Nineteen-ish years ago I took a vacation to Vancouver with my friend Sandy.

People kept suggesting we rent bikes and bike around Stanley Park. That sounded great, except for one problem – neither of us had been on a bike since we were kids and neither of us were keen to test out our skills in a big city. 

We walked for miles exploring the city.

We took the ferry to Granville Island and ate peach rosemary tarts.

We went to the Botanic Garden.

We saw fireworks on the beach.

We went on a boat ride with a local photographer.

On our last day, after a week of repeated recommendations, we made our way to a bike store and rented bikes.

The shopkeeper suggested we test out our bikes in the parking lot to make sure the seat and handlebars were adjusted properly.

We nervously headed out to the parking lot and pedaled around with a mix of shakiness and trepidation. No one in Vancouver wears helmets but after a few shaky circles around the parking lot, I announced I was going back for a helmet and my friend did the same.

We spent the next few hours exploring the park, covering ground we wouldn’t have been able to see on foot as we rebuilt our confidence on wheels.

When we got back to New York, my friend got a bike. It took me a few more years, but eventually I joined the ranks of city bikers.

Doing new things, or old things we haven’t done in a long time, is often:

• Uncomfortable 

• Scary

• Nerve wracking

• Shaky

But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do them. It may require:

• Looking a little silly

• Being bad before we’re good

• Taking action when we’re scared

This is exactly what’s required to speak in front of people even when:

• Your hands are shaky

• It’s nerve-wracking putting your ideas forward

• It’s scary having all eyes on you 

• It’s uncomfortable being visible 

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. 

With coaching, you get personalized guidance, a process and a plan. It’s like having a helmet, directions, and roadmap all wrapped into one.

My client Erika hired me to help with a business presentation but the ripple effects are so much greater. She said “Everything changed.”

She feels confident talking about her business.

Conducting sales conversations are easy because she can explain how she helps.

She booked her biggest project to date.

She added a new product line based on listening to customer needs.

When you change your communication, everything changes. The first step is to book a call and I’ll walk you through the 3 steps to make this change.

Last week, on day five of solo parenting, I was frying eggs for dinner and cracked an egg on the side of a sizzling pan. What was supposed to slide INTO the pan missed and slid down the OUTSIDE of the pan, down the front of the stove, and onto the floor.

I was planning on sunny side up and now I had scrambled on the floor. My 8-year old looked at me, looked at the eggs, and started cracking up.

As I mopped up sticky eggs, I thought back to college when my boyfriend put an egg in his pocket for safe keeping. He was cooking and didn’t want the egg to roll off the counter while he prepped other ingredients.

This was not a full-proof plan.

We’ve all had failures:

• Tech that failed 😬

• Important points forgotten 😥

• Presentations that missed the mark 😳

The question is not whether they happen. 

The question is how we react when they happen.

We can spend our time stewing in failure or we can spend our time evaluating the process and preparing for next time.

That’s why I teach my clients a simple 4 step formula: Explore, Experience, Experiment, and Evaluate.

1. Explore your strengths and identify exactly where to spend your time.

2. Experience new techniques where you actually feel prepared.

3. Experiment and test out your strategies in real-life situations.

4. Evaluate. 

These 4 steps in the B.U.R.S.T. Formula help you and your team:

• mop up after failures

• take consistent action even when things don't go as planned

• expand your skills so you don’t put all your eggs in the same basket (or pocket)

As a result, it expands your communication skills, your confidence, and your momentum. 

These are 2 ways to get started.

1. Book time to talk to me

2. Download 4 Steps to Get Clear on Your Message and prep for any presentation even when you only have 5 minutes

Are your presentations like Wasa crackers?

Don’t get me wrong – these crackers serve a purpose – They provide a fine surface to get cheese from your plate to your mouth. 

But they’re a bit dry and utilitarian.

Their best quality is flat, much like a lot of presentations.

If the only thing your presentations are doing is moving words from your mouth to someone else’s ears, you’re leaving a lot of potential on the table (no pun intended).

These are 6 things that add flavor and context to your presentations:

S- Stories

H- Humor

A- Ask questions

P- Pictures & Props

E- Emotion

S- Suspense

These 6 components are what S.H.A.P.E.S. your communication.

They’re the difference between a cracker (or presentation) that resembles cardboard and a toasted slice of French bread with brie. 

One’s easy to grab but the other provides a more exciting experience. 

Here are 3 tips to create a more memorable experience for your audience:

 
1. Start with a story instead of thank you’s

The moment before you start talking is the moment you have the most audience attention. Don’t squander the suspense with logistics and thank yous. Tell a story to hook them right away.

