Let me share some snippets of my expertise with you. I hope you find them useful and if you would like to chat more, just…
When someone comes up to you and thanks you for your presentation try responding with, “Thank you very much. What did you like especially?” You’ll get an on-the-spot example of what hit home for them. And if it is critical or negative, lean in a bit with “Wow, tell me more about that” and say it with genuine interest. No matter who or where, people, especially those who told you the great and the not so great, they all like to be heard and acknowledged.
AI can save us time—but when it comes to career materials, speed isn’t everything.
In this short video, I explore how AI can support your writing—and where it can steer you off course.
Quick takeaways:
Your voice matters. AI shouldn’t erase it.
Generic resumes don’t connect. Tailored ones do.
Think about your audience—not just what you want to say.
AI is a tool. Let’s use it wisely.
What’s In a Car? How clean is your office? I mean, your traveling office, your car! Having a traveling office can dirty up a car fast… on the inside. Not so much only full of papers, wrappers, and tissues, but also the little stuff stuck under your seat. Whenever I take Lyft or Uber, my first thought is: how clean is this car? When I compliment the driver on it I invariably hear, “I have to clean it every day, sometimes twice.” One Lyft driver said, “I do it for my customers and I do it for me because I want to keep my attitude right.” Take a look at your car, under the seat, on the dashboard, even the trunk. You deserve a clean car and your KOLs deserve your right attitude!
One of my mentors advised that 10% of evaluations are going to love you no matter what and 10% are going to hate you no matter what. Some will refuse to give even the very best score of a “10” just out of principle! He advised to read all of them, take nothing personally, but take it all professionally. He went on to say there is “some truth” in what just a few will tell you both positively and negatively. Listen to them and see if deep down inside you agree with them. Then decide the changes you want to make for next time…including what went really, really well.
As presenters, facilitators, or educators, we often feel the urge to jump in with the “right” answer. But what if the real power lies in the pause?
Before you speak, ask yourself:
W.A.I.T. – Why Am I Talking?
If you’re the authority in the room, resist the temptation to answer your own question too soon.
Withholding your response keeps the energy alive and invites deeper engagement.
When you speak too early, the room’s momentum dips—and so does the learning.
This short video explores how intentional silence can elevate your impact.
Let the question breathe. Let the room respond. Then, bring it home.
How do you catch your lunch? Fast food, “Good Food Quickly,” pizza slices again? How about making your lunch stops planned as much as your KOL stops? And what if you experimented and made time for a mom-and-pop shop lunch or coffee places? Or bring your own and surprise yourself with where you will enjoy it. A park, the zoo, a quick moment bowling a lane or two. It can help you get out of an unsatisfying routine, and it might even give you something to talk about! Make your day not one full of appointments but rather full of exploration, both professional and personal. Where is your favorite place?
Are you ever asked to evaluate a presenter, a product, or a service? Some of us do so gladly with the effort to help. Some, however, decide that my bad day is going to be your bad day! Evalution's are often anonymous and in some cases, anything goes! What is your goal? Do you want to critique or help, provide support or solutions, dump or demonstrate? Give an evaluation honestly with the thought that this could make someone or some hotel better. I gave a terrible Press Gainey score about a physician visit and received a phone call within 12 hours from his office manager. “What can we do better next time Mr. O’Connor?” I should have included that the first time and not given a score out of anger but out of concern for the next time. (I would have been even more impressed had he called me back.) I once met Costco’s VP of Produce, who on a daily basis randomly chose three complaints and called the person for more feedback. He learned a great deal and won over another customer.
Ever sat through a presentation where the clipart felt more like a stock photo shoot than a meaningful visual? Or where the slides looked sleek on a laptop but turned muddy on the projector?
In this short video, I share practical tips to help your slides function as well as they look:
Say goodbye to generic images and cluttered text
Keep your slides thematically consistent
Test your colors on a projector — trust me, it matters
And my favorite trick: hit the “B” key to blackout the screen and bring all eyes back to you
Whether you're presenting to a boardroom or a classroom, these tips will help you show up with clarity and confidence.
If you’ve been to a therapist, some will ask for an early memory, some for a typical day as a child (or as an adult), and some understanding of how we see life. It comes out in some form of the following beliefs:
Life is _____
People are ______
I am _________
Therefore, I must ________
These techniques are a way into the part of ourselves that is on autopilot… How we see life, others, self, the task ahead. Some of us have had terrific childhoods where we learned to enjoy life, to trust others, and to be self-confident as we enter the world of work, love, and friendship. Some of us had a tougher childhood where we learned early and often that life is not fair, that people, even family, are not so nice, and that we had to prepare for the worst of life coming at us with a distrust of others, and the must is about heading aggressively into life or shrinking from it. The therapist’s job is to listen and try with us to unearth these hidden convictions that might rest just below our awareness but nonetheless account for our beliefs and actions. The psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs (and later the program “Empowering People in the Workplace”) suggested that we have an imaginative magic wand in his therapy sessions. “Go back to that early recollection,” he might say, “and you now have a magic wand. What do you want to change about that early memory or typical day?”
What happens frequently is a different set of beliefs:
Life is _____
People are ______
I am _________
Therefore, I CAN ________
Some of us have a magic wand in our daily life that can transform us from our musts to our cans. A powerful wand indeed. Some of us are unaware of its power.
(For more information: https://www.positivediscipline.org/Empowering-People-in-the-Workplace)
Insights from a PharmD & an Executive Coach. What are YOUR ideas about the art of being an impactful MSL? Please repost if your network would find this useful. We’ve only scratched the surface, join our LinkedIn MSL community for more: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14462043/ and join our mailing list to receive the complete tip series delivered right to your inbox: http://eepurl.com/iYHNjY
We have an attorney on the faculty in the department I teach at Loyola University in Chicago who when participating in our meetings online looks as if she is in person with her smile, her reactions and responses, and her full engagement with the presenter. We should hire this person as our sometimes-one-and-only full participant. Also on a self-centered note, consider not just the presenter, think about your boss who is also scanning the crowd. Will you stand out like our attorney professor at Loyola?
