perspective. Uh you need to protect your brand. Mop and the bucket is is your brand and how you stamp it is uh how the world sees you. You know, even your car. You know, I uh I’m in commercial real estate as you you mentioned, and I walk by people’s cars and I look in them as the car clean on the outside, is the car clean on the inside. Uh if I work with this other broker, is he going to take care of me? That’s his brand. So mop and bucket, cars, houses, cutting grass, be your brand, be the best brand you can be. and that’s what I get out of the mop and bucket. That’s great for a theme, a logo, a brand. Thank you for that. Reminds me of a couple of things, Kevin. I remember so well that my earliest job as a kid was working in a grocery store, stocking the shelves and loading the shelves and unloading them. And I I think one or two times I tried the cash register. I was a little too clumsy for that. But in in doing those jobs of that sort, and what comes to mind instantly as a kid, I remember so well I’d been working there for uh maybe close to a year. The manager called me in and you never know as a kid is it good or bad. The manager called me in and he said, you have done such a good job that we’re going to give you a raise. And he did, Kevin, he raised me from 35 cents an hour to 50 cents an hour. Oh, the good old days, right? So, uh, and and those those lessons that we learn even in the most menial task, do we form the habits for success then? Do we form the attitude for success? Another comment I’d like to make in response to your excellent contribution there, you reminded me of a book I read years ago. I can’t remember the title of it, but the book was about the most successful Cadillac business in Dallas, Texas. And the a Cadillac business had several locations, and the manager had one major point that he insisted with with his employees and it didn’t have to do with the showroom or the cars displayed there. He said the restrooms must be absolutely impeccable. They have to be spotless because as you say, um, if you’re not going to keep that okay, then what else are you going to do with the rest of the place? Right. So, so our our early beginnings and in both our cases taught us some valuable lessons and I think our viewers on YouTube and our listeners on the podcast are able now to think back, okay, what did I learn early that was valuable for me. I also want to move along to mention that your wide geographical span of your occupation, that’s, that once was quite rare, but now I’m noticing I’ve got a granddaughter who’s a senior at University of Georgia, and I’m noticing with her and her classmates that many times by the time a student gets to be a junior or a senior in a college or university now, they have been several places abroad. Sometimes as a part of their study, their curriculum they can continue there. Sometimes as pleasure trips. But international interactions are vastly different from when I was a college student, if we went a hundred miles, that was a pretty long trip. You have adjusted successfully to some of the countries we mentioned and since they’re 10 that you’ve worked in some that we haven’t. Looking at people now who for the first time are going to be living and working internationally, what would be some of the tips that you could give us on how you adjust and learn what you need to learn and say what you need to say and behave as you need to behave. How do you do those things? So early on, I uh I struggle with that very topic. And I wanted to know before I went to a country how best to uh work within that country. And I would travel with uh Walmart a lot of times uh in in doing those. But I found a book. It’s a little different now. We’ll talk about that in a moment. But the book was called, uh, Kiss Bow Shake hands. And in that book, it talked about culture. Uh you don’t want to offend anybody by a particular color. Uh you wanted to know their behavioral styles. So uh when you sat in a room, you wanted to know uh which person in the room had the authority. You wanted to go know how to uh negotiate best with that particular culture. You wanted to know the protocol for doing that. And really some of the business practices for doing it. So that book became a valuable tool to me before I took any trip. Uh I pulled it out. I looked at the particular country that I was going to. I studied it and I was better well versed um for that culture once I arrived. We live in a a different day now and we have AI at our fingertips. I love that by the way. I’m a chat GBT guy and just love what all it can deliver in seconds um using that format. But I would recommend to anybody uh traveling abroad, uh business or pleasure, just go into it and start uh you know, digging into what exactly takes place in the culture, what’s accepted, what is not, what can offend someone, and just be ready. uh, you know, and and it’s much easier nowadays than than it was back when I uh I first started that adventure. but Kiss Bower shake hands was my uh my life blood to making sure I didn’t mess it up when uh when the plane landed. As long ago, Kevin, as when I was teaching at the University of Georgia, I remember so well reading a book about internati

