the keepmoving.company

storytelling starts here

Author: mikeswelsh

  • Underestimators, Overestimators, & The feel for the ‘game.’

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    This post will outline what I learned from spending 11 years and three months in a startup that became a small business, then a mid-size business, and finally part of a larger company. This is an attempt to describe a skill honed over thousands of pitches, workshops, readouts, preps, and many failures. A recent book,…

  • Broadcasting & Narrowcasting

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    This is a slight pitch prep, storytelling, narrative builds versus slideware. What is the BC/NC all about? Historically, when we are ‘trained’ to present or media trained to speak publicly, folks use all sorts of techniques to help internalize this and use this training. The concept here is something I learned about what is meaningful…

  • Truman Biography

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    Excellent book but super long listen. A quick summary does not do justice to the level of detail and visualization while listening was great. I listened to this while driving back from Phoenix. Truman by David McCullough: A Comprehensive Biography David McCullough’s Truman is a meticulously detailed and elegantly written biography of Harry S. Truman,…

  • Expansive Ignorance™

    Expansive Ignorance™

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    This is tangent from a previous post about curiosity. Applying “Expansive Ignorance” to Daily Tasks The concept of “Expansive Ignorance” can be a powerful tool to enhance productivity and creativity in your daily tasks. You can foster curiosity, innovation, and focus by embracing what you don’t know. Here’s how you can apply this concept effectively:…

  • On being curious to get sht done.

    On being curious to get sht done.

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    “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.” —”Old Man’s…

  • “He works for us”

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    May 1, 2024 Mid- ‘ double the company days’ as a Mobster, I realized in a dark moment during one or more of my work travel nightmares that I was burning myself out. I ended up in Phoenixville, ER. While in the ER on New Year’s Eve (pre-COVID), I was having a scan with some…

  • Arcs (of Uncertainty™)

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    mikeswelsh
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    There are many arcs, some called story arcs, arcs of uncertainty, and more. Sometimes, they are not arcs at all. They are lines of thinking. Ways of making an audience follow along, stay interested, and be entertained.

  • Curveball Questions

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    Do you know that time during a meeting, workshop, interview, or other interaction when a question comes up that catches you off guard and/or disrupts the flow, causes a hot flash, and momentarily stops the storytelling rhythm and flow? Yeah, the classic gotcha, curveball, trick, rhetorical question. I used to hate this; it was a…

  • Repetition With Variation

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    #Tuesday, this concept is one of those old chestnuts I use to help teammates, clients, and anyone trying to manage or collaborate with any design form. I learned this concept in art school, in Typography I, II, and III, and the three extra advanced electives in typography. Now, I believe I have the best professor…

  • Last time First time

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    A quick take on your #TGIF as I roll across the country in my seemingly neverending desire to be out of my comfort zone, continually having to cope and deal with new and different contexts and situations. The anxiety = uncertainty x powerlessness equation from Chip Conely’s book Emotional Equations is at work in all of us,…