Tom Russell

1.    A speaker without humor is like an artificial flower; it is without fragrance. For years, after countless speaking engagements, Vernon Howard would ask me if there was humor in the class. He did this over and over again, obviously wishing to impress on me how important humor was in a class of higher ideas. Why? Because deeply serious topics must alternate with the uplifting and the light in order for the atmosphere to be conducive to authentic learning.

   False speakers never see this. They think humor is about telling a joke, or trying to be funny, when it is really an attitude at your core that effortlessly makes cheerful connections.

2. Speakers sometimes say one thing with their words but communicate something entirely different with their posture. Their words might say, "Relax, let go and let life flow." But their presence before the audience is stiff, their neck is tight, their diaphragm in knots, their face tense, and they don't know it. Audiences can sense tension in a speaker and THIS is what is communicated, regardless of the words spoken.

   When a wisdom speaker is CONGRUENT -- when everything is in order and saying the same thing -- the message is fifty times more powerful. It makes a lasting impact.