    33 min

  6. 07/31/2025

    Website Expert Paul Zanardo Shares Tips You Need to Hear

    Hi there. Welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy once again, bringing you and myself tips and strategies from a highly qualified guest who’s a communication expert. And as a result of these tips and strategies, you and I will be able to boost our business. It’s a great pleasure today to bring from the Atlanta metropolitan area, Paul Zanardo. Paul is the CEO and founder of Zanardo Designs. He has been implementing award-winning website design, SEO, graphic design, and video marketing since 2015. So his team is celebrating 10 years of service with their successful clients nationwide. And his achievements and the quality of his work have not gone unrecognized. The North Fulton Chamber of Commerce has honored him as the Solopreneur of the Year in 2024. And I guess Paul and his wife Amy were celebrating that when they were seen dancing at a North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. And we celebrate Paul being with us today. So welcome, Paul, to the Biz Communication Show. It’s a privilege to host you. Thank you, Dr. Bill. I’m very excited and honored to be here. Paul, as I’ve watched you on social media and on LinkedIn, I’ve noticed a marketing device that you implemented a couple of years ago, which definitely is eye-catching. And that’s what’s called your runaround marketing. Now, the room you’re in now isn’t big enough to fully illustrate that, but you can do it vocally. Describe for us that system of run-by marketing, how you came up with the idea, what did you want to accomplish, and what have been the responses to that? Absolutely. I’d love to share that with you. And I don’t believe this is going to be an exclusive. I don’t believe I’ve shared this before. So this one’s special for your show, Dr. Bill. But run-by marketing came to me as a vision, like some other business ideas. Actually, starting my business vision from, I believe, God through prayer. I was working on a lot of social media for other businesses, and it was taking up so much time. And it was becoming stressful for me to do our companies as well, because I manage ours as well, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all the platforms. And it was just becoming daunting and too much. And I was losing interest and losing the creativity aspect of it. And you need that in content. So I was praying to God, actually, I need some help with this. What do you have in mind? Just help me to add value to other people, not to puff me up, but to serve. And I kind of had a moment, like an aha moment, sat up actually in bed, and I had run-by marketing. I knew the name. I knew how I was going to film it. And I used – it’s very simple because I’m a runner in the afternoons to stay healthy. So I’m already active that way. And I’ve implemented my exercise into our marketing strategy to save time, and it’s gone over really well. I’ll use a ring light similar to this and some audio to mic myself up and say something real funny and run by the camera. And, you know, it’s been amazing. Well, it seems to me in watching you run at a pretty good clip for, what, 50 or 75 yards, and then you wind up at the camera and you give a rapid-fire one-sentence description of the message you want to get across. Here we go. Call Dr. Bill. He’s the best communicator. I’ve got to stand up desk so I can do that foryou. I’ll vote for that one, yes. Go ahead, I’m sorry. One of the things, of course, we are invariably viewers who want motion. And one of the things I do as a speech coach, I look at some often even experienced speakers who are so afraid to move around. And I put it this way that some of them are holding on to that podium so tightly that they resemble somebody trying to survive the sinking of the Titanic. They just can’t let go of it. So you are implementing in a highly dramatic way what I teach. And that is that motion is impossible. Excuse me, motion is necessary. And we can reverse that in saying staying still is a great way to cure insomnia with your audience, whether it’s a video audience or whether it’s a speaking audience. So I really applaud you on that. About how many of those segments have you done? I’ve been doing it for about two years now. And, oh, my gosh, that’s a good question. I’ll have to go back and count. But I average maybe one or two a month. Would those be available on your YouTube channel? You can find them on YouTube. I’ll put them on LinkedIn and Instagram. Yes. Great. Well, go ahead. I was just going to mention sometimes about the nervousness, to your point, what you were saying. You know, when I was first starting this and, you know, I’m out in public at the park and so people are seeing me as I’m setting up and running by and they’re naturally curious and start asking questions. And, you know, I need to start doing this on construction sites because that’s one of our niches. That might be dangerous. Have you by any chance gotten any inquiries from some of those people who watch you do it in person? We actually have, which came to me as a surprise and was really exciting. And that’s when you know you’re reaching your market and you’re reaching people. Absolutely. You mentioned LinkedIn and so many of our business professionals who are watching and listening use LinkedIn. I would imagine there have been times, Paul, when you are talking with somebody about developing a website. They don’t have one yet. And they say to you, well, Paul, I don’t need a website. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m very active there. I post a good bit. Not only that, I comment on what other people are doing. I even post videos on there. So explain to us, Paul, if we’re doing all that, why do we need a website? Yes. So we get this question a lot. People say, well, my business is word of mouth or I do have a great LinkedIn presence. So what’s going to happen is even if you’re connected with someone and you’re building those relationships on LinkedIn, they’re going to research you online. They’re going to do an online search. They’re going to go to your website, your Google business, your other social media profiles, and all of those need to be buttoned up and up to date. And you want cohesive branding across the board. So the website, you know, is another way to another tool to sell and to engage your audience, build trust and help them contact you, hopefully even sooner. Now, when you talk about websites, I know that you talk about SEO, search engine optimization. Let’s say I come to you and I say, Paul, I’ve got a website. And you respond and you say, well, what’s your SEO? And I say, I have no idea. I don’t even know what that means and had no way of testing it. What steps would you take with me as a client then? Absolutely. So SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization. And I usually find from potential clients that there’s two ends of the spectrum. Like you’re talking about, they have no idea what it is or they have misinformation about SEO being the one-stop shop and solve everything. So SEO is extremely important. And it is how your website ranks against competitors. And also first, before it even does that, you need your website’s content to be able to be found and seen online. There’s something I believe we need to cover here in relationto that. And that’s keywords. How does that fit in? What’s the relevance there? So keywords are a very important part of SEO. When people are searching a certain speech coach. or presenter, you’re going to want those keywords kind of reverse engineer from a psychological standpoint, what your potential client is looking for. And to have those keywords strategically placed on your website makes a big difference. And the algorithm picks up on that and helps your website show up in search results. Now, keywords are just one part of the equation. There’s many parts of SEO. And like I mentioned, SEO is not the solve all. It’s very important, but it’s very helpful. So keywords do play a big part in SEO. You’ve been in the website business very intensely and also very successfully. Years ago, I remember when websites started and it was at that time largely print and maybe some photographs and eventually some audio. But then we’ve advanced to the video age. So when you’re working with clients, what would you tell a client who comes to you and wants to improve their website, make it more contemporary and more appealing? And they say, maybe, Paul, I should be doing something with video. How would you respond to that? Video content is king. Even on LinkedIn, as you scroll, you’ve noticed some don’t like this, but that’s with our age of we want it now and lower attention spans. Video is taking over social media and for content as well. So hiring a professional to do video is very important. You need good lighting. You need audio. Like I mentioned this, even if you’re doing something quick like my run by marketings, these right here, here’s a microphone I can clip on here very quickly. And this clips into my phone and you get the audio straight in through your phone. Professional lighting. And if you’re doing, say, filming a speech or a presentation, you need professional video editing. And we do a lot of that and it’s very helpful. And that type of content to go on to your website shows your potential client that you’re the expert in your field and that you’re solving the problems that they need to be solved. To me, as I mentioned, we’ve progressed from print to audio to video. And in fact, we still have all of them still have great value. But in my observation, there are many people who have not quite moved into the video arena. There’s an old saying, well, I’ve got a face for radio. But in essence, having the I guess I would say the courage and the initiative to get into video is not as daunting once you get sort of like getting you

