Geronimo Leadership Coaching

In A Silent Way : The Future of Presentations?

The title is a reference to Miles Davis 's extraordinary piece "In a Silent Way".

It is beautiful, fragile, fascinating. The tension is  built up very slowly, by each of the musicians who are  all intensely mindful of one another. We feel captured, raptured and taken to a blissful state...

Would you feel the same if you were attending this new form of corporate event, The Silent Conference?

This video was brought to my attention thanks to Angela Dunn, alias @BlogBrevity, via Twitter directing me to her blog post New "Silent" Multi-Presentation Conference Not Mindful of Speakers.

At first sight, it seems quite strange indeed...and even scary!

A bunch of people with headsets, switching channels and rotating their head, rolling their eyes silently from one presentation's slides to another... Not very different of 747 plane passengers, with a fixed menu of DVDs and music playlist they can choose from, completely indifferent to one another, but very close physically.

As I'm writing that post, I'm reminded of one of my favorite animated movie lately, another excellent Pixar movie: Wall-E.

There, the future of humanity is apocalyptic. The planet Earth is a giant bin, deprived of any form of life.The only human survivors are all on a space ship .They have become obese, boneless, passive, spending their days lying on a big "pod "connected to screens feeding them with information, commercials, food and drinks, via headsets & straws.They're indifferent to one another, unable to even stand up and walk by themselves, glued to their screens...Does it ring a bell?

Where is Miles Davis 's magic?

In the silent conference imagined by Patrick Dixon, each speaker is also indifferent to the others and they even cannot actually connect with their audience, who keeps on switching. What a nightmare!

So what's the point of setting up this sophisticated conference for happy few?

Reading the tweets from Patrick Dixon, the idea was to be innovative and to offer a solution to a problem of limited space. It only shows a part of the event, there were also plenary sessions and an exhibition area. Fair enough.

Overcoming my first negative impression, I can also see the benefits and future developments of this new tool.

• Imagine the impact it could have, if a real dialogue was to be fostered between people sitting at the same table, and then between the tables?
• Imagine if people were asked to immediately take action and start working in mini project teams and actively involve themselves personally ?
• Imagine the possibilities of broadcasting this kind of event in multiple cities at the same time and also facilitating a discussion, an open forum? I see huge possibilities and applications ahead!  

It's a reality that people's attention span is getting shorter and shorter, and long conferences conducted by one single speaker will become more seldom. People are already switching anyway via their blackberries and their iPhones, iPads, via twitter back Channels!

The future of Presentation is about delivering shorter and more entertaining presentations, making them more personal and interactive.

If you're planning to give a presentation soon, launching your business and wanting to be more visible, I wrote a series about it : The 6 Trends of Presentations in 2010.

How would it look like? Definitely not like a PowerPoint, but not like Wall-E either!

• More simple
• Shorter
• More personal
• More Interactive
• Collaborative
• More Fun

Here, I guess the question is : "When do they take off their headsets and stop acting like robots?!!!"

Waiting eagerly for your thoughts, stories and comments!

How to Ease You into Achieving your Goals? One step at a Time!

 This morning, I had a wonderful workout running session. It took only 30 minutes of my day, and it made me feel great for the rest of the day.

You maybe saying, "no big deal", everybody exercises, runs and don't write posts about it.

The difference with me, is that I have tried many times, and given up after the first run! I love walking, and I can walk pretty fast, but I just hate running.

I feel awful as soon as I start: my heart seems to be exploding in my chest, my head hurts, my whole body is begging me to stop!

(The lovely path where I run/walk, around the corner of our house in South Beaujolais.)

Does it sound familiar?

Starting, with great energy, passion and enthusiasm, ...and then experiencing unexpected obstacles and persuading yourself it's just not for you. Feeling bad about it. Giving it another try, and giving it up. Feeling awful about yourself. and blaming your lack of will-power and self-discipline.

