Nance Rosen - Speak Up! & Succeed: How to get everything you want in meetings, presentations and conversations

Pegasus Media World

Los Angeles, California

Speak Up! & Succeed: How to Get Everything You Want in Meetings, Presentations and Conversations

2007, 2019. Nance Rosen. All Rights Reserved.

Cover design, book interior design and prepress production by Tethos Creative, tethos.com

ISBN, print ed. 978-0-9786078-6-9

ISBN, ebook ed. 978-0-9786078-7-6

ISBN, audio ed. 978-0-9786078-8-3

First Printing 2007

Revised Edition First Printing 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. For material that may be downloaded for free and the conditions associated with that, please visit .

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. The publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services, and you should consult a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages.

Unattributed quotations are by Nance Rosen. Anecdotes and profiles of well-known individuals cited are true to the best knowledge of the author at this time. In keeping with the HBR case approach, examples contained within the writing reflect actual and common communication and managerial challenges and offer direct expressions of effective solutions, while the names of the speakers and companies along with certain details have been fictionalized where necessary to protect their identities.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rosen, Nance.

Speak Up! And Succeed: How To Get Everything You Want In Meetings, Presentations And Conversations / Nance Rosen. 2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

LCCN 2007932543

ISBN-13: 978-0-9786078-6-9 (print ed.)

1. Success in business. I. Title.

2. Business communication.

3. Oral communication.

4. Interpersonal communication.

R674 2007

650.13

QBI07-600197

For my daughter
Molly Jo,
to whom I owe everything

NANCE ROSEN

Why Read This Book?

ITS BEEN SAID THAT SOME OF THE GREATEST MUSICIANS IN THE WORLD have never played a notebecause they never knew they had the talent. Someone could have perfect pitch their entire lives, and never take advantage of it.

Similarly, you could have the greatest ideas in the world. But if you cant put them into wordsif you cant get them out on the tableif you arent able to be heard and understood by the people who make the decisionsthose great ideas will die inside of you, without ever having the chance to rise up and shine.

I know something about this. My name is Peter Shankman, and Ive given over 2,500 keynotes to corporations all around the world, on six continents. Ive spoken to heads of state, Ive spoken to Fortune 10 CEOs. Ive started and sold three companies, the most recent one being a company that fundamentally changed how journalists and sources interacted.

Yet, none of that would have been even remotely possible, if I hadnt learned to voice my ideas, if I hadnt learned to speak up, and if I hadnt known how to put my thoughts into actionable verse when it came down to my moment to shine. Without knowing that, I wouldnt be even remotely as successful as I am.

Thats why Speak Up and Succeed, is so important. In todays social and technological age, where the average attention span is 2.7 seconds, youve got one shotroughly 160 characters, to get your words out, powerfully, and accurately, to the people who matter. Until you can do that, nothing else matters.

Read this book. Nance Rosen has put together the ultimate primer for those who want to succeed. Whether you get tongue-tied on a daily basis or speak to the world multiple times a week, there is gold in these pages.

Its time to take what you say to the next leveland beyond.

PETER SHANKMAN
shankman.com
New York, NY

Table of Contents

Foreword

S OMEONE ONCE TOLD ME THAT THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY READ the foreword of a book are flipping pages before buying it. I hope thats true, and that you havent yet bought this book, but are considering doing so. In just a second, I am going to ask you to stop reading and perform a short exercise. Based on the outcome of that exercise, I am going to suggest that you take one of two actions: either a) put this book back where you found it; or b) move immediately to the checkout aisle (or checkout button, if youre scanning the first few pages of this book online) so you can make an essential investment in your future.

Ready? Heres the exercise.

Go to the Table of Contents and read the title and key points of each chapter. As you read the words, ask yourself a simple question: Could I learn anything important or useful from this chapter? If you come up with even one no answer, then you shouldnt buy this book.

Instead, you should put it back on the shelf (whether that shelf is virtual or three-dimensional)... because you are, alas, a victim of pre-judgmentthe mental and spiritual epidemic of our day, and the cause of innumerable business-shattering, relationship-shattering and self-esteem-shattering pieces of received wisdom, usually about what cant be done.

Each and every chapter in this book has the ability to change the way you thinkif you let it. Changing thoughts changes outcomes. But in order to benefit from Nance Rosens magnificent, career-altering, life-changing ideas, which abound in the pages that follow, youll need to believe you have success coming to you. In other words, youll need to empty your minds painful memories of failure and rejection into your trash bin. That means getting rid of each and every thought that vaguely resembles any of the following formulations:

Ive already tried something like that.

That will never work in our marketplace.

My manager will never allow that to happen.

We cant do that because ____________________.

Thats the sound of prejudgment. Thats the sound of self-sabotage disguised as wisdom. Unless you can get past those thoughts, you wont benefit from what follows in this extraordinary book.

If you want the right to buy this book, you must buy into it and replace any and all of these prejudging responses with the belief that you have a right to get beyond whatever is keeping you down.

Thats right: get over yourself. Clear your mind entirely of negativity.

While youre at it, obliterate every single thought that has anything close to a cant theme. Drop the apostrophe t! You can do this!