    31 min

  7. 07/23/2025

    Melinda Marcus Gives Guidelines For Interpreting Body Language

    Hi there, welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy, bringing you tips and strategies that will boost your business. And these tips and strategies come from my conversation with a very qualified guest and what we share will, as I said, benefit you when you apply these tips and strategies. Coming to us today from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Melinda Marcus. Melinda Marcus is a body language expert who shows leaders how to speed read people. That sounds interesting. And influence decisions. As a result, our clients have won top career positions, improved team dynamics, and closed multimillion dollar deals. Melinda trained directly with a former special agent who trained the FBI. And she is only one of five people globally who attained the highest body language certification in his master program. She also earned a master’s in communication from SMU and a psychology degree with honors from Northwestern University. Melinda Marcus is in demand as a keynote speaker at national events and is an award winning writer. Her book, Read the Zoom, shows you how to read people in your next meeting. So I know you will join me in welcoming Melinda Marcus. Hello, Melinda. Hey, Bill. Thanks for having me. Oh, absolutely delighted to host you. And at the end of that introduction, and it’s a brief introduction because I know there’s much more that you have qualified in and we could go over, but we needed to get to this instead. At the conclusion of the introduction, we mentioned your book, Read the Zoom. And ironically, it was just this morning I was talking with an executive recruiter friend who’s been an executive recruiter for about three decades. And he was pointing out to me that so many, a large proportion of job interviews now are not taking place on site, but they’re taking place on Zoom, which means that we need to know how to come across in this way that it still remains fairly new. And some of the people who are applying for jobs or who want to host Zoom really have no specialized training in it. So we’re relying on you today for some tips. Tell us how to read the Zoom, please. Okay. Well, first of all, part of reading the Zoom is that we have this real estate, right, sort of from chest up. And that’s the exact same view we have in person if you’re looking across a conference room table, a desk, or a restaurant table where a lot of business deals and relationships are developed as well. So everything that you’ll learn in the book also applies in person. But the key is, is that there’s a lot of information that’s beyond the words. And that has to do with the nonverbals that will be with what’s going on facial expression, body language, position, whether somebody’s here, here, and what you notice in terms of what triggers the changes. So that can give you a lot of information that they may not volunteer with their words. And those insights can make the difference between if it’s a job interview, gaining consideration, which is what we all want, right, and being tossed aside as not somebody who fits. So it’s a critical piece to pick up how people are responding to what you have to say. So you know when you have buy-in and you know when you have maybe a stress point or objection that you need to overcome. When you’retraining someone on this, what steps do you take them through? So the first step is I do an assessment by, generally I have not met them before, we may have had just a phone call, and I do an interview with them. And then I do the assessment on what they’re saying in terms of their messaging, their nonverbals, their storytelling, all of those things so that I can help them and we can customize how we do the coaching. Now I will tell you something kind of exciting: since, obviously, there’s a limit to how many people I can personally coach one-on-one, I’m getting ready to launch an online course that will be modules that’ll take people about 85% of the way there and help a lot more people get jobs than I could touch if I was doing actual engagements with each one of them individually. Ah, well tell us two things, please. Tell us, first of all, how to access the book, and then also how can we register for this online Zoom training session that you’re talking about? Okay, well the book, it’s called Read the Zoom. You’ll notice it says Read the Room and Room is crossed out because when I started writing this book, it was before 2020 and COVID, and all of a sudden nobody was in the room. So it became Read the Zoom and you can get it at readthezoom.com. So that’s the only place to buy it. Or if you go to my website, which is influenceadvisors.com, you can also, there’s a link there if you want to go that way. So either of those work. The course has not launched yet, but I’ve done all the recordings on role-playing with real people who are being interviewed by me, and then I give what they could do to improve and you see the before and after. So that’ll probably launch in, if you’re on LinkedIn, be sure to connect with me because I’m going to probably mainly launch that there and then there’ll be other things, ways to get to it. But that’s the main one I’ll be using is LinkedIn. You can find me under Melinda Marcus and just let me know that you heard me with Bill so that I’ll know who you are. That sounds fascinating. And one of the items, of course, that you and I have to work with, I’m a speech coach and you’re helping people prepare for presentations of different kinds. One of the items we nearly always have to work with is fear of the camera. People I’ve dealt with, many people on stage fright where we’re facing audiences, but now we have a new fear that has come in and that’s fear of the camera. And there are a couple of points I make and I’m curious to know how you feel about them: I say that the camera doesn’t lie so that it’s a good training device. If you were to say to me, if I’d given you a presentation, you say, well, Bill, you did this, this, and this, and I would be thinking or saying, oh, no, I didn’t, but there’s the camera. That’s a different thing. The camera does not lie. The second point I make is that because the camera does not lie, it also can become reassuring for us because there are so many times that we’re before a camera and we’re thinking, oh, gosh, I’m really blowing it. I’m really goofing it. I’ve made all these mistakes. And then when you play it back, it’s almost benign compared to all the fears that you had. And, of course, I’ll give another example here. Sometimes when we are on camera, we’re trying to think of what to say, we pause. That pause just seems endless to us. But when we play it back, guess what? It was a couple of seconds and it looked quite natural. So reflect on those points for me and for us, please. The camera doesn’t lie and it also can have some very positive feedback for us. I totally agree with that. And that’s particularly if you have permission to record it. Otherwise, while the camera is on you, if it’s not recording, you can’t go back and look at what you did. So I think it’s a great tool. And particularly if you’re going to give a presentation, it’s a nice thing to have a meeting just with yourself and record it so that youcan see what you’re doing and how you’re sounding. And nobody sees it but you. So it’s a great training tool. So I think that’s great. I will say that one of the things that I think is somewhat problematic is since we’ve all been using virtual meetings now for probably since 2020, so we’re going on close to six years, right, in 2026. I think people are a little too casual with what they’re doing on camera. They forgot about the camera, and sometimes they’re just unaware that they’re doing things that are not leaving the best impression because they’re not as, I would say, self-conscious about how they’re coming across as they would be if they were in person in the room. So you see a lot of times on Zoom, and I’m going to illustrate it for you, where when people are listening, they’re just kind of like, and they don’t realize they’re listening, but it looks like they’re not engaged. It’s not necessarily the most flattering expression on their face. So I like people to be more self-conscious about how they’re coming across. And in virtual meetings, you can see at least a small screen of what you look like. So you want to show engagement. You want to show interest. And those are things that I think are incredibly important. I also think you need to pay attention to nonverbals, which are not just your face and body. They are also your vocal pattern and what you’re wearing, how your hair looks. All of those things that are appearance-related make a very big impression before you ever open your mouth. And people are at least subconsciously making decisions on whether they can trust you or whether you’re an authority or a leader based on that appearance piece. And I think that you can be a little too casual with that and unnecessarily hurt your image. Sometimes today I’m thinking you anticipate my questions because you bring up something I know that our audience wants guidance on. We’re all aware of how clothing styles have changed dramatically. I can still remember so well, Melinda, the first time probably 20 or so years ago, the first time I boarded a commercial flight as a passenger and I was not wearing a tie. Because up until that time, practically every professional male was wearing a coat and tie. The trend became so obvious that I said, well, I might as well go with the flow. And even though I had convinced myself that this was the norm now, I felt quite awkward the first few times I did that. Okay, so here we are talking now about being on Zoom. And there has to be a happy medium there sometime. Y

