The future isn't a place that we're going to go, it's a place that you get to create.

Most great leaders are also great communicators. Great leaders have learned how to persuade so their objectives can be reached. The most powerful device to persuade is story. Stating facts and figures is not memorable. Emotionally connecting your audience to your idea through story will move them.

Words that are carefully framed and spoken are the most powerful means of communication there is.

Personal stories are the emotional glue that connects your audience to your message.

The greatest communicators have unknowingly used a story pattern. They not only use anecdotes effectively, but their communication followed a persuasive story pattern of tension and release. That tension and release is created by contrasting [what is] with what could be as a structural device.

Practice design, Not Decoration: Don't just make pretty talking points. Instead, display information in a way that makes complex information clear.

The only difference between the failure of a great idea and the success of a medocre idea was the way in which the idea was communicated.

When ideas are communicated effectively, people follow and change.

If you feel tempted to use a picture of two hands shaking in front of a globe, put the pencil down, step away from the desk, and think about taking a vacation or investigating aromatherapy.