Summary: Beyond Talk is back after an unscheduled week offline. Please forgive the dilatory nature of the recent (lack of) postings ....
Did I say I'd always provide a new vocabulary word every Monday? Well ... I meant it when I said it, at least.
Last week, having returned from my wonderful vacation, I was feeling a little dilatory. That's right: I'm still slowly creeping back into my work life with a sluggish sense of stalling. You could say I'm dragging my feet (but that would be an idiom that not everyone might understand) about entering the "real world." That, combined with additional work-related travel last week--and a lack of access to the internet during that travel--kept me from blogging all week long. I missed you!
Allow me to kick off this week with a bang (pardon the pun, but July 4th is just around the corner): Let's learn together about the word dilatory.
Dilatory (DIL - uh - TOR - ee) - (adj.) From the Latin dilatus, to postpone or defer, this word means to be intentionally delaying, or procrastinating. It can also mean tardy or late-coming. And it sauntered its way into the English language in the 15th century.
What are you postponing in your life? Don't delay the inevitable. Take a non-dilatory approach to increasing your word power today.
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Showing posts with label Beyond Talk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beyond Talk. Show all posts
Jun 22, 2010
Mar 19, 2010
WEEKLY UPDATE: Beyond Talk Grows Again
Summary: Some changes are in the works for Beyond Talk. Take this opportunity to share what would help you most in the posts to come ....
It's time for changes again at the Beyond Talk blog. Some will be subtle; all will be helpful (I hope). Your feedback is the best gauge to determine just how helpful—or unhelpful—any changes are. So, speak up! Practice sharing by pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone if necessary.
(Speaking of comfort zones, that reminds me: Next week we'll begin a series of posts about writer's block and how to overcome it. So, if you have any tips to share that work for you, don't hold back about those, either!)
The biggest change to note is that these "Weekly Updates" will be disappearing ... at least officially. You'll still get updates from me on a regular basis about new additions to the look and feel and body of the blog, but I can't promise that they'll always come on Fridays. What I can promise is that you will stay informed—and that every post will have pertinent info. on communication, whether it's the way this blog speaks to you or the way you can communicate with the world around you. Some older blog posts might be disappearing from the archives, also. But all this will be replaced with a new section (either in post format or in a call-out box) that introduces the purpose of this blog and lists some resources.
I'm also looking into adding an area where YOU can include resources. In the meantime, feel free to include them with your comments underneath any post. I'll compile them all in an easy-to-find format in the future.
Let me take this time to remind you, too, that the poll on the left-hand column of the blog is open for a couple more weeks to come—13 days, precisely. A few of you have voted. And, so far, the results are unanimous: ALL emotions trip you up when you want to concentrate! If there's one that gets you more than the others (one you'd like a little more direction with), be sure to cast your vote today. Speak your truth and be heard!
Finally, I want to thank M. Gail Upchurch, one of my Facebook fans, for the great suggestion on what to write about next. Writer's block it is!
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
It's time for changes again at the Beyond Talk blog. Some will be subtle; all will be helpful (I hope). Your feedback is the best gauge to determine just how helpful—or unhelpful—any changes are. So, speak up! Practice sharing by pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone if necessary.
(Speaking of comfort zones, that reminds me: Next week we'll begin a series of posts about writer's block and how to overcome it. So, if you have any tips to share that work for you, don't hold back about those, either!)
The biggest change to note is that these "Weekly Updates" will be disappearing ... at least officially. You'll still get updates from me on a regular basis about new additions to the look and feel and body of the blog, but I can't promise that they'll always come on Fridays. What I can promise is that you will stay informed—and that every post will have pertinent info. on communication, whether it's the way this blog speaks to you or the way you can communicate with the world around you. Some older blog posts might be disappearing from the archives, also. But all this will be replaced with a new section (either in post format or in a call-out box) that introduces the purpose of this blog and lists some resources.
I'm also looking into adding an area where YOU can include resources. In the meantime, feel free to include them with your comments underneath any post. I'll compile them all in an easy-to-find format in the future.
Let me take this time to remind you, too, that the poll on the left-hand column of the blog is open for a couple more weeks to come—13 days, precisely. A few of you have voted. And, so far, the results are unanimous: ALL emotions trip you up when you want to concentrate! If there's one that gets you more than the others (one you'd like a little more direction with), be sure to cast your vote today. Speak your truth and be heard!
