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Welcome to Episode #91 of The Daily Interaction podcast. How do you take new budding relationships to a deeper, stronger and more meaningful stage. What comes after the initial meet-and-greet and how can you stay top of mind with those whom you meet an...

Welcome back to Episode #90. This Interactive Interview Series brings you a second expert on using your vocal instrument, your voice, and your best asset in all the communication in your life. Our guest is Marlena Reigh.

We visited an excellent topic in the communication power "toolbox" a few weeks ago - using our instrument, our voice with Sally Morgan and today, I want to revisit that with another fresh perspective with another expert on the topic, Marlena Reigh. I watched a talk Marlena had given on video where she used a powerful and creative approach to bring my attention immediately to my voice. I was instantly intrigued me to invite her to the show to learn more about becoming aware and better using our voice.

Marlena Reigh is a voice image specialist with over twenty years of coaching, speaking and seminar-leading experience. She has worked one-on-one with over 1,000 voices and is a published author of books and tapes on voice image and presentation skills.

Marlena coaches professionals in various fields and offers corporate seminars to teach unique approaches to personal communications, voice and presentation effectiveness. These approaches promote action that yields positive and lasting results and has significant impact on their success.

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Becoming Aware of Your Voice Interview Questions with Marlena

1. My first question for you is about awareness. I imagine it's an easy sell to tell someone that their voice is important to their success. But most of us are not even aware of our voice, its impact, etc. How do we bring about a sense of awareness around our voice so we can begin to improve it?

2. Let's start with something fun and easy because our voice is such an intimate part of who we are. What would you say is the easiest place to start improving our voice? Do you have a fun exercise for us to do here on the air?

3. On one of your YouTube videos, I love the way you say: "The voice is a physical experience." And you went on to show us that for each experience, we have a physical association that reflects in our voices. Would you talk to us about that some more, Marlena?

4. You have some great looking programs and one of them is "7 Exercises for a More Dynamic Speaking Voice" and the one that jumped at me was learning to be objective about our voice. Would you mind giving us examples of how we can do that?

5. I talk a lot about managing various forms of self-sabotage that we seem to master as adults and I love using positive affirmations because they work! Would you share with us any relevant mental/emotional reinforcements that we can do to benefit our voice?

6. Our final question - which is the same question I ask all my interviewees: I want to leave our listeners with actions! What are one (or two) things that we can all do RIGHT AWAY to improve our voices?

If you want to take advantage of Marlena's generous gift, send her an email here: Marlena Reigh.

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This podcast is part of Prolific Living Media and it is produced weekly and released every Friday. For questions and comments, call the show at 240-347-3693 or email the podcast: [email protected].

Welcome to Episode #89 of The Daily Interaction podcast. You've read my posts on affirmations, such as the only 100 affirmations that you will ever need and my take on "You Can Heal Your Life" by Louise Haye, who initially inspired me to work with affirmations.

When I first learned about this, I was fascinated by the concept that simple phrases, affirmations to be specific, can shift your thinking and change your reality.

And I was shocked when they actually did!

But the problem is that no matter how hard you work, you have an inner critic with a fat ego that makes fun of all the affirmations you create, and sometimes the voice of that inner critic is much louder than the sound soothing logic of any affirmation. This episode, you and I are going to put that inner critic to rest, so that we can allow our affirmations to serve us.

This is a new and practical element that helps you to hear and see that inner critic. The new element is called "blurts"! Blurts and affirmations, when used together, are powerful in helping you break out of bad habits and create new paradigm shifts in your life. That is, if you are interested in making these shifts in your life and in moving to an empowering direction. If yes, come along!

In this episode, we go through the process of defining affirmations, defining blurts, and turning the blurts around to make a most positive affirmation and using this tool to win over that inner critic.

Quick definitions for Affirmations and Blurts

Affirmations: Positive present-tense statements that you repeat to yourself in a mantra form.

Blurts: Nasty clever responses that your inner critic comes up with in response to your affirmations.

The exercise that I share with you is from "The Artist's Way at Work: The Way of the Dragon". You write down your affirmation of choice 10 times and then you come up with the natural blurt in response to each time you wrote your affirmation. You need to listen for the blurt and hear the exact words that your inner critic uses and then write that down next to your affirmation.

