By Hall of Fame Keynote Speaker Connie Podesta Oh, this topic is a doozy, but it’s universal. Everyone on the planet has come into contact with people who use manipulative emotions like hurt and anger to get their own way. Sometimes it’s obvious. Other times, interactions leave us blindsided by feelings of guilt or fear. No doubt about it, manipulative behavior can be powerful. It’s also a skill that gets tested and perfected from a very young age. I call it the “birth of a jerk” phase. Sounds harsh but stay with me here. Somewhere around three or four years old, kids begin testing Read More
Quit Talking So Much
By Communication Keynote Speaker Connie Podesta Raise your hand if you’re a “talker”. I know I’ve been guilty of it. I remember as a kid, a teacher saying to me that I wouldn’t amount to much because I talked too much! Fortunately for me, I grew up to be a keynote speaker, so I learned to leverage that particular skill! As a former therapist and human relationship expert, I’ve also learned a whole lot since those school days about what connects us and what divides us as human beings. As leaders, spouses, partners, parents, friends – all of those roles require communication skills. In Read More
Quit SELLING from a Place of Desperation Rather Than Success
By Sales Keynote Speaker and Human Behavior Expert Connie Podesta Bottom line? People want to buy from salespeople who project confidence, not desperation. In the video below, I share two personal stories of my experience as a new speaker. The first, an occasion where I acted completely out of desperation and literally ended up spending more to get myself to the multi-day event than I made. The other was when I ignored the completely blank you’ve-got-no-bookings calendar in front of me and answered an event manager’s question to whether I was available in July with two very strong Read More
Quit Leading Everyone the Same
Avoiding the Leadership “Golden Rule” Trap by Leadership Keynote Speaker Connie Podesta Even those who appear to be remarkably humble and self-aware can fall for this one. As children, most of us were taught “the golden rule”: we should treat others the way we want to be treated. Definitely, a great mantra for life. The world needs more kindness and consideration. No arguments there. But as leaders, this deeply ingrained belief could be inadvertently reducing our effectiveness. Think about that for a moment. If we treat all of our team members the way we want to be treated, we Read More
Taking Care of Yourself is Smart Business
A Leader-to-Leader Thought for the Day By Business Leadership Keynote Speaker Connie Podesta As leaders, we are aware that our employees will produce more. Sell more. Lead better. Collaborate easier. Increase production. And attract more customers when they are being positively supported, engaged, respected and encouraged. In other words, the better we are at creating and sustaining a healthy environment for our team, the healthier, happier, and more productive they will be. What we often forget, however, is that a healthy work/home environment always starts with a healthy Read More
HAPPINESS is FLAWSOME!
Learning to Celebrate Your Imperfections by Motivational Keynote Speaker Connie Podesta Perfection? Overrated. Unreachable. Exhausting. Impossible. Obsessive. Look, I’m not saying don’t stop reaching for more. Far from it. But no one—NO ONE—is perfect. Happiness is getting to that point in your life where you can say, “I don’t have to have it all, do it all, be the best,” and being all right with that. You know, there’s a very real difference between getting it perfect and giving it all you have. Happiness is about realizing that mistakes are part of life’s crazy plan so we can learn Read More
CHANGE: It’s In Your DNA
Especially in Today’s World By Motivational Keynote Speaker and Human Behavior Expert Connie Podesta In my best-selling book 10 Ways to Stand Out From the Crowd, the first topic I tackle is CHANGE. That’s because it’s such a pivotal part of creating the life you really want. Change is scary, I get it. Our volatile world today is changing seemingly at the speed of light and we, as human beings, are desperately trying to do one of two things: embrace change and learn to adapt, or fight it with all that we have and stay stuck in the past. Since time most certainly will march on with or Read More
FIGHT for Your RIGHT to be HAPPY
For All Who Need It By Motivational Keynote Speaker Connie Podesta When I wrote my book Redefining Happiness, I did so with so many people in mind. My clients. Audience members. Online followers. Friends. Family. Colleagues. I wrote it because I think in our sometimes crazy world we tend to put a lot of things on the top of our to-do lists and somehow happiness, joy, and celebration seemingly creep to the bottom more often than not. We get busy. Overwhelmed. Worked and worked some more. And here’s the crazy part – you won’t believe how many people feel GUILTY about being happy. About Read More
Just Ask Connie… Forget Perfection!
“I am so tired of trying to be what everyone else wants me to be. When will it end?”……… That was the email that woke me up this morning. A result of a recently posted graphic in my social that said, “You’re allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously.” Wow. That sure opened up the floodgates. People were blowing up my inbox. “But Connie, NO ONE likes it when I am a work in progress”. “I’ll never be PERFECT, so who will want me?” “How do you keep it all together when deep down you’re a hot mess?” When will it end? When will other people stop pulling at us or Read More
Fight for What You’re Worth
Why it HAS to Start With You By Motivational Keynote Speaker Connie Podesta I’m very blessed to be able to share with amazing people all over the world. From the tens of thousands I speak to from the stage each year to my incredible friends on social media – one thing that comes up over and over I find is how people often put their “worth” in someone else’s hands. In other words, they don’t know their own worth, so the let someone else determine that value. Stop. Please stop. Here’s the amazing thing about you that perhaps no one ever told you before – you are unique and have gifts Read More