I spent the summer before my sophomore year in college as a summer missionary in Galveston, Texas. Each week my team visited a different church in the area and led vacation Bible school. It was fun, rewarding work.

In addition, I was assigned to a local church where I lived with the pastor, his wife, and their two children. They were both in their fifties and made me feel right at home.

Presentation software can be a wonderful tool if used correctly. It can also be a dangerous distraction that interferes with communication rather than facilitating it. The line between the two is thin.

Over the course of my career, I have sat through hundreds of presentations. Most of them were done with PowerPoint. Most of them are done poorly.

The great acting teacher Sanford Meisner defined acting as “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” But for many of us who communicate before an audience, whether as pastors, executives, educators, or lawyers, the temptation is to do the opposite, to act imaginarily under truthful circumstances.

Fueled by a legitimate desire to deliver a powerful message, we craft our words, our presentation, and our delivery to such an extent that the drive to do our best can actually rob us of sharing a genuine moment with an audience.

“Hi. My name is Michael, and I’m a prepaholic.” If there was a support group for people who over-prepare, I would be a charter member.

In my prior role as a CEO, much of my job involved making presentations—to boards, banks, investors, authors, agents, customers, employees, vendors, the media—you name it. Now, as a professional speaker, it represents most of my life. Each one of these engagements is an opportunity to connect with the audience and make a good “brand impression—or a bad one.

In my previous post, I wrote about how I revamped my Speaking page. I thought I would document the process here, in the event that you are thinking about “going pro.” This is the second of two posts.

If you are an author—or want to be one—I highly recommend that you consider public speaking as part of building your platform. It is a great way to raise your visibility, promote your products, and develop credibility with your audience.

Now that public speaking has become my primary focus, I thought it was time I revamped my Speaking page. I thought I would document the process here, in the event that you are thinking about “going pro.” This is the first of two posts.

If you are an author—or want to be one—I highly recommend that you consider public speaking as part of building your platform. It is a great way to raise your visibility, promote your products, and develop credibility with your audience.

As you may know, I stepped aside from my role as the CEO of Thomas Nelson in April. Though I still remain the company’s Chairman, I am now pursuing speaking and writing full-time.

So far, it has been like starting a new business. I am busier than ever before. I am traveling weekly, speaking for corporations, colleges, conferences, non-profits, and churches. I am having a blast!

Has anyone ever taught you “how” to think? It might seem like an odd question but think about it for a moment. (No pun intended.)

We all think. We’ve all heard about the power of our thoughts. And we’ve all heard about positive thinking.

Today at Thomas Nelson we promoted Mark Schoenwald, our President and Chief Operating Officer, to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer. Effective immediately, I am stepping out of active management of the company, and turning over the reins to Mark. However, I will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board.

I hired Mark in 2005 to be our Chief Sales Officer. I promoted him to President and Chief Operating Officer in 2009. I have watched him grow and develop over the years. He is an outstanding executive in every way, yet humble and committed to our company’s Christian mission. He was my first choice as a successor, and I know he will do a terrific job.

In today’s environment, to be an effective leader you must be an effective communicator. The two go hand-in-hand. Whether you are the CEO of a company, the director of a division, or the pastor of a church, you must be able to write and speak well if you are going to maximize your influence.

More than ten years ago, when I was a marketing executive, I attended a week-long, “Copywriters Bootcamp” in Del Ray, Florida. The experience was invaluable. We listened to lectures, wrote headlines and advertising copy, and then read our work aloud to the group.

I have been using Evernote for a couple of years now. I use it to manage meeting notes, store blogging ideas, and file interesting articles I read on the Web. It has basically become my electronic brain. However, unlike my aging brain, Evernote provides near-instant recall.

Recently, I started using it to manage the raw components of my speeches. I have seen a lot of different systems for this. One of my authors, who is also a popular public speaker, once showed me his system. It contained literally thousands of 4″ x 6″ cards, arranged alphabetically by topic.

Last week, I spoke at the Re:create 2011 Conference in Franklin, Tennessee. This is an annual conference for Christian “creatives” (e.g., worship leaders, recording artists, book authors, actors, etc.). I talked about the #1 challenge these creatives face: becoming bitter over unwarranted criticism.

A few days after the conference, my friend Ken Davis, who was also a speaker at the conference, gave me some valuable feedback on my speech. In addition to being an enormously gifted speaker himself, Ken is a speech coach. He also hosts the Dynamic Communicators Summit and the Professional Communicators Summit, two conferences designed for professional speakers.

I have spoken publicly about a dozen times in the last three weeks. Because this is more than usual, I have begun to notice a pattern in my own psychological state as I go through the speaking cycle.

It has been helpful to identify the components of this cycle, so I am not so surprised when they occur. So far, I have identified ten stages I go through in preparing to speak. (This assumes that I have never delivered this exact speech before.)

I am always on the lookout for unique gifts that would resonate with people’s secret aspirations. If you know someone who aspires to be a professional speaker—or perhaps someone who is already doing some speaking—then these gifts might provide you with an idea or two. (I also have a list for writers here.)

Last spring I attended the Professional Communicators Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. The conference is designed to assist leaders in either starting a professional speaking career or taking it to the next level. This is a fantastic resource, and one I want to encourage you to make plans now to attend. The next conference is March 18-20, 2010.