Global Public Articles

Art is lone, life short;
judgment difficult, opportunity transient.

–Goethe (adapting the words of Hippocrates)

In September 1995, I made the most important (and perhaps the only important) speech of my career when I introduced the 400 Year Project (a program to help everyone learn how to accomplish 20 times as much with the same time, money, and effort). Since I didn’t know how my speech would be received and wasn’t sure how the project would be implemented, I didn’t spend any time thinking about how I could add more value to my listeners. That was a big, and avoidable, mistake. Let me describe what I could have done different as an example to you as you prepare your important talk.

Knowing what I do after 13 years of heading the 400 Year Project, I realize that many good opportunities were missed that day. For example, given that the project was aimed at helping everyone, I should have announced the project more publicly and invited others to join in after the announcement at our Four Seasons meeting.

Knowing how idealistic many young people are, I also should have invited interns from colleges and business schools to work on the project. It would have been a good idea to have had a Web site ready to go, for instance, to make continuing connections.

But, of course, there wasn’t enough time to have done all those things. Despite that time limitation, I should have identified and opportunities and carefully evaluated which ones could and should have been done before the speech.

I also should have proposed worldwide contests to find solutions to key barriers to progress (as Goldcorp and Procter & Gamble later showed to be so effective for enhancing results many times faster than before). With such contests in place from the beginning, who knows what might have been learned earlier in the project?

But, unfortunately, that learning was still in the future, and no one knew those lessons at the start of the project.

Most significantly, I probably should have asked Peter Drucker to help me plot the path to success before announcing the project. Why didn’t I do that?

I felt like I was supposed to do this announcement on my own; I have no idea why I had received that message. Perhaps it was just to make me feel more personally responsible for the results. In subsequent meetings, Peter, Carol, and I discussed the project many times. Peter made many important suggestions that proved to be crucial to the project’s progress.

If I could sum up what I learned from my lack of preparation is that the bigger the speech, the more you should be prepared to have the speech gain a positive reaction. In other words, assume success and plan to maximize that success. You’ll never go wrong that way.

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage. Read about creating breakthroughs through and receive tips by e-mail through registering for free at

http://www.fastforward400.com .

No man would listen to you talk
if he didn’t know it was his turn next.

–Edgar Watson Howe

Speaking is an art. But when we think like the audience, it becomes a conversation. Let me share an example to show what I mean.

I was about to announce the beginning of a 20 year project to find ways to speed the rate of individual improvements by 20 times. But no one new it.

How would I have reacted if someone had invited me to an event featuring world-class speakers and then sprung an announcement that I was about to make at the end? I probably would have been puzzled. Why? If the announcement was so important, why not make that announcement in the beginning and spend the day working on practical details?

My instinct had been quite different: Help everyone see how much untapped potential there was in the world by spotlighting what some outstanding people were already doing, and then excite everyone about doing something to grasp even more untapped potential.

I had another incentive to put my announcement at the end and keep it brief: I really didn’t know any more than my listeners did about what to do next.

How long can you spend telling everyone that you propose to blindfold yourself and lead them forward while they wear blindfolds as well? You can debate the best kind of blindfolds to wear, but the point isn’t very interesting compared to describing the route for a successful journey.

I was reminded of levitation. The first clear hop for the project was to 2015 when we would have spelled out how to make 400 years of progress from 2015 to 2035. The next clear hop was to celebrate the results in 2035, God willing that we were all still alive then. The third hop was to draw on the successful experience to launch an even better improvement method after that.

Suddenly brimming with confidence, I rose to make a few brief remarks. I remember clearly how everyone was smiling as I commented on and thanked each speaker for remarkable insights and candor.

Then I began explaining the 400 Year Project, as I began calling it that day. I’m afraid that I didn’t explain the idea nearly as well as I do now . . . and I need to improve my current explanation quite a lot.

The smiles soon began to fade and were replaced in many cases by puzzled looks and dropped jaws. Realizing that I was losing some of my audience, I decided to keep my remarks even shorter than I had initially intended and to use most of my time to answer questions.

But I was encouraged to see some people smiling more brightly, even if their faces showed some puzzlement.

Based on the questions, I could see they were interested. It worked!

You can do the same when you stay in touch with what your audience might be thinking and validate that by watching how they are reacting. If you don’t like what you see, shift into a new direction.

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage. Read about creating breakthroughs through and receive tips by e-mail through registering for free at

http://www.fastforward400.com .

Just do it.

–Nike advertisement

Many times we are asked to express ideas that no one has thought about before. What’s a good way to do this?

Story tellers rely on letting people use their imagination. To do that, they often start with phrases like “Once upon a time . . .” that empower us to sit back and dream a bit.

For a nonfiction subject, it’s good to bring forth people who have done extraordinary things that others can apply to their lives. While they are dreaming about improvements, they will want to learn more about your ideas.

As you prepare to speak, however, sense the mood in the room and be prepared to go with the flow rather than a prepared talk from which you don’t vary your words.

Here’s how that worked for me as I got ready to introduce the 400 Year Project to a group of the world’s leading executives. During the day, I had asked global trendsetters to describe their most effective practices. This was the context for talking about going way beyond today’s best practices:

Sometime after lunch that day, I had a disquieting thought. While my clients had obviously put enormous effort into their presentations and talks, I hadn’t prepared very much beyond some bare bones slides about how much progress would normally occur in 400 years. Yikes!