When you have finished the exercise, you will be turning each blurt around to a positive statement and you need to do so not just by making a generic positive statement but in creating an exact and true response to that blurt.

The takeaway in this exercise is that you create a safe inner fortress and protecting yourself, and your dreams and your desires safe from this inner critic and that you are able to use affirmations effectively in your life.

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IF YOU LOVE US, and want to show your appreciation for this free podcast, won't you give us a shout on iTUNES! Thank you for showing your LOVE!

This podcast is part of Prolific Living Media and it is produced weekly and released every Friday. For questions and comments, please email the podcast: [email protected].

So what are your thoughts on affirmations? Do you even believe in their power to make a difference at all? Do you ever hear your inner critic interrupt the process? Share away in the comments below!

Welcome back to Episode #88. This Interactive Interview Series brings you a truly inspiring guest: Lou Mongello. If you have ever had a childhood love, obsession, desire, that you fantasize about doing for a living, this story is for you. Lou Mongello is one of the most amazing people I met at NMX in Jan. 2013 and his story is going to inspire you to make even the most drastic turns in your career and your life.

Lou Mongello used to be a successful lawyer. Today, though, he is a widely recognized Walt Disney World author, expert, host, speaker and historian. He is the host and producer of the WDW Radio show, which has been named Best Travel Podcast for 7 years in a row. WDW Radio offers audio podcasts, live video broadcasts, plus an active blog, newsletter, discussion forums, and live events.

Lou is author of the Walt Disney World Trivia Books, and author and narrator of The Audio Tours of Walt Disney World. He is also the Founder of the Dream Team Project, which has raised more than $250,000 to send children with life-threatening illnesses to Walt Disney World.

So why did Lou go from being a successful lawyer and owner of his own IT consulting company to the Disney business? Simple (although far from easy): To pursue his passion and share it with others and that's what we explore together in this interview because if you are waiting to start your dream, or afraid that it won't work, or any other dozen obstacles in between, Lou is going to put all those excuses to rest so you GET STARTED already, darling! Take a listen!

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Interview Questions: Lessons from an Ex-Lawyer Disney Power Host

1. I am sure you have noticed that Disney has made its way into all cultures. I was at a high-level business meeting in Tokyo once and the lady running the round-table introduction asked everyone to say their name, role in the project AND (I kid you not) their favorite Disney character.

My question for you: What would you say it is about the Disney brand that is so universal? Can Disney teach us anything about interacting with people?

2. Podcasting is a huge part of your life today and has enabled you to spread your message far and wide. How did the idea of a Disney podcast come about? What were your thoughts (and fears) and goals with creating a show around Disney?

3. As an ex lawyer and IT consultant, being a phenomenal radio show host is so far from the realm of that work but how did you make the career transition? How did you communicate your message in such a way that others relate to it so well?

4. You are on audio and on video and on social media & blogs AND in person. So you are using ALL forms of communication to interact with your fans and followers. What would you say is a common theme to your effective and compelling communication?

5. Our final question - which is the same question I ask all my interviewees: I want to leave our listeners with actionable steps in their own lives. What are one (or two) things that the listeners can do RIGHT AWAY after this show to infuse better communication, better messaging and maybe even a booming business around their dreams?

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Welcome to Episode #87 of The Daily Interaction Show where we learn how to create an information diet that inspires action.

Think about it. The information that you consume, in passive or active ways, is more powerful than you realize. It influences your thoughts, decisions and actions. So take a proactive approach and create an information diet that inspires action.

I LOVE living in this incredible digital age.

When I try to imagine the way the world would be without it all, I just remind myself that I have LIVED in the age where we did not have any digital information! I have seen this phenomena emerge and have participated in its growth from the very start, and perhaps that is why I love it all the more. Between living in an information age and living in the old world, I choose this one time and time again. What about you?

In this show, I talk about how you can observe and decide what to do about the massive information shoved in your face all day and night long. Then we explore ways to consciously choose whether you want to consume that information, and finally we tap into how you can create a system and a deliberate way of seeking the information that actually interests and inspires you. Are you ready?

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Show Notes for How to Create an Information Diet that Inspires Action

1. Observing all the channels of information that you consume with - or sometimes, without! - your knowledge by becoming acutely aware of everything that comes to you.

