A Resource for Young Professionals who want to be future, impactful, leaders
Egocentrism is a term psychology uses to say that we relate to others through our own backstory (family, faith, values, experiences, etc.) We view the actions of others through a lens of our experiences and tend not to consider the other person’s experiences. As part of the CREW Network Leadership Certificate Program’s workshop led by Emma Seppala, we spent time listening to each other’s life stories. We were split into groups of two and each...
What do you get when you put five powerful women in the commercial real estate market on the same stage? Valuable insight and advice on being a woman in the industry along with actionable take-aways to move your career to the next level. A recent Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) white paper stated that a 23.3% pay gap exists between women and their male counterparts in Commercial Real Estate. How do women in the industry...
A common mistake that speakers make is not being aware of how they verbally and physically present. Let’s start with tips for better verbal presentation. In this blog we will focus on how to use and prepare your voice for a killer presentation. These tips include speaking from your energy center, maintaining good posture, warming up, taking breaks, and having water available. To borrow a term from Thai Chi, to engage your audience, speak from...
How you respond to questions from the audience is just as important as preparing, delivering, and closing a great presentation. When someone has a question, make eye contact and stand so that you are squarely facing them when they speak. This shows that you are genuinely interested in hearing the question and answering it. Most untrained people will try to quickly answer the question and move on to the next one. A better response is...
During the CREW Network Leadership Summit 2024 spring session Dr. Seppälä discussed the science of brain activity during high-stress situations. Specifically, she shared that during high-stress situations, individuals can lose regulation of their prefrontal cortex which is the part of the brain that regulates emotions. She continued to explain that people’s breathing patterns are different based on the emotions they experience. Research shows that when a person is sad, they breathe more deeply and slowly....
This is the first of a five-post series designed to help you be a better leader by focusing on positive energy every day. Dr. Emma Seppälä taught a full-day workshop recently as part of CREW Network’s Leadership Certificate Program. Training in these types of skills commonly referred to as “soft skills” by the engineering profession has been ignored in classical engineering academia. However, as Dr. Seppälä teaches us, these skills are crucial to one’s success...
Did you miss last month’s NAIOP MD holiday event? Don’t worry, I’ve recapped some of Baltimore Sportscaster Gerry Sandusky’s inspiring message below. His one-hour talk was filled with inspiring ideas for everyone, and my top three take-aways are: Never Measure with a Crooked Yardstick Change is an Event, not a Process Support your Brand Never measure with a crooked yardstick Sandusky told a touching story about going fabric shopping with his mother when he was...
How do you compete in a slower growth world? This is just one of the answers I was looking for when I attended NAIOP’s Capital Stack on Tuesday. Spencer Levy, Chairman of Americas Research and Senior Economic Advisor for CBRE, presented an economic forecast that provided actionable ideas for growth in the upcoming year. His information was so powerful that in a room of 200+ real estate professionals, not one was caught checking their email...
If you’ve been following my advice so far, you have already properly prepared your presentation and your voice. Next, let’s focus on how you use your voice during your presentation to achieve maximum audience engagement. The first tip is not to use your voice constantly. Use short pauses. These can be used to emphasize specific points or simply to give yourself a brief rest. Another benefit of using pause instead of trying to fill every...
The introduction and the closing are the most important parts of a presentation. This is simply because people often remember the initial impression you made on them as well as the last thing they heard. In psychology, this is called the Serial Position Effect. The Serial Position Effect states that people will remember the last thing they heard more clearly than any of the other information presented. Knowing this, you should focus on making sure...
After you’ve started the presentation with a solid introduction, transition from the introduction to the body by providing a summary of the current audience needs as you understand them. For example, picture yourself selling a new machine for an assembly line and you identified audience needs of project cost, schedule, and safety. When you begin the body of your presentation, you should summarize these with a simple statement such as, “From what you have told...
Civil Engineering Accomplishments with Tall Buildings
March 16, 2015