You could replace starting running by:

• Quitting smoking
• Starting exercising
• Moving into a healthy and balanced diet
• Focusing on your personal and professional priorities
• Sticking to your commitments
• Taking action into major areas in your life (personal, social, professional)
• Achieving financial freedom
• Completing major tasks,assignments, projects
• Writing that book!
• Mastering the discipline in your life in general!

Every time I quit, I tell myself : I'm not a "born-runner", this is just not my thing, I should just give up trying. Some would call it a "limiting belief", I guess or simply a good excuse for not achieving my goals. I have been told I should be patient, give myself some time to do it progressively.

And, as soon as I'm out with my running outfit and shoes, I feel compelled to run, ride like the wind, like in Christopher Cross's song...And forget I'm a beginner and I need a method, a gentle way to ease me into running.

What's the lesson for Achieving Your Goals?

It's all about strategy and motivation!

You must be familiar with the acronym SMART for setting objectives.

In my case, I realized that it was not enough. My objective for running was SMART:

• Specific : I wanted to be able to run at least 30 mins in a row, 3 times a week
• Measurable: time and kms
• Ambitious: I hated running!
• Realistic: I'm rather sportive and in good shape, I live in the country side
• Time Related: 3 times a week, 30 min, withing 3 weeks!

Yet, all of my attempts until now failed. Why?

When I see how simple, zero cost, quick and effective running  can be, how it can strengthen my confidence to achieve other goals in my life... I tell myself, there must be a way!

Here's the story of how it all started. If you prefer shorter posts and would rather have the take out, skip to the end!

It all started thanks to Angela Dunn, @BlogBrevity, who wrote an inspiring post  about running with some intercontinental twitter friends and easy steps into running for beginners.

I joined her immediately, with my usual enthusiasm, and frolicked in the snowy hills! :-)

Even wrote a post immediately after this heroic( baby steps) run in the snow, with pictures!

The next days, for a week, it was really impossible to run, with the icy roads( no, really!)

When I started again, I forgot about the running and walking method, it was too cold, I was out of breath, I run for too long and I felt awful afterwards...

I had forgotten about my key motivators, which were enjoying a pleasurable experience and being proud of myself for achieving small steps and reporting my little success, with some accountability.

I had also forgotten to give myself some methodology, a strategy to progress towards my objective, breaking my goal into smaller chunks and anticipating the obstacles.

I wanted to go directly from zero to 30 mins!

At that time, my dream was to have the support from my running Twitter friends, some music and some clear and precise instructions to follow up!

I even asked Angela on twitter, quite candidly, if there was an app for it!

So I simply googled the question "How to run for beginners" and "Is there an App for beginner runners"?

And I found C25K Plan.

Brilliant!

For only $ 2,99, it enables you to have directly in your ears a step-by-step instruction of when to warm-up, when to run, when to walk, 3 days a week, until you build strength.

And you can customize it with your own music, thanks to your existing iTunes library, just with a simple click!

Now, I'm looking forward these runs and feeling so proud of myself!

Take away, for any goal you want to achieve:

• Define Your Goal in a SMART way
• Identify your Key Motivators
• Break your goal into smaller chunks, easily achieved
• Design a Strategy, according to your values
• Follow your Strategy via a clear plan
• Get some support, mentoring or coaching , especially at the beginning
• Share your goal with a buddy, with your manager
• Think about rewarding yourself and celebrating the achievement!

It's the first Monday of May, what is the most important goal you want to achieve this month? Did you prepare yourself for success?

Please share in your comments your goals, your stories, what works best for you regarding achieving goals, and what you may also find difficult right now, what sort of help or feedback you wish you had?

A New Beginning: Here Comes Geronima!

After a Spring break, I'm back with my Women Speakers Series, ready to blog about Women, Leadership and Creativity.

Women in big corporations, or women entrepreneurs?

Women learning to play the rules in a men's world or women creating their own rules, in a new world?

What about new learning, women adopting new technologies with ancient wisdom? Women embracing change with confidence, wild and raw power and generous enthusiasm in a global world?

Too many topics, too many tags, too many categories. What about the focus I had decided at the end of last year? Women Leaders and Presentation Skills?

Time to pause and reflect.

What happened?