2. Involve your audience in the experience

You may be the one at the front of the room but that doesn’t mean you have to do all the work. Create an interactive experience by asking questions and giving the audience a problem to solve. It’s a wonderful way to introduce your topic and take them along on your journey.

3. Don’t use your slides as a teleprompter 

Your visuals should work in conjunction with your verbal presentation. You don’t need to repeat all the same information. If your slides are crowded, edit, and speak to your main points instead.

Want help transforming your communication and meetings into a more colorful experience?

Reach out and let’s set up a time to talk!

Hi, I’m Madeline.

I help individuals and organizations reduce conflict, increase creative output and bring more energy to their teams.

I've been called a lifesaver and a secret weapon because I can take all the ideas in your head and put them together in a way that’s quicker, clearer, and more fun.

I recently went ice skating for the first time this season. It was the third time on skates in the last 3 years.

I laced up my new skates.

I got on all my winter gear.

I walked toward the rink in the brisk dark night and then...

I hesitated. I started to do what I often do: overthink.

I stood at the edge of the rink, hovering between ice and ground, and I had a moment of doubt.

My mind slipped into fear as I watched other skaters struggle, slip, and grip the wall. 

I wasn’t thinking about the fun to be had. I wasn't thinking about trying out new skates or that I had done this before.

I was thinking about falling.

I was strategizing how NOT to fall.

The problem with focusing on what you don’t want to happen is that it takes your attention away from what you DO want to happen.

When people come to me with concerns about filler words, I initially suggest we put them aside.

It’s not that cutting down filler words isn’t a worthy goal - we can always go back to it if it's still a problem - it’s that putting all your attention on what you don’t want to say is an unsuccessful strategy to create what you want.

It takes your focus away from the bigger goals:

• connect with your audience

• make your content relatable

• get your message across clearly

• get recognized for your work

It’s the reason that mindset is a key part of your success plan as a communicator.

Otherwise, you can have all the tools and strategies in the world but still be consumed with fear.

Want to learn the mindset for successful communication so you can stay focused on your bigger goals?

That’s exactly what I teach my coaching clients: the tools, strategies and state of mind to increase your confidence and get your message across in any situation.

Reach out and let’s set up a time to talk!

I was recently talking with a client and she told me how she approached presentations before we worked together.

It went something like this:

1. Sit down at the computer

2. Open PowerPoint (Google Slides, Keynote, choose your own adventure)

3. Spend a bunch of time looking for images, fiddling with typefaces, trying out images and colors

4. Get frustrated with the jumble of words and imagery on the page but so little progress after hours have gone by

5. Call it quits

6. Repeat next day

This is the way so many people approach presentations.

The reason it’s killing so much time and energy is you’re going about it backwards.

The quickest way to engage your audience is to first get clear on what you want to accomplish.

You need to be clear before you can make it clear to your audience.

It’s like doing a puzzle.

The quickest way to bring the picture into place is to start with the border.

Once you have the foundation, then and only then, start sorting the pieces inside.

Otherwise, you waste time on the details (like sorting through 1000 tiny pieces) and lose sight of the goal.

Want more help with presentations?

Learn 4 lessons I learned doing jigsaw puzzles.

Discover the most common presentation mistakes and what do about them here.

For the second winter in a row, covid has struck our house, and for the second time, we pulled out jigsaw puzzles to keep us busy.

Not just because they were a favorite pastime when I was a kid, or because they can entertain an 8-year-old and covid plagued parents at the same time.
But because puzzles can also solve costly presentation pitfalls plaguing zoom weary, pandemic weary teams.

Presentations can be tricky, even more so online: 

You don’t always hit it out of the park on the first try: 

• You might have too many pieces that don’t connect.

• You might be missing pieces.

• You might have the right pieces but lack a road map. 

Look no further than our pandemic puzzle craze to create engaging presentations that bring your audience along:

These are 4 lessons I learned from doing jigsaw puzzles with my kid:

It’s all in the framing 

In the early days of lockdown and remote first grade, I borrowed a puzzle from neighbors and attempted to engage my 6-year-old.

I loved puzzles as a child but this was the wrong puzzle.

We went from an 80 piece solar system puzzle to a 1000 piece book cover montage.

To make things worse, we set up our puzzle Command station on our dining table on top of a brightly printed Marimekko tablecloth.

It was pattern on top of pattern, color on top of color, and a big jumbled mess of puzzle pandemonium.  

Much like presentations chock full of charts, graphs, and teeny tiny text no one reads, the details were overwhelming. 