Finally, I want to thank M. Gail Upchurch, one of my Facebook fans, for the great suggestion on what to write about next. Writer's block it is!
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Feb 3, 2010
TRULY SPEAKING: Speak Your Truth Workbook Available Today
Summary: Do emotions get in the way of what you want to say—and how you want to say it? Download the Speak Your Truth communications course workbook to learn how to change your brain and get what you want out of life today.
Do emotions stop you from speaking your truth?
Whether you struggle with expressing your anger (or holding it back) or just can't seem to stay professional during emotional moments, you can change your brain. The Speak Your Truth course workbook can show you how.
With a dozen different exercises, and 30-plus pages of tools and information on how the brain works during emotional overload—and how you can change your brain's automatic reactions over time in order to communicate more clearly even when you're extremely emotional—this informative and important workbook can help you to recognize and identify your emotions the moment they begin. You can change your brain. And you can change your life!
I've spent years researching and practicing the techniques I outline for you in my Speak Your Truth workbook. With my special focus on "the challenged brain" as a communications coach, I've seen these tools in action. And I know they'll work for you. It's my pleasure to watch you grow and expand with our world. Thank you for speaking your truth today.
P.S. - Are we friends on Facebook? I'm giving all of my Facebook fans a special opportunity to join the Beyond Talk Study Group at no charge this week only. Click the link to my fan page on the right side of this blog, then follow the directions in my recent note to get your spot and go beyond!
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Do emotions stop you from speaking your truth?
Whether you struggle with expressing your anger (or holding it back) or just can't seem to stay professional during emotional moments, you can change your brain. The Speak Your Truth course workbook can show you how.
With a dozen different exercises, and 30-plus pages of tools and information on how the brain works during emotional overload—and how you can change your brain's automatic reactions over time in order to communicate more clearly even when you're extremely emotional—this informative and important workbook can help you to recognize and identify your emotions the moment they begin. You can change your brain. And you can change your life!
I've spent years researching and practicing the techniques I outline for you in my Speak Your Truth workbook. With my special focus on "the challenged brain" as a communications coach, I've seen these tools in action. And I know they'll work for you. It's my pleasure to watch you grow and expand with our world. Thank you for speaking your truth today.
P.S. - Are we friends on Facebook? I'm giving all of my Facebook fans a special opportunity to join the Beyond Talk Study Group at no charge this week only. Click the link to my fan page on the right side of this blog, then follow the directions in my recent note to get your spot and go beyond!
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Oct 30, 2009
WEEKLY UPDATE: To Journal or Not to Journal
Summary: There are lots of reasons to keep a journal, but the process can be a lot simpler than you may think. Four basics for journaling through feelings are outlined in today's post. For further info., check out old, new, and forthcoming posts by "The Journal Lady" Barbara J. Henry, my fellow blogger.
In my last post, I mentioned that journaling can be very helpful for sorting out your feelings. A lot of people are overwhelmed by the idea of starting or keeping a journal. But the fact is, to be its most helpful, journaling is used in its simplest form.
Here are the basics of journaling:
(1) Define the reason you want to keep a journal. Maybe you don’t want to actually “keep” a journal at all. Rather, you may likely want to simply get the thoughts that are bothering you out of your head. And putting them on paper is an excellent way to get them outside of yourself. In a case such as this, it’s not necessary to buy a special notebook or keep it in a sacred spot. You can grab any scratch pad that’s handy and use any writing utensil to record your thoughts at any time. And you can even throw those thoughts away once you’ve gotten them out of your system. (You may use a recording device to achieve the same results.)
(2) Use the journal as consistently as is comfortable for you and your needs. For some purposes, such as enhancing creativity, daily journaling is important. But when it comes to maintenance of feelings, daily journaling is often unnecessary. Again, simply record your thoughts when you cannot get rid of them—and can’t think clearly enough to work your way through them without this extra aid. The more you engage in this exercise, the easier it will become for you to work through your bogged-down feelings without a journal.
(3) Be specific in your journal entries. While it may be helpful to write a general sketch of what’s going on or what’s bothering you in the moment (and it often is), this doesn’t exactly help you to solve the problem. To do that, you’ll want to be as specific as possible—not only about what’s happening, but also about how you feel about it. Saying (or writing), “I feel bad,” is too vague. Give those bad feelings precise names that accurately convey your emotion: angry, hostile, over-excited, guilty, hurt, confused, disappointed, etc. If you find that you can’t put a name to it—or that you are too commonly using generic words like bad or upset to describe how you feel—it’s okay to write that you’re unsure what to call the way you’re feeling. But do take the time to think about it and practice naming what you feel very specifically. This also gets easier with practice.