During the last two weeks, mother nature has been very generous with us, at home, in France.

• Our family expanded. My husband 's eldest daughter gave birth to a beautiful baby boy , we all went to visit her in Arcachon, near Bordeaux
• Back home, we spent one week taking care of our garden, harvesting  the blossoming flowers and trees  with our ...seven children. 
• I took a break from blogging and put my professional project on hold.

Our home has been a busy beehive! I gave myself 100% to my family's needs and adapted myself to the telluric changes such an event meant into our lives, for my husband and me, too.

What did I learn?

• I reflected on women's ages and aging, took comfort in reading the wisdom of older women. I connected with plenty of wonderful young grand-mothers, around me and on twitter and shared experiences with them.I met Julie Daley and her wonderful blog and passion for the creative power of women.
• I discovered a whole new world and also realized I had still a long way to go, to get my youngest ones (and the big ones too!) ready for adulthood.
• I was reminded that time was running. I was not ready to become a retired grand-ma.I had still plenty of things to accomplish.I felt torn between a sense of eternity and emergency.

What are the challenges today?

Feeding my big family, making money out of my business, living my talk and empowering myself, as a woman.

• I received two major training and consulting offers, which will imply transformation in my business, more travels, shifts in my clients. It took me back to my past expertise, to the corporate world and big business schools and universities. Is it what I wanted to spend the rest of my days doing? The clients who called me wanted me to coach men senior managers. How am I going to fit in all? Where does Geronimo fit ? Where is my soul?
• I also reflected on my experience with "Your Next Presentation", the innovative and interactive online training and coaching tool I had launched back in January. People seemed to be very curious and interested, but nobody bought it! I was also very shy at promoting it, almost ashamed of making a sales page, of tweeting and blogging about it. Having very mixed feelings about marketing techniques for coaches, and still looking for my true way to sell, being kind and entertaining, and not too pushy, but still selling! I still very much believe it can work, provided I find the way to market it to the people who need it!

Who are the people I want to spend most time working with?

• Who are my customers? Corporate executives, MBA students, high potential managers? Am I really writing for those when I'm blogging, when I'm twitting? When I'm building cooperation via Skype with wonderful brilliant women across the world?
• Or women entrepreneurs? Women in transition, just like me, just like you, women consultants, coaches, trainers, business owners who desperately want to prove they can make it, even if it's an everyday chalenge? To blossom as a woman, as a mom as a business owner, as a peaceful warrior, as global citizen, as a creative human being?

Wow! I needed a big breathing space to think about it all!

Today, everybody's back to school with new classes (the 3 youngest), to university with new exams (3 oldest),back home with a new baby (the new mom), back to the corporate world with new projects( my hubby) and back to Geronimo Leadership for me!

Where's my North Pole Star? What's my vision? What are my priorities? What's my next step?

Why am I writing all this?

Because Geronimo is slowly morphing into a new Geronima, a feminine creative essence of the wild woman 's wisdom.

And sharing the process of this transformation is exactly what I want to spend my time doing during the next half of my life.

Giving birth to the new Eve and being the midwife of other women's blossoming.

Because I am re-designing a new website, where I will package all my expertise to serve women entrepreneurs, who want to transform their dreams into reality, a step-by-step road-map, helping them keep their soul, their compass and their energy and have fun doing it!

The feminine Anima of Geronimo is emerging. I still have my bow and my arrows, I'm still riding my wild horse, but I don't have to pretend to be an old Male Apache Chief anymore.

Because I care for you and wanted to let you know the changes ahead.

I would love to hear your feedback and reactions to this post where I'm sharing my truth and my vulnerability. I really care for your feedback.

Transition places are not famous for being comfortable and in the midst of my life, I'm torn between conflicting directions again (like in the myth of Demeter and Artemis, I shared earlier in a post)

Here are 3 questions for you:

1. What do you think about the change from Geronimo to Geronima?
2. What would you like to find more of in this blog, now that it's more focused on women entrepreneurs and less on big corporations?
3. Do you have a similar story you would like to share here? A story of transition or a challenge about positioning yourself, about finding your niche, about getting to know which client you want to work with?

