Book - The Complete Book of Questions:

1001 Conversation Starters for Any Occasion

This book provides groups with 1,001 engaging and thought-provoking icebreaker questions to start and sustain meaningful conversations.

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More on Communication and conversation

Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud

Sometimes the best way to understand the present is to look at it from the past. Consider audio books. An enormous number of Americans read by listening these days — listening aloud, I call it. The technology for doing so is diverse and widespread, and so are the places people listen to audio books. But from the perspective of a reader in, say, the early 19th century, about the time of Jane Austen, there is something peculiar about it, even lonely. >>> more ...

Your subconscious mind holds the key to mastering social finesse!

• Do parties or social gatherings make you nervous?

• Do you suffer from low self-esteem, social anxiety, acute shyness or loneliness?

• Do you find it difficult to meet and talk to new people?

• Are you convinced that people ignore you, avoid you or won't like you?

• Are you too scared to suggest a meeting or a date?

• Are you sick of seeing yourself as a "wall flower" or an "outcast" and, worse, not liking yourself because of that perception?

Everyone is special and has equal ability to light up a room! You don't have to be outgoing to be a master of social finesse - you can simply have a great smile, or could be a sympathetic or enthusiastic listener for one person at a time.

This hypnosis CD or MP3 will power your mind to be a master of social finesse, and enable you to naturally:

• Improve your natural confidence and self-esteem.

• Be able to function without "masks", or your old ways or habits that you hide behind, which prevent the "real you" from relaxing and enjoying yourself.

• Learn how to focus on the moment or on the person you're speaking to - instead of yourself, your appearance or your fears.

• Eliminate debilitating shyness and allow yourself to shine as brightly as you want, whenever you want!

• Relate and find things in common with anyone that you happen to come into contact with.

• Learn the power of a smile and when to use it to your advantage.

• Learn how to be brave enough to strike up a conversation

• Handle confronting situations or difficult times when you don't know what to say - with easy-to-implement solutions, such as asking questions about the person you're talking to & then listening well for clues on how to continue the conversation.

• Banish phobias and fears that the 'wrong thing' will come out.

• Establish your back up "safety net" of knowing how to instantly and naturally calm yourself, handle or resolve things, or make amends, if awkwardness surfaces.

• Understand body language and be more aware of a person's signals when you're speaking to them- and learn better ways to react accordingly.

• Learn how to self-assess appropriately with brilliant tips and tricks such as knowing when to tone it down, when (and when not) to check your appearance or your surroundings; when to speak and when to listen.

You'd be surprised just how many people find social finesse difficult - but it can be easier than you think - Act Now!

100% Money Back Guarantee!

How to develop great communication skills

The vast majority of people by nature have a fascination with the sound of their own voice - which often shows itself in their desire to keep on talking. However, there is quite a bit of difference between talking and communicating, with the latter requiring consistent application of effort. People with really good communication skills know what to say at precisely the right moment, at what location and to who. More importantly, they know when not to speak at all, and just actively listen.

There are specific key traits that show whether a person is a great communicator or not - one of the se is being a really good listener. You may be able to communicate your points of view and general thoughts to another person in a clear way, but when it comes to listening to other people, you are simply "in the dark". With most individuals, the quality of listening is directly related to their personal understanding of information, and with the constantly evolving situation in the business world today, superb listening skills are absolutely necessary for achieving success.

Here are some tips that will help you to improve your listening skills: 1. Pay attention to what the other person is talking about. It's quite important to pay attention to the speaker, and it is not only the matter of maintaining good eye contact, but the posture of your entire body is important as well. 2. Let the other person speak. Patience is the essence of any good communication ability. It's important during the act of listening that you should allow the other person to put forward his/her opinions, while making a point to not interrupt in the middle of the discussion. 3. Do not impose your opinion. To avoid conflict, you should respect the opinions of others, and at the same time, try not to impose your opinions on others either, as it often happens that the opinions of any two people don't even remotely come close to common ground. 4. Ask meaningful questions. It is important that during a discussion only meaningful questions pertaining to the discussion are asked or raised. These questions should always direct the conversation towards a useful conclusion. 5. Help and support the other individual. Great listening requires developing a supportive feeling for everyone speaking in order to help them sense that everything is going smoothly. Encourage the other individual, and make them sense that you're interested in listening to his/her opinions and views. 6. Restate your thoughts. Listening is quite different from hearing, and it's not the easiest of skills to master. Although listening by itself will definitely help you to gain some understanding, or at the very least help you to get to a point of view, it is still very important that at the close of every discussion you should be able to easily restate, in order, all of the previous ideas. It is quite true that the more you listen, the more effective and efficient you become. Many of you may be experienced in speaking, but have you ever really thought of the true value of listening? The tips listed above may not ensure that you'll be suddenly transformed into a great listener, but what they certainly will do is hone your listening skills to a great degree, thereby directly affecting your overall communication ability. Copyright (c) 2009 Alan Gillies Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of the L2L Group, specialising in providing Executive Coaching, Training and Consultancy Services to Businesses across the Globe. Want to learn more about these business success strategies? Get Alan's popular FREE ebook, available at http://www.L2LGroup.com.

8 tips for finding your voice

Q : I know that agents and editors look for writers who have strong voices, but I’m having trouble finding mine. Any advice?

A : It’s true. Editors, agents, publishers and, above all, readers do respond most to a writer with a great voice.

Voice is what gives writing energy, authenticity, it animates the narrator and characters with a unique personality. It grabs your attention and keeps you turning the page. ... more

How Does the Brain Form Sentences?