2. Remembering that you have a choice and making a conscious decision on what you want to consume and what you need to discard.

3. Understanding the correct source of the information, is it yourself enabling it or someone else?

4. Putting the right filters and elimination process in place after you have observed all the channels of information.

5. Learning how to break the bad habit of automatically consuming whatever comes your way and becoming aware of the process of changing habits.

6. As a result of all this, freeing up the time you thought you never had!!!

IF YOU LOVE US, and want to show your appreciation for this free podcast especially on our anniversary, won't you give us a shout on iTUNES! Thank you thank you for showing your LOVE!

This podcast is part of Prolific Living Media and it is produced weekly and released every Friday. For questions and comments, please email the podcast: [email protected].

Welcome back to Episode #86. This Interactive Interview Series is back with a fantastic and fun guest, Michael Brown. We are going to talk about handling conflict effectively. How do you handle conflict in your life? Do you run away from it? Do you deny it even exists? Does it stress you out? Do you know exactly what to do? Conflict can affect all of us at some point in our lives and knowing how to handle it is one of the best tools in your interactions power box, and Michael is the ultimate expert on helping us resolve conflict while making a serious topic entertaining and fun!

In the interview, Michael puts a real spin on the word interactive plus there is a fun segment where I take some risks but letting my guest run the show for a few minutes!.

Michael is a true expert at communicating effectively. Today we want to focus on one element: conflict resolution - in other words, how to win those inevitable battles and arguments instead of avoiding them or caving in all the time? But Michael's real strength is that he can make these serious topics FUN and give us "real learning for a change". In fact, he lives up to that phrase because you can find him at Real Learning For A Change, his fantastic repository of information and blogs.

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Interview Questions: Handling Conflict Effectively

1. Let's start with the thing we all want to avoid: Conflict! It happens to all of us. I mean if conflict never happens in your life, you are not living. So what I really want to know about conflict is this: Tell us please all the (potential) GOOD POSITIVE things that can come out of conflict. Can you help us shift our perspective (of fear and resistance and avoidance) around conflict, Michael?

2. It's too bad we don't learn this stuff in school. We just don't know what we don't know.

In all your years of experience and teaching Conflict Resolution, Michael, what's the most common weakness (or area of critical improvement) across your students that if only they were aware of it, it would really improve their abilities to go through times of conflict far more effectively?

3. Now that we are warmed up, Michael, I will let you lead the charge where you wanted to engage me and our fabulous listeners here to the conflict resolution exercises.

4. So I was reading one of your blog posts, "How to compensate for being an accommodator", and was kinda surprised to find out that you are an accommodator. So your strategy was to partner with someone "LESS accommodating" in order to get a better result in the negotiation, which s brilliant but maybe not always practical.

What are 3 things an accommodator can do in the face of conflict to make sure he/she is not taken advantage of and yet still operate somewhat within their own comfort zone (if possible!)? Give us the real secrets here, Michael. We can handle it!

5. Our final question - which is the same question I ask all my interviewees and that is this: I want to leave our listeners with actionable steps so they can get a sense of applying what we discussed in their own lives. What is one (or two) things that the listeners can do RIGHT AWAY after this show to become BETTER and less scared of CONFLICT in their lives?

If you can communicate well enough, you can have everything you want in life! Click to Tweet this!

IF YOU LOVE US, and want to show your appreciation for this free podcast especially on our anniversary, won't you give us a shout on iTUNES! Thank you thank you for showing your LOVE!

If confidence is the single biggest barrier between you and a great communicator, hurry and grab your FREE 21-Step Confidence Building Series or sign up below for this FREE confidence course:

Welcome back to Episode #85 of The Daily Interaction podcast. Today's topic is about achieving that successful career and 4 actions you can take right now to jumpstart your corporate career in the right direction now.

Everything I shared with you he...

Welcome back to Episode #84. This Interactive Interview Series is back with another amazing guest today: Leslie Samuel. Leslie Samuel is a blogger whose sole mission is to create content that inspires others and changes the world.

He blogs at Become A Blogger where he teaches you to do just that, and also at Interactive Biology, a video blog where he teaches biology to thousands of people all around the world. This biology blog ended up landing him a job as a university professor and is a perfect example of how video can have a tremendous impact on your life and the lives of so many others.