Stuck by the Ash Cloud? Get Your Business Online!

All those silent skies and planes all grounded has got me thinking. What if the Icelandic Volcano Ash never cleared? What if this was the end of travel as we know it? Could the technology we have now enable us to carry on and communicate and have relationships with people that we never met? The huge growth in technology-based communication tools such as Twitter and Facebook show us that online communication is growing at an ever faster pace - our clients are talking to each other online all the time, so why not to us as their coaches?

And at the same time I was thinking about people I know that are stranded abroad and can't get home. If that was you, and that was your business, could your business manage without you? Personally I want to build a business that could still bring me in money if I was stuck away from home stranded like those people (or more realistically when I'm out doing the school run or walking in the vineyards!).

There's a webinar coming up next week I'm going along to, that is going to teach exactly that -  this video will give you a taster of what it's about (watch it just to hear the beautiful music!) - will you join me? Click here for your free place 

JigsawBox from Nicola Bird on Vimeo.

Presenting With Elegance: Lessons From The Irreverent Coco Chanel

Here's a video of Coco Chanel's first television interview. It's in French, watch it even if you don't understand French. Coco Chanel 's body language is eloquent...

How does Coco Chanel express herself in such a formal context?

She's incredibly original, irreverent and free to be herself.

Remember, it was the early 60s, the beginnings of the television in France. People interviewed were more static, contained, conventional, almost severe...(take a look at General de Gaulle at the ORTF and you'll see what I mean!)

ORIGINAL

• She's standing, when most people sit down and stay put during interviews

• She's moving all the time! Her arms, her head, her whole body, completely at ease in her impeccable tailleur...

IRREVERENT

• She starts her talk by saying NO!
• She's smoking and keeps one hand in her pocket, contrasting with the classical feminine silhouette

• She's even scratching her back, like a 12 year old school girl!

FREE ... SIMPLY FREE!

• She's improvising as she's talking
  

• She's bold and natural, sometimes soft and polite, other times interrupting and irreverent

• She's 100% herself : Coco!

What does she say about elegance?

"Elegance is to allow women to move with ease. To prevent them from feeling dressed up, to prevent them from changing attitudes and styles depending on the dress in which one has put them! It's very difficult. I think it's the gift I have, if we can call it a gift, and I think I have got it.

The human body moves all the time, even when we do not want him to move.You see, I wish I could stop moving and speak calmly. That is very difficult for me. I am moving all the time. If I had a costume which bothered me, I wouldn't be moving at all. I would be afraid it might change place.

Well, I don't care! My suit can move, not move, I don't care at all, it can do whatever it likes.

It holds itself!"

What a beautiful metaphor of a well designed and structured presentation,(the tailored suit) which you then can deliver simply, figure-hugging your own style!

"Les femmes sont toujours trop habillées mais jamais assez élégantes!"

"Women are always too much dressed and never elegant enough!"

I love it when she says: "Oh my god, this is such a difficult question! You're asking me questions that are far too difficult! " Then, she scratches her back, casually, completely at ease in her body. Wow!

What's in it for you?

• Dare To Be Different from Others-Be Yourself- Be Unique

"in order to be irreplaceable one must always be different. People laughed at the way I dressed, but that was the secret of my success: I didn’t look like anyone.”

• Be Bold

"In fashion, you know you have succeeded when there is an element of upset."

• Use Your Intuition and Experiences

"Fashion is not simply a matter of clothes,” said Chanel. “Fashion is in the air, born upon the wind. One intuits it. It is in the sky and on the road.”

• Keep it Short and Simple

"I get rid of everything I can, every thing that is not useful. Until I reach  simplicity..." 

• Leave a Strong Impression

"Dress shabbily and they remember the dress,” said Chanel. “Dress impeccably and they remember the woman.”

Present  with elegance and they will remember your message, not your slides.

Find in your memory, an experience when you felt you were daring, you were free to be yourself, unique and completely aligned with your values.

You were "elegant".