    33 min

  8. 07/16/2025

    “Stacey Reece Tells How Interviewers Can Become More Competent”.

    Hi there and welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy, bringing you tips and strategies that will boost your business. And those tips and strategies are not from me alone. They are instead from a lively and highly informative conversation I have with a business communication expert. And today coming to us from Gainesville, Georgia, my home base, my office base, Stacey Reece. He’s a former franchise owner of Sphereon Staffing and Recruiting located in Gainesville, Georgia. Sphereon has served Northeast Georgia since 1997. Reece said he strived during his 28 year tenure as market owner to provide the job seeker with the best interview experience possible through providing individual resume design, pre-interview coaching and post-interview follow up. Prior to opening Sphereon, Stacey Reece was a vice president with First National Bank of Gainesville for over 13 years. During his banking tenure, Reece held several positions, including branch manager as well as consumer division project manager. As division project manager, Reece was charged with creating cost cutting initiatives while improving the customer experience. Stacey Reece received his BBA in 1987 from the University of North Georgia. And in 1992, he graduated from the UGA Georgia Banking School. Reece has served on numerous community boards and civic organizations during the past three decades. Most notably, Stacey Reece is a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives, having served from 2002 to 2007. He had a leadership role that allowed him the privilege to cast votes in 32 standing committees. Stacey Reece continues to remain active in Georgia politics, doing grassroots advocacy for community organizations. Reece and his wife, Dr. Mandy Reece, reside in Gainesville, Georgia. They have two adult children and two grandchildren. So I know that you’ll join me in welcoming Stacey Reece. Hello, Stacey. Hello, Bill. How are you today? I’m absolutely delighted to have another conversation with you. I’ve followed your career, as you know, for three decades. And in addition to that, I’m fortunate to have a friendship with you and your wife, Mandy. So it’s could we call it old home week? Absolutely. Absolutely. And thank you for asking me to come back. I was looking at my notes and realized we were together in 2018. And I’m like, wow, how does time fly? Yes, time does fly for sure. One thing that all of us know is that when we’re talking about job interviewing, there’s been a lot of attention given to the job candidate, what the job candidate should do, how they should dress, how they should sit, how they should walk, how should they talk. And yet you’re in a position to give us some information about the job interviewer. And I see a vast gap there. I know that we need that information. Why, for example, would you say to start with is the job interviewer overlooked or neglected or not talked about? I think, Bill, it goes back many, many decades. It goes back to where when someone was applying for a job, it was viewed that they had a need. That need was they needed a job. So the interviewer didn’t really have to sell themselves to the person that they wereinterviewing. So they could just, in most any case, just do whatever they wanted to do during the interview. But about 10 years ago, that started to change. People started to have options, and if you were fortunate enough as an interviewer to have someone apply for a role that you had open, you needed to be able to impress them as well. Okay. These interviews, unless they are online, which many are, but let’s talk about the interviews that are live and in person, and that has become more the norm since COVID is no longer putting us in isolation. One of the first keys that an interviewer needs to think about and have good tips and strategies about is the setting itself, because we all know that places talk, places give messages just as well as people do. What advice will you give interviewers about the setting so that it will be, let’s say, for example, welcoming and not threatening? What advice do you give along those lines? So we always attempted to create what I call a very comfortable, neutral environment to conduct interviews in. Usually it was done in a conference room. The conference room was well lit. The furniture was modern, and we would always have at least water sitting around that we could offer the candidate that we were interviewing. I like that because then you’re not interviewing from your personal office. And I was taught many years ago in sales classes that when you got the privilege to enter someone’s office to maybe present your services, that you should start reading the room immediately and learning as much as you can about that person. So I always preferred to be in a neutral environment, and that’s why I refer to it, Bill, as a neutral environment. Before that candidate learns about me, I want them to see me and hear me and have a conversation with me that’s very neutral. And my office was my home away from home. I spent more time in my office than I really did here in this study or in my own living room. So I wanted my office to be decorated in a way that represented me. And I don’t always want people to know who I am right out of the gate because I have opinions of things. And often I have to first let people meet me and learn that even though our opinions may be different, I’m very open minded about their opinions, which is a great segue into what you and I have talked off a lot about some, and that is what about when interviewers and interviewees have difference of opinions that really aren’t job related? And that’s something I have seen a lot of over the years. I would have people tell me when they interviewed one of our candidates, well, I don’t think they’re a good fit. And I’d be like, well, why? Why are they not a good fit? Well, they’re just not. And I’m like, well, I need more feedback because if you want me to recruit for your opening, I’ve got to understand where I’m missing the target on this individual. Because if they were not qualified, I wouldn’t have recommended you set up an interview. We just have difference of opinions. And I said, well, share more about that with me. And as they began to share those differences of opinions, I’m like, okay, how does that prohibit the individual you interviewed from conducting the job that you’re wanting to hire them to do? And they’d look at me and they’d think a minute and they’d be like, well, it really doesn’t. And I said, well, then why would you not want to continue forward with this? Because it doesn’t sound like that your differences have anything to do with their capability of doing you a fabulous job. It sounds like it’s just that maybe you don’t agree with their philosophy or maybe their outlook on life. I think that what you have just said is even more prevalent now than when you first instituted that practice, which is a very good one. Becauseif anything among the people you know and I know, there’s a lot of polarization. But does that polarization mean that somebody couldn’t do work for and with a person that they differ so much with? And then I’d like to really commend you on that, what to me is novel and new, and that is having the interview in a neutral site. Because as you said very clearly, when the candidate comes in, the candidate, if they have any alertness at all, if they’re in your regular office, they’re going to get, as you said, a lot of clues about you. And in my professional life, for many years, if I would get to someone’s office that I was going to have a business appointment with, and the receptionist said, well, he or she is not here yet. Would you like to stay here in the reception room? Or do you want to go into the office? I always took the choice of going into the office. Why? Because here on display would be that person’s hobbies, their families, their awards, their memberships. And so you had starting points to talk with. But I think your approach is that you want to know more about the candidate than the candidate knows about you. Is that the way I’m seeing it? It is, yes. Yes. I want to know what that candidate is thinking. I want to know what their qualifications are, not just what they turned in on paper. Because people can embellish on paper, but once you start having a dialogue with them, and I like to use the word as an interviewer, I’m having a dialogue. I’m not saying I’m going to ask you a series of questions. I’m going to have a discussion with you. I want to see how well you can communicate with me so that I’ll know how well you’re going to communicate with my managers or my clients or my other employees. And I’ve always been in a role where communication is extremely important. In fact, the roles I’ve had in life, if you could not communicate well, you would not have succeeded in the roles that I’ve enjoyed over 30-plus years. Well, you know that I say amen to that because communication has been not only my focus professionally, but to me, the interpersonal relationships we have. And when you go to networking events, don’t be there just because of what somebody might can do for you, but go there to establish relationships. Something that you mentioned a while back to me was that the interviewer has certain legal restrictions on what can be asked of the candidate, what they can ask the candidate. And so what happens if a candidate is well-informed and knows those, what happens if a candidate finds the interviewer getting a little shady on them, maybe not asking the question that they can’t ask directly, but doing it rather subtly? How can graciously an interviewer work through that or around it? Yeah, well, and you can come at different angles on this. You can come at the ang