(4) Don’t forget to focus on the positive. After you’ve vented, it’s important to give yourself closure on the situation at hand. One very easy way to do that is to think of what you’re grateful for, because even in negative situations, we can always find something positive. (For example, if “I’m mad at my husband for not helping with the dishes,” I can later recognize that “I’m grateful he’s been working so hard to bring in money this week and also that he appreciates my cooking for him.”)
I’ve been journaling for a variety of reasons since before I could even write in cursive. Although I’ve gotten a lot of different benefits from journal-writing, the longest staple has been an objective observation of my feelings in situations that might otherwise overwhelm me. I have employed all of the above techniques as needed with quite positive results.
For more helpful hints on this subject, check out the blog of my colleague, Barbara J. Henry, a.k.a. “The Journal Lady.” Look for guest posts from Barbara in both past and future entries to Beyond Talk.
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
In my last post, I mentioned that journaling can be very helpful for sorting out your feelings. A lot of people are overwhelmed by the idea of starting or keeping a journal. But the fact is, to be its most helpful, journaling is used in its simplest form.
Here are the basics of journaling:
(1) Define the reason you want to keep a journal. Maybe you don’t want to actually “keep” a journal at all. Rather, you may likely want to simply get the thoughts that are bothering you out of your head. And putting them on paper is an excellent way to get them outside of yourself. In a case such as this, it’s not necessary to buy a special notebook or keep it in a sacred spot. You can grab any scratch pad that’s handy and use any writing utensil to record your thoughts at any time. And you can even throw those thoughts away once you’ve gotten them out of your system. (You may use a recording device to achieve the same results.)
(2) Use the journal as consistently as is comfortable for you and your needs. For some purposes, such as enhancing creativity, daily journaling is important. But when it comes to maintenance of feelings, daily journaling is often unnecessary. Again, simply record your thoughts when you cannot get rid of them—and can’t think clearly enough to work your way through them without this extra aid. The more you engage in this exercise, the easier it will become for you to work through your bogged-down feelings without a journal.
(3) Be specific in your journal entries. While it may be helpful to write a general sketch of what’s going on or what’s bothering you in the moment (and it often is), this doesn’t exactly help you to solve the problem. To do that, you’ll want to be as specific as possible—not only about what’s happening, but also about how you feel about it. Saying (or writing), “I feel bad,” is too vague. Give those bad feelings precise names that accurately convey your emotion: angry, hostile, over-excited, guilty, hurt, confused, disappointed, etc. If you find that you can’t put a name to it—or that you are too commonly using generic words like bad or upset to describe how you feel—it’s okay to write that you’re unsure what to call the way you’re feeling. But do take the time to think about it and practice naming what you feel very specifically. This also gets easier with practice.
(4) Don’t forget to focus on the positive. After you’ve vented, it’s important to give yourself closure on the situation at hand. One very easy way to do that is to think of what you’re grateful for, because even in negative situations, we can always find something positive. (For example, if “I’m mad at my husband for not helping with the dishes,” I can later recognize that “I’m grateful he’s been working so hard to bring in money this week and also that he appreciates my cooking for him.”)
I’ve been journaling for a variety of reasons since before I could even write in cursive. Although I’ve gotten a lot of different benefits from journal-writing, the longest staple has been an objective observation of my feelings in situations that might otherwise overwhelm me. I have employed all of the above techniques as needed with quite positive results.
For more helpful hints on this subject, check out the blog of my colleague, Barbara J. Henry, a.k.a. “The Journal Lady.” Look for guest posts from Barbara in both past and future entries to Beyond Talk.
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
Sep 25, 2009
WEEKLY UPDATE: Summarizing the Latest News
Summary: This post announces a new change to the Beyond Talk blog in the form of a summary paragraph like this one at the start of each post. I share my own ever-evolving experience with matching my message to my market audience, as the Communications Coach who truly practices what she preaches.
Some of my earliest blog entries read more like newspaper articles than blog posts. In fact, that's exactly what I intended for them. You see, my education and my beginning career work were both in journalism; it's been a dream of mine since the age of 12 to run my own (socially impacting, likely women-centered) magazine. But after about a month, I realized that almost no one—not even my own friends and family—was visiting the blog.