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If you can communicate well enough, you can have everything you want in life! Click to Tweet this!

Interview Questions: How to Get More Comfortable on Video

1. Leslie, you and I were at New Media Expo recently where they talked about 3 hot trends: Google+, podcasting and VIDEO! Video has been big for a while but it's just exploding right now. And you don't have to own a business to get in front of the video. You could be in a toastmasters or any other club. You could be speaking at a PTA meeting where they want to record it. You could be doing a demo of something you know for someone else. You may find yourself in front of camera. But there may still be doubts about how video can be important - can you tell me why video is important in your personal and professional life?

2. How does video communicate our message better/more clearly/more strongly than other mediums - audio and/or the written word? Or does this depend on the specific subject matter in question?

3. You in front of video, Leslie: You are brilliant. You engage. You make amazing eye contact. You are comfortable in your own skin. You are humble and sincere. You are crystal clear about your message and you are convincing. But more than anything, you make me trust you.

Talk to me more about how you pull all this off ;) and also how do you prepare? Is it just practice? Can anyone learn to present a message in front of the camera well? (You can give tips or advice here or just talk about your own experience).

4. One of the major fears and reservations people have on video - from my years of filming speeches at our toastmasters club - is that they think they will look silly or foolish and be a laughing stock. It is so far from the truth that it's not even funny. Audiences - virtual or real - are so kind and so forgiving. What do you think about the biggest obstacle to people doing video? What holds them back? How can they overcome it?

5. I love giving my listeners homework so this last question is always about something they can do RIGHT NOW - an action they can take after listening to this interview - what would you say to them? What's the one piece of advice that they can put into practice to get more comfortable in front of video?

Hope you enjoyed the interview. I definitely did my homework and created this fun video. Did you?

And if you want to take advantage of Leslie's course, hop on Become A Blogger - which I fully endorse - and change the course of your business and career forever with blogging the right way!

IF YOU LOVE US, and want to show your appreciation for this free podcast especially on our anniversary, won't you give us a shout on iTUNES! Thank you thank you for showing your LOVE!

If confidence is the single biggest barrier between you and a great communicator, hurry and grab your FREE 21-Step Confidence Building Series or sign up below for this FREE confidence course:

Welcome to Episode #83 of The Daily Interaction Show. Whether you are a full-time business owner, entrepreneur, planning to become one or are a hobbyist, you have something to offer the world, it could be an idea, a product, a service, a program, a course, a package, your whatever, in exchange for money. Today, I talk to you about how to do just that without apology and shame and without feeling awkward and weird about saying your prices to prospective clients. Ready?

Did you guys miss me? This girl is back from her African Safari and ready to get back into the game. Much fun as it was, I must say that I missed my work!! Now that has got to be the most twisted logic you have ever heard but alas, it can happen when you are in love with your work.

I want to thank my amazing superstar corporate-turned-rockstar-entrepreneur client, Bruce Rodgers at Studio139 Software, for the topic today. Bruce was telling me about his inner conflicts and struggles with pricing his services. Specifically about communicating those prices to his potential clients. And Bruce is not the only person to struggle with this one by a long shot. So thanks to his wonderful suggestion, I want to dedicate this whole episode to sharing steps in communicating your offers and prices without apology, without guilt, without insecurity.

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Show Notes: 4 Bold Steps to Communicating Your Prices and Offers without Apology:

First let's talk about WHY on earth we freeze up and feel so insecure when we have to utter those words, those dollars, those prices. Why do we feel we need to immediately give them a discount or prove that it's worth it?

Because we tell ourselves these stories that are not true. We tell ourselves that the person cannot afford it, that we are not worth this monetary sum in exchange for our services or that they will laugh at our price. The stories are generally a perpetual lie. Stop telling yourself these stories.

Here are the 4 major steps to help you communicate your offers and prices without apology and with true confidence:

1. Set your prices high enough to where you are glad to over-deliver without being resentful. Examples of when calls go over, clients email too much and take up more of your time. Generally, you are pricing yourself too low especially if you are new to business.