Share with us these moments of "elegance" in your comments, I'm sure you have plenty of them which could be inspiring for others. Give us your thoughts!

Another Role Model for Women: Coco Chanel & Innovative Leadership

Have you seen Coco before Chanel, a movie directed by Anne Fontaine?

I loved the atmosphere, the actors, the costume, of course and the personality emerging, a mix of irreverence, modernism, feminism and classicism. And a beautiful love story...

"With a mixture of brutal candor and tender sympathy, it charts the rise of an ambitious, difficult woman, taking note of the obstacles and opportunities offered by her time, place and circumstances.Coco starts out as seamstresses with an eye for novelty and a keen aesthetic sense. Coco disdains corsets, sometimes dresses in men’s garments, and adapts simple hats and fisherman’s shirts to marvelously chic effect." Movie review- New York Times.

“Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”

                                                                                                    Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel

Coco Chanel was a true innovator.

She was the first to let go of corsets and bustles and helped women reconciliate with their bodies, out of the prison of their 19th century satin's cage.

She was a visionary woman, leading the way as an independent business woman, an artist, an emancipated woman.

She was a woman on a crusade, too!

In my next post, I will analyze her communication style, thanks to some French television archives, and translate them for you. She's even more amazing than you could imagine, and can teach us great lessons in communication.

Who will be the Coco Chanel of the 21rst century (and please, don't tell me Karl Lagerfield!!! :-)

How to Develop a More Creative and Innovative Communication Style?

It's already April and on Geronimo Leadership's Calendar, we have "the April Girl", The Innovator Communication Style!

Before introducing you to the woman leader I picked up to illustrate this dimension, let me present you the main Dilemma between The Innovator and The Analyser leadership and communication styles.

 

Previously, on Geronimo24 hours:

The Achiever with Ursula Burns, stretching towards The Facilitator

The Persuader with Meg Whitman, stretching towards The Moderator

The Pioneer with Gail Evans, stretching towards The Maintainer

(The Next one will be The Networker, with Arianna Huffington, stretching towards The Monitor)

Now, The Innovator!

Typically, someone communicating with a strong preference for The Innovator dimension would be seen as:

"Prolific and creative brain-stormers who are attracted by abstract issues and intellectual challenges. Attached to freedom of expression, they feel comfortable in initiating original and unconventional projects."

There are many American women leaders who fit in The Innovator Style of Management and Communication. Just like the Persuader and the Pioneer styles, it makes perfect sense with the North-American cultural values.

One of the most famous today is Charlene Li, and I will make a special post about her and analyse her communication style (with a great video, that I couldn't find for this example)

In this post, I'm going to star a woman whose name you may have never heard of, but I bet you will, very soon!

Because I wanted to find women leaders, from as many different cultures around the world as possible, I picked up a fantastic woman entrepreneur from Jordan.

Her name is Randa Ayoubi, she's the CEO and founder of Rubicon.

She created a 3D animation and computer graphics company in the Middle East

How did it all started? "With an idea, way out of there", she says.

She had a vision of creating a business whose purpose would be to teach children from her country, while playing and building a better world in the Middle East.

"Kids learn best when they play". Randa Ayoubi (link to WISE Muslim Women, a site I discovered when researching for her)

She imagined and designed two characters 'Ben & Izzy' , heroes of a children's animation series, in a co-production with some of the best animation directors in the US :

"The production will follow the exploits of two pre-teen boys, one Arab and one American. The boys meet in Amman, Jordan, where their respective grandfathers, who are life-long friends, are working on a massive archeology excavation project. There, the mischievous boys become friends, and through their adventures uncover an ancient treasure room containing a time travel mechanism that takes the boys back to great historical moments. The series is about the east-west cultural differences presenting it from a children's point of view. The stories will be educational both for the western and the Arab audience as it includes many of the Arab/ Muslim historical accomplishments with the characters traveling through Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain, Iraq and other places."

Here is how she communicates visually: with this Avatar of herself!
Quite informal and very expressive when talking through projects or ideas.

What are the core competencies of The Innovator?