Your voice carries your message—make sure it’s heard. In this video, I share quick-fire tips to present with confidence and clarity:
Skip the “Can you hear me?”
Speak louder—yes, even if it feels awkward
Keep slides short and punchy
Make it about the audience—always
Your opportunity starts when they hear you. Don’t miss it.
How do you catch your lunch? Fast food, “Good Food Quickly,” pizza slices again? How about making your lunch stops planned as much as your KOL stops? And what if you experimented and made time for a mom-and-pop shop lunch or coffee places? Or bring your own and surprise yourself with where you will enjoy it. A park, the zoo, a quick moment bowling a lane or two. It can help you get out of an unsatisfying routine, and it might even give you something to talk about! Make your day not one full of appointments but rather full of exploration, both professional and personal. Where is your favorite place?
How good of an audience member are we? Presenters often face a sea of faces with few smiles, little emotion, and blank stares…or worse, heads down checking phones and squeezing in one or more emails. They tell us speakers to engage with our audiences and that usually involves a strong opening story, some humor, and our movement around the stage making eye contact with the audience. Online can be a sea of…videos off! They can see us, and we cannot see them. So, as an audience and meeting member consider how you look to the presenter, to your boss, and to your client.
Sharing reflections from a recent post-conference workshop. Attendance was small—just three participants—but the impact was significant. The intimate setting fostered rapid learning, engagement, and meaningful dialogue. When people choose to show up, they’re already invested. As facilitators, our focus shouldn’t be numbers—it should be delivering value. The right people always find their way in.
Watch the video to see how small sessions can lead to big takeaways.
When you get discouraged or lose an account or a job, consider not what happened to you but rather consider your skills, not your fate. What are you best at? And how did you show up regardless of what they thought? How can you use your adaptability at this moment of time? How did you get through tough times before? It is so easy to find yourself in a pit of someone else’s making and begin to sit and stare at the sunlight disappearing. Instead of using a shovel to go deeper, use the shovel to carve out steps. Your shovel is your tool of talents. When we let others define us, even in our grandest successes, we are unknowingly setting ourselves up to be unaware of what got us there. It requires that we have faith in ourselves as others have in us.
As we experiment with Artificial Intelligence, I’ve noticed that many of my colleagues rave about how much “content” they can produce using AI saving them time and, perhaps, creativity. Before the internet, our parents used phone directories. Quite literally books with everyone’s name, address, and phone number. The “Yellow Pages” were the commercial sections where you’d find your doctor, plumber, or gift shop. The advertisement was “Let your fingers do the walking.” I wonder if with AI we let our fingers do the talking, writing, “contenting”… all to our discredit. If our posts are really just you and me telling AI to write something that we allude to but not fully write ourselves, exactly how authentic is it? How authentic will it sound? Would we write a letter to a best friend with terminal cancer using AI? Or a valentine? Or a eulogy? I see uses for AI but I never use them to post, write, or correspond. I want my fingers to help me do my thinking and my connecting.
I’ve sat through many presentations lately and too often presenters save the best for last. But leading with action gives people something to connect with right away.
This video explores why flipping the format helps your message stick. Don’t wait—start strong and let your audience experience the value.
A young Jerry Seinfeld interviewed a much older comedian George Burns about how he came up with new material. “My team of writers and I meet for two hours a day and write.” It seemed to dawn on Seinfeld that comedy is written and worked on, it is not waiting for a spontaneous chuckle to emerge. Some comedians work for years on a “bit” to make sure that it works the way they want it to. Jay Leno said the secret to all comedy is in the editing: less is more. My sister wrote 70 books, not of comedy though some were fun, and she told me she wrote for four hours a day even on days when she had nothing to write! As an MSL, I’m going to suggest you do the same thing. Write every day, maybe not for four hours, and not with a team of writers, but every day. And what to write? Here are some ideas to get you started:
Define your job for a bright ten-year-old… Challenge yourself with a five-year-old.
Tell us about your favorite grad school or professional schoolteacher. Challenge yourself to speak about the worst one with charity in your words.
How would you run the company you now work for? Challenge yourself with your last boss or company without any resentment.
Write some opening paragraphs that will engage your KOL. Challenge yourself to answer back as the physician who loves or hates these encounters with you.
Write your career path even if being a forest ranger is not in the cards right now. Challenge yourself by writing about what you really, really want to do with your life.
It is in the writing that you can be thinking and in the thinking, you will become a more adept listener and storyteller…and listener! One of my doctor friends, an intensely smart person, drops me stories written on his phone. Some long, some short. All somewhat emotional and engaging. Plenty of stories. You have plenty too.
Mary Doria Russell, author of “The Sparrow,” a popular novel among my university classes, said that people who go on and on and on and on should join the support group “On and On Anon”! Whenever you’re giving a short or long presentation and you know that what you just said was it… Stop! You are done, that’s all. Sit. Trust your inner self and let it be. Don’t belabor or repeat the it, just let it linger in the air. You’d made your point, enjoy! Take your applause with humility and grace and sit down. Let whoever is in charge ask for “Any questions?” All you need to do is say that magic of wisdom that came from within you and sit.
Ever walk past an exhibit table where the only thing moving is a scrolling phone screen? I’ve seen it so often, and it got me thinking. In my latest video, I share my take on how to shift from passive to present when you're at an event: how standing, making the first move, and having a clear, personal pitch can make all the difference. It’s not about being flashy—it’s about being approachable and memorable.