    34 min

  9. 07/09/2025

    Domenica Davis Describes How She Coaches Other Broadcasters

    Hi there, welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy, bringing you tips and strategies about communication that will boost your business. And I don’t do this alone. It’s not just my communication tips and strategies, but you get much more through my conversation with a highly qualified guest. And today our guest is indeed highly qualified, coming to us from the Atlanta metropolitan area, Domenica Davis. Domenica Davis is an experienced broadcast meteorologist, reporter, host, and on-camera coach. She has worked nationally for NBC, Fox, News Channel, MSNBC, and the Weather Channel. And by now, I’ll bet you, Domenica Davis’ name and image rings a bell with you because like me, you probably have watched her for more than two decades. Currently, Domenica freelances as a meteorologist for 11 Live in Atlanta, and she runs On Cam with Domenica, a coaching business dedicated to helping on-air talent elevate their performance, build confidence, and develop the skills needed to succeed in both traditional and digital media. So I know that you join me in welcoming Domenica Davis. Hello, Domenica. Hello. How are you? I’m just doing very well now that I’m going to have a delightful conversation with you that informs, educates, and knowing you, entertains as well. Well, it’s an honor to be here. Thank you. It’s an honor to host you. At the outset, I’m sure there are many people who wonder, those of us who have watched meteorologists for years, we wonder, how did you get there? I mean, some of us are thinking, oh, this is a nice-looking person. I guess they won a talent contest somewhere with their speaking. A talent scout from TV saw them, hired them, and the next thing you know, we’re seeing them pointing at maps. That’s not exactly how it happens, is it, Domenica? No. Not for me, no. I’ve never won any contest. So the way I got into it many moons ago was I went to college knowing that I wanted to be a reporter. So I knew I wanted to be in broadcast news. I thought I wanted to be an anchor and a reporter, and that’s really why I graduated from Boston University. So that’s really what I went to college for. After I graduated college, my very first job was in traffic. I did live traffic, and it included weather, but it was like a rip-and-read weather. You didn’t really do weather. So I got my first agent at the time, and he said, hey, did you ever think of going into meteorology? I said, no, never. And so he said, I think you’d be great. Reporters, anchors are a dime a dozen. Meteorologists, it’s a degree thing. You’d have to go back to school, but they really need women in this field. I think you’d be great at it. And if you have an interest, I mean, I think this is something you should pursue. So I was never caught in a tornado. I don’t have any of those stories. I was kind of introduced to it really in a strategic manner career-wise. Lucky for me, I actually really liked it. So I got into it in a really weird, backwards way that most people don’t. But it really worked out for me, and I went to Mississippi State to get my degree, and I worked while I was doing that. So I’ve always been a reporter and a meteorologist for many years before I just strictly did meteorology on TV. And that’s really how I got in. It’s not that entertaining atall, but it’s my story, and it’s true. I mentioned to you as we were getting acquainted before the program that I’m a Mississippian native. I realized just a few years ago how many people that I see who are meteorologists are graduates of the program at Mississippi State. Something I would like to just throw in here is that there are many of us who’ve been on this earth a while, who lived here before weather forecasting got so scientific and for the most part excellent in accuracy and in forecasting. And at that time, Domenica, I was on the University of Georgia faculty. The only warning we would get about any bad weather coming was probably just somebody interrupting a local radio program. So I remember so well that living in Athens, Georgia, the place you don’t think of necessarily for violent storms, you think of it for the university and football. But this one day my wife was coming home from work. She walked into the house, we looked out back and a tree was swaying in the wind and we said that’s nothing. Next thing we knew the house was shaking. Our neighbor’s roof came off. We had all of this with no warning. And my daughters, I guess it’s one of the few times I ever lied to them. They said, Daddy, are we going to die? And I said, No. It seemed like we would. Amazingly, there were six homes in our subdivision that were destroyed and also in one other subdivision in Athens. And ironically, exactly 60 days later, again without warning, two tornadoes hit those same neighborhoods. So having been around on this earth