Articles
Executive Sparring & High-Stakes Communication
Narcissism and Apologies: Look for Accountability
Do people with narcissistic traits apologize? Research suggests a more nuanced answer. Learn how to distinguish an apology from real accountability, repair, and behavioral change.
Speech Anxiety: An Obstacle to Your Career
Missing out on a promotion or leadership role—not due to a lack of skills, but because fear holds you back from speaking up. Speech anxiety, if left unchecked, can sabotage your career. But what if you could turn that fear into strength? This article will show you how to understand, manage, and overcome speech anxiety—so you can confidently seize every opportunity.
Be Present at Work: Attention, Awareness & Better Decisions
What does it mean to be present at work? Learn how attention and awareness can improve important conversations, decisions, leadership, and communication under pressure.
When to Speak and When to Stay Silent at Work
When should you speak — and when is silence more useful? Learn how to use pauses, listening, questions, and deliberate speech in negotiations, leadership, presentations, and difficult conversations.
A mighty flame arises from a tiny spark. –Dante Alighieri
What spark do you want to bring into the world and what do you expect from it? Is it worth standing up for and giving the idea a real chance?
How to Read a Speech Without Sounding Like You’re Reading
How can you deliver a speech from a manuscript without sounding as though you are reading? Learn how to write for the ear, rehearse, use pauses, eye contact, and teleprompters effectively.
Start Executive Sparring | Your First Session with Karsten Noack
Learn how to start executive sparring with Karsten Noack: what to include in your inquiry, how to prepare, and what to expect from your first session.
Without proper attitude, words are just words
Many words, little meaning! The world is full of promises that are not kept. If it bothers us, we could change it. At least for ourselves, we can decide whether we stand by our words or not. How about being more attentive to our own statements?
Flying Monkeys & Narcissism at Work: What the Term Really Means
What are “flying monkeys” in narcissism? Learn how third-party pressure, gossip, alliances, and organizational politics can affect workplace conflict — and how to respond professionally.
Setting Boundaries at Work With Difficult People
How do you set boundaries at work when someone repeatedly ignores agreements or crosses important limits? Learn how to communicate boundaries, respond to pushback, and follow through professionally.
Beware of manipulation: Intentional mirroring in conversations
Intentional mirroring is the deliberate imitation of other people to make them feel good. It serves to promote rapport and can also be used against the interests of the mirrored.
Communication Misunderstandings at Work: Why They Happen
Why do communication misunderstandings happen even when you think you were clear? Learn how assumptions, missing context, perspective, email, and ambiguous agreements create problems at work.
Being right at all costs. The price we pay for needing to be right.
Persuading without arguments, assertiveness, winning without consideration, knockout by nasty tricks, black magic, manipulating. It is a coveted feeling to be right.
Grounding for Public Speaking: How to Stand With Presence
How should you stand during a presentation? Learn how grounding, posture, stability, movement, and stillness can support your voice, presence, and communication.
Worth the Effort: How Investing in Preparation Leads to Unforgettable Presentations
Discover the true value of a well-prepared presentation. Learn how investing in preparation can transform your presentations from average to unforgettable. This guide reveals actionable strategies to captivate your audience, including engaging storytelling, effective use of props, and meticulous practice. Whether you’re delivering a sales pitch, keynote, or boardroom presentation, find out how to make every moment count and leave a lasting impression
Structure for speeches and presentations: Take your audience from hell to heaven.
Do you offer a way to better conditions? It’s about promoting change? Whether products, processes, etc. Do you want to hold a public office?
I call this easy to use and very effective speech structure the “Hell-Heaven-Way”. If the conditions are untenable and there are solutions available, you can also use it outside the church to convince your audience.
Those who seek injustice, just need to open their eyes.
How would it be today to look more closely at how we have something to contribute to more fairness in this world? What reality deserves some support? Where can something be made fairer, friendlier, more beautiful? What stands in the way?
Imagination is the most beautiful daughter of truth, only a little more vivid than its mother. –Carl Spitteler
What reality deserves some support? Where can something be made fairer, friendlier, more beautiful? What stands in the way?
One big mistake we can make is to be constantly afraid of making a mistake.
What helps to deal with an uncertain future: fear, courage or ignorance?
Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance. –Epicurus
Abundance? It is such a cliche, but it is true: money cannot buy happiness. One of the quickest and easiest ways to allow abundance into your life is by deliberately focusing more on gratitude.
Swallow your pride occasionally, it’s non-fattening!
What do you think about the motto of the day? Do you always have to insist that you are right?
Some people have accumulated so many hunches and opinions that there is no more space for learning.
Those who already know everything, don’t want to and will learn nothing more. What exactly is healthy doubt and how can we foster it?
And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been. Rainer Maria Rilke
Out with the old, in with the new: may you be happy the whole year through.
A new year is like a blank book, and the pen is in your hands. It is your chance to write a beautiful story for yourself.
Happy New Year.
A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one. –Baltasar Gracián
What do you think about the motto of the day? How about good reasons to know synonyms?