Free-minded, visionary, strategic thinker, unconventional, independent, original.

Randa Ayoubi seems to embody these skills.

When asked about how she sees Rubicon in the next 10 years, her instant reply:

"You know Pixar? We're going to be Pixar!"

As she 's a very successful business woman , has an Executive MBA from Harvard Business School, I guess she must have developed a lot of other dimensions in her leadership style. Especially the Analytical dimension, with a focus on quality, details, methodical mindset and well-defined strategy. But how she communicates, and how she has expressed her vision is very innovative.

So, how can YOU develop a more creative and innovative communication style?

If you're more Analytical oriented, you might find it challenging to rely on your intuition and to express emotions.In search of precision and clarity, you may lack flexibility and creativity.

Here are some advices for you:

Out of Professional Context

• Participate into improvisation classes, they're excellent to prepare your next presentations
• Have fun communicating differently in informal contexts
• Volunteer to make a small speech during family gatherings (get some help first!)
•  Tell 3 short stories about yourself,your personal experience and find the link between them (this technique , The Magic Three, is very well developed by Terrence Garguilo at Making Stories)

At the Work Place

• Practice your "elevator pitch" via a bubble tweet video (like the one above )
• Go to networking events and really engage with the people you meet, rely on your first impression, connect with your intuition, with your emotions
• In your next meeting, share your vision of the future, encourage brain-storming, new ideas
• Be curious, ask plenty of questions, even silly ones...(yes, especially silly ones!)

Start with "it may be silly, but, what if we...?"

With "What if", we can create incredible stories and make them come true!

Next post will be about a French woman entrepreneur, very innovative, Coco Chanel, and you will also see how original and "avant-garde" she was in her communication style!

Isn't it funny, but I have much more examples for this Innovative style of communication, than, let's say, for example, the monitor or the analyser!!! I guess you will not be surprised to learn it's my favorite style, with the Humanist and Facilitator!

Good #FollowFriday Mindmap

Today I have 3 reasons to express Gratitude:

• It's Good Friday
• It's #FollowFriday on Twitter
• It's been I year since I joined Twitter

Here's my way of showing gratitude for all the fantastic people I've connected with on Twitter.

You know I love to express myself with images, cartoons, mind maps, stories, metaphors...

Alors, voilà!

Among the 2 264 people I follow, I've selected the ones I interact the most with (125).

You can visualize this map here and click on each branch where you will be connected directly with people's twitter accounts, or blogs. I intend to refine this map which started in august 2009. I really would like it to be interactive, I don't know yet how to do that. I also would like to simplify it (with maybe fewer branches) and make it more complex at the same time (I want to add new sub categories in each branch, and attach interviews, pictures, articles, quotes...). I also want to show connections between branches...Add colours, sounds, videos...Big project, that I will develop along the year, as a coaching tool.

Mind mapping could be an extraordinary personal and leadership development tool, creative, interactive, intuitive, feminine!

After one year, I'm drawing personal conclusions about  Twitter:

• The Call of the Mermaid.We often refer to twitter as "the stream". Definitely as addictive as I was afraid it would be. Last year, when I started, I posted a lot about Twitter and its dangers.This summer, I even went on a "twitter detox".No, seriously :-) Now, if I'm working from home, and not busy with any clients, I'm not tweeting before I achieve 3 major tasks on my To Do list. It's part of my Time management Strategy. It's one of my rewards, and keeps me from falling into the seductive trap. Learning to swim and remembering to get out of the water!

• The Best Organic Networking Tool! I connected with people I never would have had the chance to meet in real life.I expanded the quantity and the quality of my connections. I increased my visibility and became also more aware of the different areas of interest I was attracted to.When I network on LinkedIn, it's very restrictive to the academic and business context. On twitter, I can express much more aspects of my personality, hence the mind map in 8 directions, like an Octopus! Come and join me in the Octopus's garden!