before we got all the warnings that we get now and the advice on what to do, I have an appreciation for weather forecasters, meteorologists that some people who are more recent on this earth would not have. Now you’re into coaching broadcasters, meteorologists now. How did you happen to get into that? What was your purpose? And what do you want to accomplish in doing that? Well, I coach not just meteorologists, but anybody, digital content creators, anchors. So not just meteorologists. But the purpose that I wanted to get into that was it was the next logical step in my career. It’s something that I was doing kind of here and there with people that would reach out to me and ask, like, hey, can you take a look at my tape or can you help me with this or just starting out in the business? So mentoring is really how it started. And I loved it. And I was giving a lot of time to it because I wanted to. It was one of those things that I was just spending a lot of time, you know, with certain people that would reach out to me, reviewing their staff, sending them notes, talking to them. And I thought, you know, this is just really something that is such a good fit for me. It makes me feel like I’m doing something. I’m giving back. And I’ve had help along the way. I’ve had coaches. Not, you know, I’ve had coaches like, you know, that stage is higher that a lot of times I felt like did more discouraging than they did lifting you up and teaching you and pushing you forward. And I just I just saw I just I just felt I don’t know. It just it was just the greatest fit for me. And I thought I can make such a difference in people that actually need somebody who supports them, not there to criticize them or make them feel bad for being new at something and learning it. And it’s just something that as the years went on, I decided I wanted to devote more and more time to. And I feel now it’s it’s it’s so fulfilling. It’s so fulfilling. And it’s really what gets me up in the morning. I love being I loveTV. I love broadcasting. I love broadcasting. But this is the next logical thing for me to do. It’s just a great way to give back and encourage people that are coming up. behind me to keep pushing. Everybody’s so great, especially in this day and age where we live in a playback era, right? So everybody can review their tapes. Everybody can practice on camera. You don’t need to be in a studio anymore to develop your skills. Do it with your camera, yes. But what people do need is encouragement. That’s what they do need. They need encouragement. They need practical skills. They need all those things. They need to be told that being you is okay. That’s actually what you need to do is be you. So that’s what they need. They don’t need the technical things anymore. They need the encouragement to be them. And that’s what makes great. One of the things I noticed among the items that you help broadcasters with, many who have wanted to be on the big screen, believe that when they go on there, they have to develop instantly a, quote, broadcast voice. And so the guys try to boom away and it does not become the winning voice because it’s not their voice. How do you convince someone you’re working with on that? And what training do you give them to say, hey, your natural voice is what everybody wants? Well, we all cringe at our own voice, right? We’ve all heard our voice. I still do it. I’ll watch this podcast back. Oh, my God, my voice. We all cringe at our natural voice, and that’s normal. The more you hear it, you get over it, right? It’s just my voice. Now, it’s hard sometimes to convince people not to do that, especially college kids, kids that are, you know, working at their college television station and they’re getting ready to go into to look for their first job. They’re going into the real world, so to speak. That’s always my hardest to convince them to be them because they are, you know, when you’re young, you’re insecure, and it’s much easier for me to pretend I’m you than to pretend I’m me. And they’re also very impressive, not just impressive stories. Yes, right. So they think they have to make up for that by they’re sort of just playing the role. They’re not being the role. They’re just playing it. So they’re developing some character and then going with that. So I find it the hardest with the kids that are the students are just graduating and going into the business. But what we work on, you know, it’s we work on talking normal. We work on using our voice and being comfortable and recording it and all the reasons of how that sounds better. We do a lot of playback. We do a lot of comparison. And it’s almost like I have to prove to them that their voice, when we hear it, we do a lot of, okay, listen to this. Now listen to this. Now just read it to me like you were reading it to a friend. Totally informal. You don’t even have to read it. Just paraphrase it. But just now tal