My 6 year old got frustrated and gave up. 

This is exactly what happens when you stuff your presentations full of data and details and your audience tunes out.

That’s why framing is so critical. 
Great presentations don't include every detail and story. They include carefully curated ones. 

If you’re worried your content is boring, resist the urge to add more. 
Instead, look to add less.
Find the hook that makes your content matter.
Get to work believing that your presentation is interesting and do the work to make it so. 

Paint a picture that fills in the gaps

We gave puzzles a second try In December 2020 when we spent the last 2 weeks of the year in covid quarantine.

I snagged puzzle #2 out of our building’s community room. The subject, vintage cars, held more interest with my little one. We were a captive audience and the puzzle was a novel pastime.

Puzzle #2 brought hours of entertainment, days full of deep concentration, and long chunks of family teamwork. 

As we progressed we realized the puzzle was missing eleven pieces. This made it more challenging but did not keep us from completing this small pleasure. Our brains had just enough information to fill in the gaps.

This is exactly what a story can do when you’re giving a presentation. You have a captive audience and you don’t want to squander it with unnecessary fluff.

Instead, you want to dazzle them with stories. 

Stories can fill in the gaps and connect the dots of how your topic is relevant and important to them. Research shows the human brain is 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it is wrapped in a story. 

Stories paint a picture, elicit emotion, and provide just enough information for the audience to draw their own conclusions.

Don’t forget your map

The first puzzle my family completed with all 1000 pieces was a montage of 64 lego characters.  
This puzzle came with a map - a larger blowup of the image - essential when placing 64 sets of identical Lego hands. 

While you can meander around without it, a map gets everyone situated and heading in the right direction.

It’s the same reason your presentation needs a roadmap. You can have the right pieces but if your presentation lacks structure and focus, it’s still going to be a mess. 

Your job is to fit the pieces together into one cohesive story. 

Start by articulating your objective in one sentence and use it as a guidepost for every decision, data point, and detail.

Strategy is Essential

Whether you’re doing a puzzle or delivering a presentation, you need a strategy.  

When we dumped out the new woodland puzzle yesterday, my now 8-year-old immediately started sorting border pieces, which is exactly what you want to do when you start on a presentation.

First, create the border. 

• Before you dump all your presentation pieces into a slide deck, you want to be clear on your subject and point of view. This creates the foundation that holds the rest of the presentation in.

Next, sort by color and section. 

• Once you have the foundation in place, you can start organizing the pieces into an outline.

Last, fill in the middle. 

• After you have an outline, you can start filling in the details, data, and stories that create a cohesive picture. 

For help creating your presentation strategy and crafting communication that brings your audience along, reach out here.

Hi, I’m Madeline.

I help individuals and organizations reduce conflict, increase creative output and bring more energy to their teams.

I've been called a lifesaver and a secret weapon because I can take all the ideas in your head and put them together in a way that’s quicker, clearer, and more fun.

If you want to change your experience, change your thinking.

It’s like moving the furniture.

You can have all the same pieces but if you move the couch, the entire room looks different.

That’s what it’s like when you change the thoughts in your head.

Your entire perspective shifts and everything looks different.

That’s why mindset is one of the 5 foundational skills in the C.A.L.M.S. framework to communication.

And that’s why I moved my furniture 5 times during the pandemic. (You can read about it my adventures in rearranging here).

You can have all the strategies in the world, but if you don’t change your thinking, not much else is going to change.

It’s the reason so many public speaking programs miss the mark.

It’s the reason you can have the perfect elevator pitch but you don't make any connections.

It's the reason you can be well rehearsed but your presentation falls flat.

Want to learn more about the C.A.L.M.S. Framework to communication? Read my article in Forbes.

Hi, I’m Madeline.

I help quiet leaders speak up in a world of loud talkers and I help organizations articulate their vision in clear, concise messaging.

I've been called a lifesaver and a secret weapon and my superpower is listening. I can take all the ideas in your head and put them together in a way that makes sense and tastes good to other people.

Get in touch at madeline@madelineschwarz.com

I’m reading Atomic Habits by James Clear and he talks about the difference between taking action and being in motion.

Planning, strategizing and learning put us in motion. They feel productive without actually moving us closer to our goal.

Taking action delivers results.

For example, watching TED talks, reading articles about public speaking, rewriting the same slide over and over again are all in motion.

These are not the things to spend your time on.

Taking action is:

• Giving a talk

• Practicing for a few friends and soliciting feedback

• Raising your hand to lead the presentation before you feel ready

Want help moving into action?

