Presentations are more than speeches. They include meetings, sales calls, customer-service calls, pitches to acquire new clients or business, marriage proposals, job interviews, family discussions, and so on. If you are currently employed or considering entering or reentering the workforce, you will need to sharpen your presentation skills. Whether you meet with one, five, or a thousand people, you are making a presentation. Whether it's in person, or on the phone, or even on paper, you are making a presentation. If asked to deliver a toast at your brother's or sister's wedding, you are making a presentation. Speaking Mastery is your crash course in presentation success. Your strength in presentation will either catapult you to a more successful level or expose your lack of preparation and commitment to achieving higher standards. Speaking Mastery can provide you with the tools for success!

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

Stand and Delivergives you everything you need to know to become an incredibly poised, polished, masterful communicator. Someone who can hold an audience of 1, 10, or 1000 in the palm of your hand, from the first word you speak to them until the last. You will learn... •How to identify your authentic self so that you project an original and unique style •How to win over any audience in ONE MINUTE •A 5-point checklist that will make stage fright disappear •A powerful tactic for getting your listeners to act the way you want them to (works equally well with colleagues, children...anyone you talk to!) •The renowned "Magic Formula" technique -- a no-fail 3-step process that ensures your listeners not only remember what you say, but make immediate and positive changes based on it •The secrets to handling hostile or potentially embarrassing questions with ease and professionalism Stand and Deliveris packed with tips, strategies, and secrets you can use immediately to begin dramatically improving all of your communications. You'll be surprised and thrilled by how frequently you find yourself reaching into this amazing arsenal of techniques to help you achieve your goals, and what an enormous impact they will have on every facet of your life.

The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.

"VOCABULARY 1 is a book that avoids the pitfalls of teaching obscure words. It presents words that have use in the real world. It requires that you learn only two words per lesson and furnishes you with what you need to know about using the words." -- Preface.

Seventy-four percent of Americans suffer from glossophobia, the fear of public speaking. In fact, even top professional speakers and accomplished actors experience butterflies before presenting. They never eliminate the butterflies; they just teach them how to fly in formation. How? Michael Gelb's techniques will help you clarify and shape your message so that your audience — no matter how big or small, in person or virtual — will care about it. Once the message is clear, he teaches you how to convey it in memorable, creative, and effective ways. Gelb shows that public speaking is a skill anyone can learn and enjoy. Mastering the Art of Public Speaking will guide you to rediscover your natural gift for communication while strengthening confidence and presence.

Julietta Singh challenges the drive toward the mastery over self and others by showing how the forms of self-mastery advocated by anticolonial thinkers like Fanon and Gandhi unintentionally reproduced colonial logic, thereby leading her to argue for a more productive human subjectivity that is not centered on concepts of mastery.