Perfect! Learning to tweak my own communication style was a step in the right direction: Not only would I (hopefully) meet my goal of drawing more traffic to the blog and helping more people around the globe improve the way they interact, I would learn first-hand even more about assessing one's message and adjusting it to the right audience.
What's the best way to match your message to your market? Ask questions (like, "What's the best way to match your message to your market?"). That's what I did with wonderful results. The experience was very rewarding.
I asked the right people—other successful bloggers—who could mentor me in what I was doing wrong, as well as in what was working for me. Among other things, they told me that, although I was well-written and easy to understand, the journalism-based style of my writings was not befitting to a blurb-sized blog. Their feedback continues to enlighten and improve Beyond Talk.
The next latest and greatest improvement begins today, and will be a helpful aspect of future entries: Each blog post will now contain a summary paragraph at the beginning, so that readers like yourself can skim the article and decide if further reading will be helpful or a bit of a time-waster today. (And the summary will also help you bookmark the article for future reference when you may want or even need to invest the time required to read at length and really apply the points presented.) Finally, this new addition will also help you to share any pertinent posts to people you know who may value the information included.
Your time and your attention are valuable—not just to you, but also to me. If you have further feedback on ways Beyond Talk can address your needs, SPEAK UP! I'm here to help.
Truly,
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
Some of my earliest blog entries read more like newspaper articles than blog posts. In fact, that's exactly what I intended for them. You see, my education and my beginning career work were both in journalism; it's been a dream of mine since the age of 12 to run my own (socially impacting, likely women-centered) magazine. But after about a month, I realized that almost no one—not even my own friends and family—was visiting the blog.
Perfect! Learning to tweak my own communication style was a step in the right direction: Not only would I (hopefully) meet my goal of drawing more traffic to the blog and helping more people around the globe improve the way they interact, I would learn first-hand even more about assessing one's message and adjusting it to the right audience.
What's the best way to match your message to your market? Ask questions (like, "What's the best way to match your message to your market?"). That's what I did with wonderful results. The experience was very rewarding.
I asked the right people—other successful bloggers—who could mentor me in what I was doing wrong, as well as in what was working for me. Among other things, they told me that, although I was well-written and easy to understand, the journalism-based style of my writings was not befitting to a blurb-sized blog. Their feedback continues to enlighten and improve Beyond Talk.
The next latest and greatest improvement begins today, and will be a helpful aspect of future entries: Each blog post will now contain a summary paragraph at the beginning, so that readers like yourself can skim the article and decide if further reading will be helpful or a bit of a time-waster today. (And the summary will also help you bookmark the article for future reference when you may want or even need to invest the time required to read at length and really apply the points presented.) Finally, this new addition will also help you to share any pertinent posts to people you know who may value the information included.
Your time and your attention are valuable—not just to you, but also to me. If you have further feedback on ways Beyond Talk can address your needs, SPEAK UP! I'm here to help.
Truly,
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
Jul 17, 2009
WEEKLY UPDATE: What's New for July
Those of you paying attention may have noticed that there was no post on Wednesday of this week. That’s because the Beyond Talk blog is on a pseudo-sabbatical for the remainder of July.
Here’s what’s in the works:
• “Speak Your Truth” e-course—How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean (downloadable 5-week course includes a students-only Facebook Group where you can practice everything you learn in practical application)
• Expert articles and how-to videos that teach even more tips and tricks to speaking successfully
• Real-world teleconferences and lectures featuring Communications Coach Kealah Parkinson. (Hey, that’s me!)
Words of the Week will continue to posted each Monday during this hiatus-of-sorts. And your comments are always welcome! Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you as I strive to make our world a friendlier place that’s easier to understand.
Truly speaking beyond talk,
(c) KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
Here’s what’s in the works:
• “Speak Your Truth” e-course—How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean (downloadable 5-week course includes a students-only Facebook Group where you can practice everything you learn in practical application)
• Expert articles and how-to videos that teach even more tips and tricks to speaking successfully
• Real-world teleconferences and lectures featuring Communications Coach Kealah Parkinson. (Hey, that’s me!)
Words of the Week will continue to posted each Monday during this hiatus-of-sorts. And your comments are always welcome! Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you as I strive to make our world a friendlier place that’s easier to understand.
Truly speaking beyond talk,
(c) KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
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