Stop Pitching and Start Telling Stories: they aren’t the same thing

My anti-pitch stance wasn’t well-articulated or even defensible position in the beginning. It was a feeling. Pitching feels wrong to me the same way pick-up lines feel wrong, like a poor substitute for getting to know people and their ideas. Something in the word gives me the heebie jeebies. The Webster’s 1913 dictionary offers five […]

Why Personal Stories Help you Connect with your Audience

In the fall of 2014, I gave an orientation for new international staff at the Dutch university I worked at. In designing the program, I called on 5 years of experience teaching Intercultural Awareness and more than 15 years of experience living abroad. By then, I had lived in 6 countries on 3 continents. I […]