Speak from The Heart: Be Yourself and Get Results

Communicating effectively--with a significant other, a roomful of colleagues, or an auditorium packed with strangers--can challenge even the most articulate. In Speak from the Heart, Emmy-winning broadcaster Steve Adubato maintains that success comes from the direct emotional connections you make with your audience. Using his own experiences, as well as those of a range of notables from Oprah Winfrey to Colin Powell, he offers specific ways to develop that bond in circumstances where it matters most. Adubato shows how public speakers can get a handle on their audience and their message, determine their key themes, and then outline them to encourage as interesting and engaging a delivery as possible. He explains how "talking without speaking" plays a vital role in communicative settings and offers tips on body language (gesture toward someone with an open hand, palm up, rather than a pointed index finger), first impressions ("the level of confidence you have is first seen in the way you hold your body"), and active listening (eye contact, gestures, and smiles all convey your interest). Adubato additionally applies these principles to casual business encounters, leadership situations, workplace teams, communication technology, customer service, and the particular considerations that gender often interjects. "Being a truly great communicator is not simply about being articulate," he writes. "It's about who can make an audience care about the message and find the words that touch not only the intellect but also the heart." His precise advice and suggested exercises should help anyone improve this critical skill. --Howard Rothman

Steve Adubato, Ph.D., has enjoyed a distinguished career as a broadcaster, author, university professor, and motivational speaker. Steve is a Rutgers University lecturer, four-time Emmy Award-winning television anchor for WNET/Channel 13 (PBS), and newspaper columnist. In addition to his work on public television, Steve is an expert commentator for ABC/7 in New York. Adubato also served in the mid-1980s as New Jersey's youngest state legislator at age twenty-six.

A much sought-after motivational speaker, for the past decade Dr. Adubato has conducted communication, leadership, and team-building workshops for a variety of clients in the corporate and nonprofit sectors, including Prudential, PaineWebber, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch, the United Nations, and the American Cancer Society. His motivational program, called "Stand and Deliver: Speak from the Heart," is a dynamic, hands-on professional development and training program that Dr. Adubato created to help professionals reach their potential as communicators and leaders. You can visit the program's Web site at www.stand-deliver.com.

Currently the anchor of two WNET/Channel 13 (PBS) broadcasts and a syndicated television series called "One-on-One" with Steve Adubato, Adubato has interviewed hundreds of guests, including such public figures as Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, Bill Bradley, Al Gore, Bobbi Brown, Ralph Nader, Sam Donaldson, Tommy Lasorda, David Dinkins, Ed Koch, Ross Perot, Jesse Jackson, and Christie Whitman. He has also gone one-on-one with CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations, entrepreneurs, and athletes, as well as with ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things.