    33 min

  10. 05/18/2025

    Monte Holm Rose From Nowhere to Excel Everywhere

    Bill Lampton Ph.D. Bill, Hi there. Welcome to the biz communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lambton, the biz communication guide bringing you tips and strategies that will boost your business. And those tips and strategies come from my conversation with a highly accomplished business professional whose communication career could be a book. And in fact, in this case, is today, it’s a great privilege to welcome from St George, Utah, Monte Holm. Monte is the co founder of an international financial services company. He’s an accomplished global entrepreneur and author of the book. Expect to win, and we’ll be talking about that from a challenging and humble start on a small family farm to becoming a global leader in the financial services industry, money’s story is one of resilience, strategic planning and unwavering focus. Money shares insights on overcoming adversity, creating a vision for success and the importance of preparation and execution. Money’s journey is an inspiring testament to the power of perseverance, strong mindset and clarity of purpose. He knows what it takes to go from being a young boy sleeping on a concrete floor on the unfinished family home to sitting on the supersonic Concord airliner bound for Paris, he went through a personal growth process that moved him from having nothing to living his dreams. Monty, Holm has been involved in not only co founding and building a successful business with gross revenues into the billions, but also business coaching, public speaking and leadership mentoring. Today, Monte and his wife are avid investors, holding an interest in hundreds of companies, and they are asked multiple times per month to speak and coach at various events. And does this sound to you like a Horatio Alger story? You may remember that Horatio Alger and the 19th century wrote more than 100 books featuring young adults who were in impoverished circumstances, but rose from that, and he sold more than 20 million copies of that book. So we’ve got an excellent example of an ongoing Horatio Alger story here. Hello money. Hello bill. How are you? I’m just so privileged and delighted to talk with you today, and let’s begin with what I was describing. You absolutely started at a very unpromising level in life, and yet you rose to what many of us, rightfully so, would call the pinnacle, one of my favorite themes. And what has helped me so much as is what is called self talk. And possibly you, and maybe some of our viewers and our readers have read Shad Helmstetter book on that, what to say when you talk to yourself. And I imagine growing up, and especially when you became a very young man, there were some things that you said to yourself that turned the tide for you, and probably still stay so expand on that a little bit Forrest please. Monte Holm Well, thank you, Bill. Thank you for the invitation to be with you and on your great show you you’re making a great difference in many, many lives, more so than you know. And in fact, I’ve been aware of you for many years, and have watched prior episodes about going back years, as well as more recently. So thank you. Appreciate the chance. It’s an honor to be with you, and I hope to be able to help your audience today, you will Well, thank you. I agree that self talk is pretty critical. It’s, I mean, it makes all the difference in the world. How we communicate with ourselves matters, and it matters big time. I’ve often told my associates and the. And my family and myself over the years, that many of us don’t talk properly to ourselves, if, if we talk to others the way we talk to ourselves, they might hate us forever because we sometimes belittle ourselves and we don’t believe in ourselves like we should. And I think it’s a well known fact that people you know eventually we become what we think we should become, and that which we persist in placing in our minds will eventually seek reality in our lives. I believe that with all my heart and so the things we place in our minds, the things we say to ourselves, matters. Many years ago, I I decided to study the great authors. I had a, I was at a, I was attending an event in Houston, Texas, and a tall, handsome African American man stood up and he said, I want you to go get this book called Think and Grow Rich. And I did. I went and bought the book, and I’ve never seen that man since, but he changed my life and encouraged me, encouraging me to get that book and several others, which I did, and I became a student of success stories, success principles, and of course, self talk is a big part of that I I just made the decision that I’m going to try to do those little things that make the big difference in my life. And it does begin with self talk. I wrote my goals, I began to read them out loud, literally, every morning and every night for years and years, I did that, and I pounded into my brain, the things that I felt like I needed to hear from myself and Bill. I used to tell myself that if I could have a dream of having the person I admire the most in my life, which would be my wife, the person I love the most, if I could wake up every