I teach my clients 3 things:

1. How to get crystal clear on your message and articulate it in a way your audience cares

2. How to present your work with confidence in any situation

3. How to apply a growth mindset and change how you feel about communication forever

If you’ve been keeping yourself busy with lots of motion, and you’re ready to take action, let’s talk.

Here’s what my client Mimi said:

"Working with Madeline increased my public speaking and presentation skills significantly. Using her tools, I got through a Today Show interview with minimal nerves, have spoken on panels, and presented to an audience of 500 people."

I would love to talk to you. Grab a time for a free discovery call.

There's no better time to take action.

Hi, I’m Madeline.

I help quiet leaders speak up in a world of loud talkers and I help organizations articulate their vision in clear, concise messaging.

I've been called a lifesaver and a secret weapon and my superpower is listening. I can take all the ideas in your head and put them together in a way that makes sense and tastes good to other people.

Get in touch at madeline@madelineschwarz.com

Water is the place I feel calm - beach, bathtub, lake, pool. I love them all.

I’m working remotely in Morgantown, WV this summer (my home state, if not my hometown) and we’re staying 7 minutes from the town pool. 

It’s reminiscent of my childhood, complete with teenage lifeguards and bad pop music, but this time I’m old enough to stay in for adult swim.

There’s something methodical and meditative about swimming laps.  The back and forth is calming and familiar. 

It requires just enough concentration and coordination to occupy the brain and take my mind off everything else.

Teaching my 7 year old how to swim is another story. 

What feels natural and fluid to me is complicated and chaotic for a beginner.

There’s a lot to coordinate.

Much like communication, it takes practice.

In the water, your arms and legs need to work together with your breathing to keep you afloat.

To communicate, your mouth and mind need to work together to get your message across. 

Sometimes it’s fluid and sometimes its flailing limbs and mouthfuls of water.

Sometimes everything is working and sometimes you stray out of your lane and crash into the side of the pool.

Both swimming and communication work better when you have a strategy and techniques to make it easier. 

But you have to get in the water.

No amount of reading or studying will help unless you get wet.

Having a coach and strategic advisor is like having a life vest, swim coach, and goggles all wrapped up in one:

• They see where you’re going when your vision is obscured.

• They throw you a life preserver when you feel like you’re drowning.

• They cheer your progress when you’re too close to see it.

Want to dip your toes in the water? 

Schedule a consult and lets talk about working together.

Hi, I’m Madeline.

I help quiet leaders speak up in a world of loud talkers and I help organizations articulate their vision in clear, concise messaging.

I've been called a lifesaver and a secret weapon and my superpower is listening. I can take all the ideas in your head and put them together in a way that makes sense and tastes good to other people.

Get in touch at madeline@madelineschwarz.com

The key to success is failing. 

There’s tons written about this, countless TED talks, thousands of podcasts, but this was simply not a concept I grew up with. 

I had no model for healthy failure as a child.

Anything less than an A required explaining in my family.

It didn’t help that I had a perfect older sister.

I was a good student but my sister was an exceptional student.

When I got to high school, her reputation preceded me. I had big shoes to fill, literally and figuratively. In middle school, a teacher once asked if I was wearing canoes on my feet. (I’ve worn size 9 since the 7th grade but more on canoes another time.)

My sister and I did all the same stuff and I worked hard to live up to everyone else’s expectations.

I got straight A’s my first semester in college, with the exception of organic chemistry which I nearly failed.

My dad asked what happened when he saw the C-. 

I screamed back that perhaps he had failed to notice I got A’s in everything else.

I studied and suffered my way through college, feeling out of my league, worried that small town smarts were not going to cut it in the big league.

I didn’t know how to fail and certainly didn’t know how to rebound.

This led to a paralyzing fear of failure and an unhealthy striving for perfectionism.

I avoided things I didn’t know how to do. I sat out activities that might have been fun or silly for fear of looking stupid. I kept quiet when I had things to say because I didn’t want to embarrass myself.

You’ve probably seen 6000 (or 60,000) posts on social media about recovered perfectionists. None of them are mine. The thoughts we’ve practiced for 10 or 20 years don’t disappear overnight.

It’s a constant practice.

As a parent, I’m doing my best to teach my 7-year old that failure is part of the process. Instilling him with a healthy relationship to failure means I have to talk about my own failures.

I listened to a podcast where Todd Herman shared the 4 questions he asks his kids at dinner every night to build resilient humans.

Here's the one that stood out:

Did you have any good fails today?

Todd says a day without fails is a waste of a day. 