I also realized that I still hadn’t any idea of how I would work on or organize the project I had been inspired to pursue. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had much experience in extemporaneous speaking so I knew I would come up with something to say. If you haven’t developed that skill, I highly recommend that you do.

So as the speakers continued to wow the audience, I found myself beginning to jot down a few notes by interviewing myself. Rather than tell the answers, why didn’t I ask for involvement? What about asking for help?

That seemed like a good place to start. I could clearly hope to accomplish more on this project if these great executives were working with me. Why not have a steering committee consisting of outstanding executives as each of our learning organizations did?

What about how to work on the project? Having meetings to discuss research plans and results had worked well for the various learning organizations I led. Perhaps we needed another organization for this purpose. Why not call it Twenty Times Progress and invite all of our clients to participate at no charge?

How often should we meet? Well, there are two equinoxes each year. Why not meet on each date? That would make it easy to remember the dates.

What should I tell people about how the results would be gained? Since I had no clue, it seemed best to be candid and tell them that I didn’t know what the next step was.

Why should anyone care? I needed to explain about how the generations that follow us would be deprived of their potential to live fuller lives unless we figured out how to capture the unemployed potential that was waiting to be implemented.

With those thoughts in place, I sat back and enjoyed more presentations after an excellent lunch. I knew I was ready.

You, too, can be prepared to speak in powerful ways on novel subjects by interrogating yourself about what you have to say . . . as though you were an audience member. Then smooth out your answers a bit, and you have the outline for a meaningful talk.

Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage. Read about creating breakthroughs through and receive tips by e-mail through registering for free at

http://www.fastforward400.com .

If you are like most people you would like to make all your problems go dead in the water. This means that you would like to make all your bills or anything else that is giving you a headache to just go away.

People will do almost anything to make money to get rid of one bill or another. They sometimes do things that could get them in bigger financial trouble. They might go to a loan shark and try to borrow some money, but this isn’t a good idea. These people mean business and if you can’t pay them like you are told to, they will rearrange some part of your body. If that still doesn’t work they will find other ways to get it or you.

Sometimes you might find someone dead in the water usually after a flood or maybe after some other kind of storm. This usually doesn’t happen because if this body isn’t found right away it could get hung up on something else in the water, and it could be there for some time. This body could get stuck under water and never come up.

This saying could mean all sorts of things, like your car went dead in the water. Sometimes they will be talking about someone being dead drunk from drinking too much booze. People will do some strange things to try to get rid of something else. They might even do something that is against the law, or they might try to bet on a horse race to try to make some money. Either one of these ways will not help you in the long run.

If you would do something against the law you could get caught and wind up in jail, and this would probably put you in worse debt than you were before you did this thing. And you would still wind up in jail! If you went to the horse races and made a bet on a horse you had better have some idea on how this betting game is run.

If you go into this betting game without knowing what you are doing, you will lose. Some people will start to gamble on football games, baseball games, or golf or any other games of chance, but most of the time these will not help you get out of your problems. These games of chance would probably get you deeper in the hole.

Aydan Corkern is a writer of many topics, visit some of her sites, like
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The right voice over talent can make a huge difference in media. In fact, some voices become as famous as the products or people they represent. For example, all you need is the right intonation to make people think of Donald Duck, Kermit the Frog, or Bugs Bunny. Whether you need someone to narrate for a documentary, a story, a commercial, or a cartoon, matching the right voice with the right product is an important task. It can also be a difficult job though. After all, every voice is unique and leaves an imprint on your listeners’ memory. Like music, voice possesses the ability to create mental images and emotional moods.

As a tool for communication, a voice must also be easy to understand. Consequently, voice over talent has to be more than simply attractive - it should be clear. This means that a good artist in the field should have exceptional diction. Diction refers to how well a speaker pronounces the words. It requires articulation through the lips, the teeth and the tip of the tongue. Accents can add a lot to media, since many people enjoy hearing them, but they can’t be too heavy or the message will be incomprehensible.

To make your job easier, some companies have created an archive of voice samples that have been labeled with a brief description. For example, a woman’s voice might be described as “sensual,” “energetic,” “mature,” or “chatty” while men’s voices could be labeled “deep,” “aged,” “confident,” or “announcer.” This means you can actually listen to recordings to find what you’re looking for without going through the process of advertising for and holding auditions. If you don’t know what you are looking for, a brief description of the product you are making can help professional directors give you advice and point out a couple viable choices.

Once you have found the best artist to meet your needs, these companies can also provide all the equipment and facilities you will need to make professional, high-qualities reads. From the studios and recording equipment to the musicians and actors, you can find them all in one place.

You might be lucky enough to find the perfect voice over talent by walking on the street or talking with a stranger over the phone, but most people don’t walk around showcasing their vocal talent which could make the process rather lengthy. And, even if they did have the right tone and diction, there’s no guarantee that they would have the interest, time or confidence in the job that trained voice over artists would bring to the table. Save yourself some time and headaches and choose from a pre-compiled choice of voice.

Voice Over LA (http://www.voiceoverla.com) is the perfect place to find your own voice over talent. Located in Los Angeles, the capital of movie-making gurus, they have access to some of the best actors, musicians and directors in the country. The author, Art Gib, is a freelance writer.