“When you can do a common thing in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” - George Washington Carver

My first public presentation was when I gave the valedictory address for my . . . elementary school. That may not seem like a big deal, but it was for this eighth grader eager to impress.

I prepared my ten minute speech and asked my dad to listen to it. My dad, Warren Reed, was a long-time Toastmaster (his father George Reed had been International President the year I was born) and I knew he’d give honest feedback. I presented my “Bird leaving the nest ready to fly on its own” homily and asked, “So, what do you think?”

Dad paused for a minute and then said, “It’s an okay talk; you just didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.” He continued, “Sam, if you’re going to ask people for their valuable time and attention, you have an obligation to be original.”

“But Dad,” I protested, “there’s nothing new under the sun.”

He smiled and said, “Sure there is. Know what the definition of ‘original’ is? If we haven’t heard it before, it’s original.”

That launched me on a lifelong commitment to find and share intriguing quotes that have the power to capture people’s favorable interest.

If you’re going to talk about creativity, success or how to counteract stress, you may feel it’s all been said. But if you introduce your topic with an uncommon quote, people’s eyebrows will go up. They’ll think, “Hmmm, haven’t heard that before. Tell me more.”

Intriguing quotes have the power to get your verbal foot in people’s mental door. If you’re trying to convince your organization to change a long-standing policy or procedure and they’re resistant, you might want to use Rudolph Flesch’s observation that, “Creativity may simply be the realization there’s no particular virtue to doing things the way they’ve always been done.”

If you’re speaking about the difference between true success and surface success, you might want to quote Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak who says, “There must be more to life than having everything.”

If you’re conducting a stress management seminar, you could pleasantly surprise your audience by starting with Ron Dettinger’s quip, “I told the doctor I couldn’t relax. He said, ‘Force yourself’” or Lily Tomlin’s wry observation, “For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.”

The key is to use uncommon quotes. As inspirational as Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” or “John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what you can do” quotes are . . . people are already familiar with them. Using them defeats your purpose because people will conclude you have nothing new to say and tune out.

A good litmus test is, if you’ve heard it before; chances are your audience has heard it before too. Scrap it and keep searching for something that makes your eyebrows go up. That’s a sure sign that statement’s sufficiently provocative to pique your audience’s curiosity. They will be more likely to listen because you’ve demonstrated this isn’t going to be blah-blah-blah.

Want a list of my Top 10 Most Intriguing quotes of all time? The most funny, profound, guaranteed-to-get-people-interested-in-what-you-have-to-say quotes? Visit www.SamHornPOP.wordpress.com to check out my favorites and to submit your own.

 

 Intriguing  

“Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in this one arena I believe I truly belong. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized and I was still alive. I still had a daughter whom I adored and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. So rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” -

The person who said the above in a commencement address for Harvard University was broke and jobless when s/he finally wrote a breakout novel. Be the first to submit the winning entry to Jill and you’ll receive your pick of 2 of any of Sam Horn’s single CD’s.

So who said, “The bottleneck is almost always at the top of the bottle?” Management guru Peter Drucker. And who was first to give the right answer?

None other than Denise Brosseau, Stanford MBA, honored by Fortune as one of the 25 Women in Small Business and co-founder of Springboard Enterprises, which has helped women entrepreneurs receive $4B (yes, that's Billion) in venture capital.

I had the unique pleasure of being in New York last week with Denise. I’m the official Pitch Coach for Springboard and was there to help participants ring the closing bell at NASDAQ, polish their pitch presentations to potential investors, and celebrate with them afterwards at the Boat House in Central Park. What a fabulous few days.

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“When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?” - George Carlin

As we head into Thanksgiving, I want to give thanks to the many marvelous clients I’ve had the privilege of working with. It’s been an honor helping you get your ideas out of your head and into the world where they’re making a positive difference for others and a prosperous living for you.

I thought, “How better to thank my clients than to showcase your work – the books that have been published, the speeches that have received raves, the real-world results which have been generated?”

In this newsletter and next, I’ll highlight some of my clients' work (including a link). I hope people take time to check out your website and read more about your valuable books, presentations and services. I wish we could take everyone’s picture; hopefully this is the next best thing.

Sue Stevens, (“One of the Top 50 Women in Finance” – Wealth Magazine) is stepping up her efforts to help people deal with the shock to financial markets and “put their money where their heart is.” She has launched financial-happiness.com as a portal to critical commentary, market recovery tools and a monthly newsletter to help people focus on what’s really important, find an investment strategy that works and build a strong financial foundation for the rest of their lives.