Forming a grammatically correct sentence may seem to require advanced cognitive skills, but it turns out that our creative language capacity might rely on a less sophisticated system than is commonly thought. A recent study suggests that our ability to construct sentences may arise from procedural memory—the same simple memory system that lets our dogs learn to sit on command. >>>

7 Steps to Better E-Mail Management

It's easy to get overwhelmed by your in-box, but these simple strategies can help you keep it all under control ... more

What did you say? Ways to create effective listening skills

Have you ever caught yourself finishing another personâ??s sentence? Or have you interrupted a business contact to add your own comments before you even heard the other person out? What about interpreting what someone else said completely wrong because we did not let them finish their sentences or explain their point more clearly?

Here are some ways to create better and more productive conversations, stronger relationships and increase your bottom line. >>>

How to work a room

There are tons of networking events to attend - too many, actually. Too many ways to meet people you'll never see again, too many opportunities to collect a stack of business cards you'll never look at again. But it's well worth doing as much networking as you can, because you never know where a chance meeting will lead. Last year, for example, I was hired to give a presentation at a secluded resort near Honolulu, Hawaii - all because of a conversation I struck up with a woman sitting next to me at a luncheon.

Here are 13 simple tips to make the process easier and more productive. >>>

Book: You’re Too Kind : A Brief History of Flattery

You’re Too Kind : A Brief History of Flattery

by Richard Stengel

From the reviews

Stengel (a senior editor at Time magazine) ponders the meaning of flattery and illustrates that more than mere praise, flattery is praise with a motive, be it benign or grasping.

You’re Too Kind is a witty, colorful, fast-paced trip through history. It’s meticulously researched and comprehensive. .... more

Communication is the key

Communication is such a touchy subject. Although we all do it all the time, there are so many layers that make communication so difficult, and also so exciting and fun! First of all, there is a layer of assumptions. We often believe that we all come to the table with the same understandings, the same values, the same meanings. But, truly, we don’t. ... more

Editing America

The other day a man wearing a brown fedora strolled through Pike Place Market. Unlike most tourists, he wasn't there to browse or buy. He was there to edit.Yes, edit. Toting markers, chalk and white-out, the man known as the Indiana Jones of typos had come to do battle with this city's misspellings and botched punctuation. Seattle, bookish as it may claim to be, was revealed to be barely literate. There was the sign for "Dillettante" chocolate. The board announcing "Todays sample." The posters for "recepies," "cake's," "birthday candell's." The parking-lot warning that you get "no in/out priveleges." More ....

Business Buzzwords That Make You Gag

Readers wrote in with their nominees for this column's first-ever Most Annoying Lingo awards (the Mallies).

Find out which phrases they would like purged from our professional conversations.

.. more

Ten-Minute Creative Writing Exercise

Creative Writing on the Fly

If you think you don't have time to write, think again. See what you can produce with a simple set of writing prompts and ten minutes of your time with this creative writing exercise inspired by Rita Dove's exercise "Ten-Minute Spill."

... more

How would YOU like to be the LIFE and SOUL of ANY social gathering?

How would YOU like to be the LIFE and SOUL of ANY social gathering?

Let's be honest. We all LOVE those individuals that make us LAUGH.

The funnier you are, the more people like you.

Well, how funny are YOU?

What if you could suddenly become EVEN FUNNIER, just by following a few simple rules?

Master wit Max Matterson has worked in the comedy world for the past 20 years. He's the co-author of "Comedy Writing Secrets" and trained many of the big late night show hosts.

He knows EXACTLY how to train ANYONE to become super-witty in just minutes. Matterson claims there are just a series of simple rules that ANYONE can follow to become hilariously funny!

Do YOU want to discover his COMEDY SECRETS?

Visit his website online and learn more: http://www.consultpivotal.com/Afunny.htm

Max shares EVERYTHING with you -- and GUARANTEES that your new-found funny skills will ROCKET your business and social life. In fact he'll buy back the course if you're not absolutely THRILLED!

When was the last time you invested even FIVE MINUTES in developing your social skills? Especially in something as important as your HUMOR?

Do it now. Click HERE and get started: http://www.consultpivotal.com/Afunny.htm

Latest Booklists for kids

Here they are ... the latest booklists from Pivotal Kids The 2009 Indies Choice Book Awards

St Patrick's Day

Children's Choice Book Awards 2009

Step-by-Step/Sequencing picture books

The Newbery Medal 2009

Is Social Networking Slowing Down the Generational Lines of Communication?

Lately it seems like the social communication behavior and methods people use to interact are more like tangled-up power lines. Years ago there were traditionally only a small handful of ways to communicate; at work, phone, fax and face-to-face. For the last ten years or so many generations have been able to adopt email as a crucial form of communication, but now there are many newer social networking methods of communication between consumers, businesses, friends and families.

... read more

How Not to Stick Your Foot in Your Mouth via E-Mail

E-mail is the most common form of business communication today; it’s among the most common forms of all communication. Yet many people communicate poorly with e-mail.

That’s the opinion of Janis Fisher Chan, and I agree. Chan is the co-founder of Write It Well (http://www.writeitwell.com), a publishing and training firm operating out of Oakland, Calif., that, since 1980, specializes in helping businesspeople write clearly and concisely in e-mail and elsewhere. She also authored the newly published book E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide, as well as eight other books on business writing and additional topics.

I talked with Chan about why we write poorly in e-mail, what consequences this can have, and how we can improve.

... more

Video - What's Your Listening Level?

How well do you listen when you're in a conversation? Communication expert Dr. Bill Lampton describes Stephen Covey's five listening levels, and challenges you to accept the highest level.

This week's Must-reads

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