When I was 12 years old, I went to a canoe camp in northern Quebec. Thanks Mom and Dad. It was great.

We paddled for thirty days straight, pitching camp every night, foraging and cutting our own firewood. I was taught how to split logs by a master axman. In the time it takes for a squirrel to twitch its tail he could split logs into firewood, firewood into kindling, and kindling into pencils.

His rules for us were simple: spread your feet, wear steel-toed boots, go with the grain, and keep the axe sharp. The most dangerous thing to a wood splitter is a dull axe, because dull axes bounce off wood and hit you in the leg.

Can we stretch these rules to apply to public speaking? Let me try.

First, as good presenters, we’re trying to hit the audience where it counts. We need to be talking about something that they care about, so they’ll open up and listen. That’s going with the grain.

When we deliver a speech or presentation, we need to take a stand, have a point of view, and attack the issue in a balanced manner, giving voice to both sides of the argument. That’s presenting with your feet apart—taking a balanced perspective.

Public speakers also need to have thick skin—rhino hide, even—to have the courage to speak in the first place, to advance our opinions and push through any skepticism, prejudice, or inertia. And we need to be able to respond to antagonistic questions from our skeptical listeners. These presentation skills represent our steel-toed shoes.

Finally, public speakers and presenters need to strike the heart of the matter with force, to express our opinions as fact, so that our points sink deep. We can’t be wishy-washy. This is our sharp axe.

Splitting wood is a deeply satisfying activity. When you hit the wood in just the right place, and the log pops open, it feels good.

Public speaking is more complicated. It’s torture to prepare, but if you do happen to build a talk that turns you on, it’s exciting to deliver it, nice to get the compliments afterwards, and satisfying that you did well something that is difficult.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

I recently got a letter from a lawyer threatening to sue me because I had mistakenly used a copyrighted image in a blog.

The letter was not a cease and desist letter. It was a shock and awe letter, so threatening and hostile—so long, tedious, and burdensome in its language and requests– that I went into a state of deep hostility myself.

I will leave that there, and simply ask if you’ve ever wanted to deliver a presentation that begins with shock and awe. Not the same kind of shock and awe—threatening and hostile—but the kind of shock and awe that is pyro-technical and theatrical, filled with dramatic stories, extravagant claims, and demonstrative behaviors on your part, all designed to make the audience say, “WOW! What a speaker! What a great presentation.”

I have had that desire many times. I collect stories, and admire speeches and presentations that begin with a bang. But I also recognize that when I go for shock and awe, I surrender a slice of my gravitas and professionalism.

I am coming to feel that a good speaker is in service to the audience, and does not draw attention to himself. He only uses his expressive power to bring the message to life for the audience, similar to an actor, who is at his best when you don’t see the acting.

As a speaker or presenter, when you drop shock and awe on an audience, you’re swinging for the fences (a baseball analogy suggesting that you’re taking a big chance and are increasing the likelihood of failure.) Your audience may very well respond to you as I did to the lawyer, and go into a kind of resentment—judging you as a show-off, a person of intemperate character, and watching you skeptically.

There is an old bit of wisdom among actors and other performers: never take your showmanship to the Nth degree. Never get so loud and passionate that you have no more loudness or passion to give. Always stay in control, at least several steps this side of the edge.

Modesty in all things, you might say—even in your dalliance with shock and awe.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

Client facing skills (also known as sales skills and interpersonal skills) are essentially the skills of a very good conversationalist. Good conversations can lead to connection, mutual respect, and understanding (not necessarily agreement.) They can precipitate new, and strengthen existing, relationships. They also reveal character, and can cause two people to become fast friends, be indifferent to one another, or to avidly avoid one another for the rest of their lives.

While the overt medium of conversation is language, the covert media are also highly influential, and they are numerous. In no particular order, they are the voice, the body’s gestures (including the effective use of ears), and the symbolic power of clothing, grooming, and other signs of social status, such as your resume, alma mater, and accent—to name just a few.

If you misuse words—for instance, if you say “irregardless,” instead of “regardless,”—some of your listeners will write you off as half-educated.

If you interrupt someone even once (without apologizing), they may decide it’s not worth their time getting to know such an egotist.

If you don’t look at the other person when you speak, or when you listen, they may conclude that, at best, you are shy and at worst, you’re shifty, unreliable, or maybe even crazy.

If you consistently demonstrate that you either have not heard or understood what the other person has said (because you’ve been busy composing your clever retort rather than listening) they will most likely conclude that it will be difficult to do business with you.

And if your speaking voice lacks an adequate range of volumes, pitches and speeds, or if your speech is laced with “likes, you knows, I means, uhs, uhms, and ers,” your partner in conversation will have a difficult time concluding that you are a bright and talented individual.

But all is forgiven if you are deeply curious about other people. Good conversationalists, and good sales people, are curious. Really curious, not only because they want to make the sale, but also because they are just plain old curious about people and the world.

And if, in addition, you are endlessly interested in others, not because you want to sell to them but because you really do have the capacity to empathize with them, to see the world as they see it (not necessarily agreeing with them), then you can screw up all the things I mention above—misuse of words, interrupting, lack of eye contact, and speaking in a dull-as-dishwater voice—all of these rules you can violate with impunity if only you listen, really listen, and show them that you’ve listened and understood, and made them feel heard.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.