Dan Coughlin’s book Accelerate: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum (Kaplan) has really accelerated his speaking career. Recent engagements include a keynote for Jiffy Lube and a global conference for Abbot Labs. Their VP Cecilia Kimberlin said, "Dan took time to understand our needs through interviews prior to the meeting, then tailored his talk to us and gave us approaches we could readily put to use to improve our leadership skills. He received the highest remarks on our feedback survey for relevance and engagement.”

Geri Marr Burdman, Ph.D. (who was mentored by Dr. Victor 'Man’s Search for Meaning' Frankl and is a recipient of the Lifelong Achievement Award from the Logotherapy Institute) says, “Search for Significance: Finding Meaning in Times of Change, Challenge and Chaos just received an order for 100 books from Australia and an invitation to present seminars there in 2009.”

Joe Healey has been hailed by Sue Shellenberger of the Wall Street Journal as a “pioneer and renaissance man whose content is filled with distilled wisdom.” His book “Radical Trust: How Today’s Great Leaders Convert People to Partners” (John Wiley & Sons, 2007) has been endorsed by Doug McMillon, President & CEO of Sam’s Club who says, “Business relationships founded on trust may be the single biggest employee retention tool available. Joe shows us how to build those kinds of relationships.”

Jennifer B. Kahnweiler, Ph.D. owner of About You, Inc. has been deemed a “world class expert” by the American Management Association. She has presented throughout the U.S., in Tokyo and was a featured presenter at HRD2008, the UK’s premier learning and development conference. She is excited about her new book, The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength, coming out from Berrett-Koehler in 2009.

Jim Davidson, Speaking of Adventure, is a climber, speaker, and author of a work in progress about lessons learned during his amazing survival struggle on Mount Rainier in Washington. Jim was recently featured in an extensive special report in the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado. This compelling five-part series was written by a Pulitzer Prize finalist news team and can be found on line at: The Crevasse: Tragedy on Mount Rainier

Kimberly Douglas, Principal at Firefly Facilitatation stayed on brand with her book The Firefly Effect: Build Teams that Capture Creativity and Catapult Results (Wiley, ’09). She is thrilled with the impressive testimonials she’s been able to line up, including Marshall Goldsmith, author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Janet Parker, Chair of the Board for SHRM, and top executives from Home Depot , GE, Coca-Cola, UPS, Delta Air Lines, Cisco, Humana, IBM and SunTrust Bank.

Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover? Check out the engaging Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Get Results by Lori Silverman. Published by Jossey-Bass, it was #59 on Amazon the day of its release and was in the top 100 books on Amazon for the next two weeks. This fascinating book features interviews with 171 business leader worldwide and an endorsement from John Alexander, President of the Center for Creative Leadership who says it’s a “Well-researched and lively reference for leaders."

Scott Halford, CSP is happy to announce his book Be a Shortcut: the Secret Fast Track to Business Success is coming out next month from Wiley. Check out his intriguing Table of Contents which includes such tell-me-more-about-it titles as “If You’re Not a Shortcut, You’re Taking Up Too Much Space” and “Are you a Shortcut or a Bottleneck?”

Marlene Buckler, MD, FACEP, is an emergency room physician who wanted to share practical ways people could stay healthy and avoid trips to the E.R. She is now working in New Zealand, quite a change from Canada and the US, however if you go to www.StayOutOfMyER.com you can sign up for a free Tip of the Week, read helpful articles on healthy living, and join a discussion forum where Dr. B answers your questions and you can participate in a dialogue.

As explained on her website PassingPeacefully  Judy Underwood, Ph.D was asked by a client to help navigate her final months following a terminal diagnosis. That turned into a book which was honored with a Foreword by Bernie Siegel, M.D. and a cover endorsement by Christine Northrup, M.D. Judy says “Not a day goes by that I don’t receive an email from a grateful reader who thanks me for writing this helpful book.”

Congratulations to Janet E. Spurr for her successful book launch of Beach Chair Diaries-- which you can watch on YouTube. As Janet says on her video, when she met Bryce Courtenay (Power of One) at this year's Maui Writers Conference and gave him a copy of her book, he held it in his hands and told her, "And the magic of writing is, when you open your book, its message flies into the world."

And, in a full circle, what-goes-around-comes-around-kind-of-way, kudos to Donna Cutting of The Celebrity Experience, Insider Secrets to Delivering 5 Star Customer Service (Wiley) for receiving twenty-one 5 star reader reviews for her book on Amazon.com!

Check back next month for more good news from more clients.

 

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Upcoming Sam's Salons:

November - 19 8PM. (EST.)Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg, NY Times Bestselling Authors

December - Fawn Germer, 4-time Pulitzer nominee
 

January 2009 - Cherrie & Sam Scheinberg, Inc. 500 honorees and inventors
 

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2 Day Speaker Camp – Washington DC – Jan. 24-25 2008
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