2. Share your prices on your website. This has a three-fold benefit. First, you don't have to say it on the phone if you don't want to or write it out on email. You simply refer them to the site and recommend a certain package. Second, you filter those who totally cannot afford it. Talk about Kane vs. Port suggestions on displaying $. Third, you are being totally transparent and customers/clients appreciate this. They don't want to ask how much either. Not anymore than you want to say how much.

3. Say your offer without apology. The worst thing you can do is price yourself what you deem to be too high and then apologize or try to convince the customer you are worth it. Never convince. Clearly outline what they get but don't convince they should. There is a difference between persuading them to buy your stuff or focusing on why this is something good for them - results for them etc. Apology kills the spirit of transaction.

4. Have a system for collecting payment without feeling awkward about it. Sometimes you will get clients or customers that just make the whole process painful. Your job is to filter those out from the very start. Payment should be a non-issue. Do you ever go to Nordstrom and ask if they can make you a special offer? No! You'd look like a fool. Well, then don't entertain customers or clients who do that. Respect yourself enough and take yourself and your business seriously enough to treat it as an objective matter-of-fact logistical matter to handle.

Check out my FREE 21-Step Confidence Building Series or sign up below for it:

Welcome back to Episode 82 of our Daily Interaction Show! Today's guest is a pretty special person to me. In 2006, I was lost & confused in my corporate career and during one of my many business trips to California, a director friend gave me a copy of this book "Funny in Farsi". I loved reading and writing about Funny in Farsi. Everyone was handing me business books to find my career path but this guy gave me a Persian memoir, a book that made me laugh as hard as it made me cry… and reading it was the seed of inspiration for the future of my own career.

Our guest is Firoozeh Dumas, the author of "Funny in Farsi" as well as "Laughing without an Accent". Firoozeh is from Iran, we share the same "vat-an" or home country. She immigrated to America with her family when she was just 7 years old. Two years in America then they moved back to Iran and then 2 years later, they moved back to California. Lots of adjustments no doubt. She came to the US during a hard time for Iranian immigrants in the 1970s and yet I love the way she tells of her adventures, her parents' take on the American culture and America's take on the Iranian culture.

She's an incredible author, and has received well-deserved attention for her work including best seller status on SF Chronicle & LA times as well as being the 2005 Finalist of Thurber Prize for American Humor.

My deep connection to Firoozeh is her powerful use of both humor and irony to illustrate the experiences of being an immigrant, one to which I so dearly relate, and the encouragement that we are better off accepting each other despite our differences.

Why she is on our show today? First, because writing is a powerful medium of communication and we tap into that briefly. Second, being an immigrant and interacting effectively in a new culture can be useful to you, whether you are in that situation now or may find yourself in it later.

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If you can communicate well enough, you can have everything you want in life! Click to Tweet this!

You can find Firoozeh on her website and check out her future appearances on NPR's "Wait, wait, don't tell me!" on her Events page.

Interview Questions to Firoozeh about Writing Your Memoirs and Protecting Your Dreams:

1. Firoozeh, we immigrated to America at 15, you immigrated at 7. I didn't find anything positive about "not fitting in". You were able to transform your awkward experience into an amazing & funny memoir with a powerful message. For those of us who feel disconnected from the culture where we live, can you give us your thoughts and advice on better adjusting & accepting it?

2. I want to talk to you about your reasons to turn to writing. To me, writing is therapeutic and healing and sharing the written word is of course powerful but everyone writes for different reasons. Why did you start writing? What has writing done for you?

3. I remember contacting you after reading Funny in Farsi. It touched me deeply. Unfortunately, I can't get anyone in my family to cooperate so I can write my own memoirs but that's a different story ;) - How did your parents react to your sharing those intimate stories with the world?

4. Living here in America for 20 odd years, I have been on both sides, both as an immigrant and as a welcoming American to new immigrants and I still feel so much compassion for the newly arrived immigrant. What would you want to say to an American (or a citizen of any country) on meeting immigrants into their land? How should they interact with them?

5. Your story telling is powerful, Firoozeh, would you like to share a recent story that shows both the contrast and yet the similarities of Persians to Americans? You and I have no issues laughing at our own funny culture, that's for sure!

6. Our final question - which is the same question I ask all my interviewees: I want to leave our listeners with actions!