morning, if she could hover over me when I wake up, if she were hovering over me and she would just shower me for maybe three to five minutes with all these words that would help me feel like I’m a champion, like I’m supposed to be successful, like I belong at the top. I’m a winner, if I could get her to say the things properly to me that would help me believe in me more. That would be my dream. And as much as she loves me, that’s not her responsibility. So I decided that as that that would still, if I if, since I can’t get anybody else to do it, I think I’ll do it to myself. I think I’ll go ahead and say the things that I wish my wife would say to myself, and I have, I mean, over the years, I’ve tried to get myself to believe that I belong at the top, that I’m a champion, I can be successful. And so I’ve done those, those things. And last little point here about that, if I think for all of us, for all of your listeners, if, if you look up your family tree, you look at your parents and their parents and their parents, most of them, we were not raised, and most of them were not raised with a belief that we’re supposed to be highly successful, and it wasn’t pounded into our mentality down through the generations, for most of us, that we’re supposed to win, that we’re supposed to be successful, and I think we can honor and love and cherish our families and yet still go ahead and do things that maybe they didn’t do or they didn’t breed into us, if that makes sense. And and so regardless of what family we come from, regardless of the family tree, we can begin doing the things, from a self talk, affirmation standpoint, that we can begin doing those things that make all the difference in the world. And for me, personally, what you’re saying, it just made all the difference in the world. How I communicate with myself, I’m Bill Lampton Ph.D. wondering, and your reading of great thinkers, did you come across Emerson with his essay on self reliance? I Monte Holm did, yes and and enjoyed that very much, which also had a great impact. Bill Lampton Ph.D. Yes, trust thyself. He said, Every heart vibrates to that iron string. And of course, he was one of many of that period of history who started giving people the notion that they could be great, which you’re talking about, and that if, if they happen to me mediocre, in many ways, that was a choice, and I’m trying to remember your exact words, but you say in your writing and in your speaking that those who succeed are those who expected to win. Am I right on that? Monte Holm Yes, that’s a common theme for me with from my book. I. Most people deep down in their psyche. The quote from my book is that I believe that most people deep down in their psyche, they expect to fail, but they hope to surprise themselves and win. But to that, those rare ones that do win at high levels, they win because they plan to win, and they prepare themselves to win in everything they do, and so planning and preparation makes a big difference in our thinking. Bill Lampton Ph.D. Yes, and to use a sports comparison here, Jack Nicklaus, who, of course, won more major golf tournaments than anybody has, or, I think anybody will. One of my favorite statements from Jack Nicklaus is I never made a putt that I thought I was going to miss. And what we as Emerson and Chad helm Stetter, I quoted earlier, the entire thrust, is that, that we do, and believe Emerson put it this way, that a man, and of course, it’s a man or a woman, becomes what he thinks about all day long. Monte Holm Yeah, and I believe that I that which dominates our thinking determines the outcome of our lives. I just believe that with all my heart and and I don’t know what dominates most people, but I know what’s dominated my thinking, what I’ve what I’ve wanted to dominate my thinking is my dreams and my goals and my plans, not the negativity and all the things that you know fuel through the through the world and through the media and all that. And I think we can determine what dominates our thinking. And I want to control that by writing my goals, by putting my quantifying and clarifying my dreams. And then I like to begin each day and close each day with those things going through my mind by intentionally placing those things in my mind, it helps those things to dominate my thinking. Bill Lampton Ph.D. Yes, very much. So this reminds me on the opposite scale of a saying I once heard, those who aim at nothing in particular will hit it every time. So having specific goals is so vital, I’ll add my own personal self talk very quickly. But I came across this years ago I was giving a presentation in Atlanta, and I was going into a government building, and there was someone there I had to check with. She

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About

Every week Bill Lampton, Ph.D.–the “Biz Communication Guy”–interviews renowned communication experts about their areas of expertise. Listeners learn tips, strategies, and guidelines for sales, management, customer service, presentation skills, technology, and persuasion. Catch every lively episode, so you will jet-propel your business communication skills–and profits!

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