August 29, 2025 hey team, Jess and I want solar panels on the house. We thought this would be as easy as saying: "I want solar panels!" And someone showing up saying: "Here are your solar panels!" Instead, I've found myself getting texts like this: Know what any of that means? Neither do I. Those are texts from two different guys at two different companies. And boy do I wish either of them understood: your buddy Mike is not an engineer. If I knew as much about solar as these guys assumed, I’d...
20 days ago • 3 min read
August 14, 2025 You know what advice I used to give? Just be yourself on stage.It was good advice for a while. Until, trying to coach a speaker to open up, his reply was: But I am being myself. This is what I'm like.Oh. Sometimes the best speaking advice for Person A is woeful for Person B. The trick is, you usually can’t figure out which one applies when you’re the one holding the microphone. That’s exactly why working on speaking alone is so tough. You need someone else to see what you...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
July 31, 2025 hey team, I was at a coffee shop yesterday talking to a buddy who is about to become a father. He asked for the nitty gritty. What’s hard, Mike?Years ago, I remember asking this same question to friends. Everyone warned me about two things: 1. Sleep; and 2. Loss of “me time”While there’s truth to both those things, they are nowhere near the hardest part of being a parent.You know what is? The trauma.The part where there’s some area of life where you duct-taped a solution for...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
July 25, 2025 hey team, I will spend an hour taking an eight-word sentence and making it five. That’s Jerry Seinfeld talking about working on his standup. An hour. To remove three words. People always ask me who my favorite speakers are. I think they're expecting to hear me talk about Steve Jobs or Brene Brown. Really though? Nobody does it better than stand-up comedians. And when it comes to stand-up comedians, not many have done it better than Jerry. Even if they have done it better, it’s...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
July 11, 2025 hey team, I saw the new Brad Pitt F1 movie the other night. It was okay. More accurately, I hated the first two hours, but the final race was so perfectly executed in every way - suspense, sound, dialogue - that I got tricked into thinking I liked the movie. Endings can do that.Other than the hypocrisy of rooting for Brad Pitt's character and it being such a blatant Top Gun rip-off that I expected Javier Bardem to yell "Dammit Maverick," my biggest gripe was with the announcers....
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, Mike here. Speech nerd, remember? Guy who used to fall asleep listening to Martin Luther King tapes (tapes!). It's an unusual interest, and an unusual skill. As such - and especially when I lead corporate trainings - people want to know the speeches I think they should watch and/or study. The example I always want to give them is Jason Kelce’s Super Bowl parade speech from 2017. Problem being, I can’t exactly use this in a corporate setting. For one thing, there are a lot of...
over 1 year ago • 4 min read