This podcast completely changed our dinner conversation and gave us a way to normalize failure. (I recommend it regardless of whether you have children.)

It’s given me a way to laugh about things that are uncomfortable, like the time I posted about an event and invited thousands of people to a workshop on Networking for Inroverts.

I don’t think I would have noticed my typo except for the stranger who publicly commented IN ALL CAPS that I should fix my spelling error.

My first thought was: How mortifying, I better delete the post ASAP.

My second thought was: Lots of people commented and shared and probably didn’t notice.

My third thought was: You don’t need to be a perfect speller to be a great networker.

I chose to leave the post up. It was uncomfortable but I'm a work in progress.

What about you?

What are your good fails?

I’d love to hear them.

Hi, I’m Madeline.

I help quiet leaders speak up in a world of loud talkers and I help organizations articulate their vision in clear, concise messaging.

I've been called a lifesaver and a secret weapon and my superpower is listening. I can take all the ideas in your head and put them together in a way that makes sense and tastes good to other people.

Get in touch at madeline@madelineschwarz.com

A couple years ago, I went to an Ellevate event where all the name tags had conversation starters. Mine said The title of my book is:

When I approached a small group of people, someone asked “What’s the title of your book?” I answered Small Town Girl in the Big City.

This started a long conversation about my childhood growing up on a farm in rural West Virginia and how I came to live in Brooklyn. 

I’m sure we eventually talked about our professional lives but it wasn’t what sparked the connection. And it wasn’t the reason we kept in touch.

How many times have you answered the question “What do you do?”

How many times did it kick off a really great conversation where you felt totally at ease?

I read a Forbes article recently where the author asked when’s the last time you delivered a 30 second elevator pitch and got offered a job? Probably never.

What do you do is my least favorite question because it asks multi-dimensional people to define themselves in one dimension.

It puts you on the defensive trying to sum up 10, 20 or 30 years of professional expertise in a 30 second pitch.

On the flip side, it makes the other person feel like they’re being sold to when they just came for the wine and cheese.

Before you kick off another conversation with What do you do consider this:

I recently surveyed 71 introverted professionals about how they're thinking about, feeling about and experiencing networking 1 year into the pandemic.

30% of respondents have a conversation problem. They struggle with what to say, how to introduce themselves, and how to keep conversations going once they've started.

46% have a mindset problem. They're in their heads, worried about being interesting and anxious about coming across as contrived and transactional.

These are fixable problems.

There are much better ways to start conversations and build genuine relationships.

Join me on Wednesday April 7th for a workshop on Networking for Introverts.

I will share tips and strategies to build your confidence, sharpen your skills, and make better connections. Details are here.

And if you can’t make the workshop, check out my interview on the Spitfire podcast? We talk trends from the survey and tips to move past the awkward and start networking with ease.

Hi, I’m Madeline.

I help quiet leaders speak up in a world of loud talkers and I help organizations articulate their vision in clear, concise messaging.

I've been called a lifesaver and a secret weapon and my superpower is listening. I can take all the ideas in your head and put them together in a way that makes sense and tastes good to other people.

Get in touch at madeline@madelineschwarz.com

TWO PEOPLE replied to my Networking for Introverts survey that they'd rather get a root canal than go to a networking event. 

I went to the dictionary to see what Miriam Webster has to say about networking and they define it as:

the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions

specifically: the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business

Sounds pretty stale and transactional.

Doesn't exactly make you run toward the next zoom happy hour.

But we can redefine networking.

I see networking as an opportunity to connect with interesting people and make new friends.

The number one reason people avoid networking, public speaking, or difficult conversations is they think it’s going to be painful. So painful they’d rather get a root canal without novocaine (a respondent’s actual words).

My mission is to make communication more fun.

Fun is the missing ingredient. When it’s fun, you can inspire other people, share your story, lead your team and make change in the world.

What kind of change?

Yesterday a client shared she aced 7 rounds of interviews and accepted a new job offer. She got a title promotion and shattered her own glass ceiling.

Another client gave her best presentation ever and said she felt more confident than ever in her ability to do her job.

I give people tools to not only speak differently, but think differently and it changes everything.

Don’t wait until you need a new job or want to sell something to start networking.

Start now.

I can help you get clear on your message, connect with any audience and change your mindset so you never think about communication the same way. Let’s talk. 

Hi, I’m Madeline.

I help quiet leaders and organizations communicate their story and invite audiences into their world.

I use my signature process to make communication fun and transform how you communicate at work, at home, in life.

Get in touch at madeline@madelineschwarz.com