• A Giant and Cosy Learning Matrix of  Starbuck coffee (again, the mermaid!), Alexandria Library, Babel Tower, Magical Mystery Tour, Virtual Museum, London Tea Room, French 18th century Boudoir, Roman Agora and I learn and grow every time I spend some time there. I tweet in English in order to be connected with a wide range of languages and cultures. I share confidences, poems, novels, pictures, emotions and thoughts around the world.I learn about how people invest in what they believe in, what they fight for. It's a living emotional creature that feeds me with knowledge, and that I feed too.

So, back to this Good #FollowFriday MindMap!

125 people. 125 amazing people. If you read this post, interact with me and if you're not included, it must be a mistake! Doing this kind of map, although quite simple, takes time , requires patience and an attention for details..Not exactly my cup of tea...(Like Dory,in following Nemo, I can suffer from short term memory loss and get carried away by my enthusiasm!) Please tell me and I will include you.

If you are in this map, tell me if you'd rather be in another category, or point me to someone else you know, at least as amazing as you, so that I could learn and expand!

My gratitude to @DorothyDalton, who by her latest post Twitter and Me-An Anniversary, reminded me to check when I first started Twitter. We joined almost together! She's also the first person I connected with via Twitter that I met in real life in Bruxelles. She has become part of my business network, CoheChange International, and we're designing together a workshop for European Women and Empowerment, which will take place this fall in Bruxelles.

Twitter leads to real business, as well!

I'm waiting eagerly for your comments and suggestions!

What a Crazy and Lovely Female Fish Can Teach Us about Communication Skills

Remember Finding Nemo? Pixar's animated movie. As it April's fool day , in French: "Poisson d' Avril!", I figured I would speak about female leadership, in the Ocean!

It is the story of a little clown-fish named Nemo, who disobeys his over-protective and stressed father Marlin, by swimming into open water. He is of course caught and placed, far far away from home, in a Sidney Dentist Fish Tank...(brrr!)

Fortunately, Nemo's father, on his way to save his son, meets a very brave and joyful creature, a female fish named Dory.

It's a story of trust, of empowerment, of Father and Son, of friendship and tolerance,(remember the gang of sharks), of personal development and leadership. It's a typical hero's journey.

But it's also a lesson in communication skills, thanks to the hilarious Dory.

Watch this and have fun!

What does it teach us about communication skills and leadership?

If you believe you can speak whale and if you are fearless and bold enough to speak out and speak up, whales will actually speak back!

• Relax. Take a big breath.Just start. Once you start to speak, it's much easier to keep speaking.

• Ask for directions! Be bold and ask the questions nobody dares to ask.

• Believe in Yourself. Dare to be different.Do it even if others tell you you can't, if they think you're ridiculous, like incredulous Marlin (You can't speak whale!).  Your heart may beat faster, people will start focusing on you, but do it! Listen to this little voice inside which says Go for It!

• Enjoy your talk. Find a reason to be excited about your presentation.Here Dory has fun doing something completely new and exploring different sounds...She's playing!

• Little fellow can speak to big fellow. If you speak from the heart, you will be heard.Your confidence and passion will engage others. Be ambitious. You too, small fish, little fellow,you can speak to "big fellows".

What about you, do you speak whale?

I do!

...Poisson d' Avril!

Welcome

I am Marion Chapsal and I am passionate about Women in Leadership.

The purpose of this blog is to share this passion with you in a unique way, informative and entertaining.

My Focus? Leadership Coaching and  Communication Skills for Women.

Here's what you will find:

• A series on 12 Powerful Women Leaders

• A tool for Developing a Global Leadership Mindset

• A series on 6 presentation trends for The Next 10 Years

• A series on  Presentation Recipes

• Video Tips with Flip

• Mind Maps,   Cartoons,  TED Videos

• Inspiring Role Models Stories for Girls and Women

• A Powerful, Fun and Creative Online Coaching Tool

Please make your self at home, muse in the different categories thanks to the tag cloud and share your questions, opinions and ideas in the comments here or on Twitter or LinkedIn

"My purpose is to coach women, using my generosity, creativity and passion, to find their voice, communicate with confidence and enthusiasm, and develop fully as 21rst century women leaders."