Author and advocate for introverts Susan Cain offers three tips for quiet types to master the art of public speaking.

You can't choose how much talent you have for an activity, but you can choose how you view the relationship between talent and excellence--and according to recent research, that choice makes a big difference.

Telling your kids they're smart, for instance, sounds like a good idea, but psychological studies have found that believing performance is down to inborn ability actually creates anxiety, reduces motivation, and leads children to underperform. Believe that achievement is mostly down to hard work and practice, on the other hand, and you're more likely to grow to your full potential--and perhaps outshine even those blessed with natural ability.

And what's true for fifth grade math students or young violinists is also true for public speakers.

Sure, you may be a born introvert, utterly lacking in the desire to listen to the sound of your own voice, but according to Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, that doesn't mean you can't become an excellent public speaker.

The first step is realizing that you're not doomed--effort and skill matter more than personality. The second is to learn some basic techniques to better approach the challenge of addressing a crowd. Cain, who is developing a course on public speaking for introverts, recently shared some of these tips for quiet types on the blog of presentation guru and designer Nancy Duarte, including:

Be yourself; good speakers are not necessarily "naturals." Have you ever watched a fiery orator or a speaker who has the audience in stitches, and thought, "I can’t do that"? You might be right--and that’s okay. The best speakers are not necessarily dynamic or hilarious – they are simply interesting. They communicate valuable information. "People think that being a good speaker means being funny or glib," says David Lavin of the Lavin Agency (who happens to be my lecture agent). "But that’s wrong. The best speakers are compelling. People underestimate the power of content and of storytelling."

What do Malcolm Gladwell and Lady Gaga have in common? At the same time, public speaking is a performance, and that’s a good thing, even if you’re not a natural actor. Have you ever wondered why people enjoy costume parties? It’s because they feel liberated when interacting from behind a mask. Dressing up as Cinderella or Don Draper removes inhibitions as effectively as a glass of wine. Think of your onstage persona the same way. Surprisingly, both Gladwell and Lady Gaga have this in common.

Serve the audience. Introverts are phenomenal listeners, which attunes them to the needs of others. And that’s why speaking (instead of listening) can feel uncomfortable--unnatural, even. But remember that public speaking is not about you. It’s about the audience. Your job is to take care of the audience, not to be judged by it or even to entertain it. Remind yourself that you are not seeking approval or love. You are a teacher, a giver, an enlightener.

Check out the complete post for the rest of the tips. Or, if you're struggling to make your reserved personality work for you in other areas of your professional life, these resources on promoting yourself despite your shyness and how to survive a party or networking event with your nerves intact may be useful.

If you're an introvert who has mastered public speaking, how did you conquer your natural reserve?

After a while, your coding fingers start asking for a break. During that free time, your mind wanders. And, sometimes, it wanders into dangerous territory. You might start thinking about marketing. You’re reading this, aren’t you? You’re asking yourself: “When’s the right time to step back and start planning my marketing strategy?”

When your mind is finally taking a bit of a rest (and isn’t overly excited about the prospect of buying a new mousepad), you start thinking about how you’re going to attract a user base. It’s in that random moment that all hell breaks loose. If you’re not thinking about whether you’re too early to start a marketing campaign, you have no idea where you’re standing. It’s that simple.

You know you’re considering marketing a bit too early when:

• You’re still worried you’d make a fool of yourself by presenting the product you have made so far to the public. This should be a no-brainer.
• You’ve got a major update coming up. When someone sees a major change in your product just after jumping on your boat, it’s something that might make this person jump off right away. Major updates right after a major sign-up streak are basically your way of saying, “What? You thought we were stable? HA!” The period after a major update, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Also a minor update, such as moving a button from the left of the screen to the right, shouldn’t give you much trouble. It’s those enormous face lifts that happen right after a bunch of people join that really bugs ‘em.
• You’d best describe the product as an “alpha-stage” project. That’s like those kids in high school that get a band together and attempt to throw a concert after their first two rehearsals.
• People other than your family members haven’t tested your product and given it a good roasting. This is by far one of the most important. Your family is more inclined to say, “Hey, Billy! That’s one sweet project you got there!” They’ll say this even if you make the most horrid thing to ever reach this green Earth. Get strangers in and tell them to give you two things: What they loved about your product; and what aspect of your product made them want to curl into a little corner of the basement.

While nothing’s worse than starting a marketing campaign too early, there also is such a thing as starting one too late. For example, if you already blew chunks out of a budget developing the project to the point you’re broke, it’s time to reconsider its fate unless you get your hands on a pot of gold real fast.

Also, do not misinterpret this as a motive to delay the release of your product. If you’re still in the pre-release stage, just make a solid product that people will use. Release the product early! Once it’s released, pull the reins on development and focus on marketing exclusively for a while. Once you get some users, you can add the features you want later on. This way, you can upsell your product when you feel it’s time to start pulling in more revenue by releasing a new feature.

When’s the right time to market? Consider marketing when your work has turned into a well-polished and finished-ish product, you had enough people test it to death, and (most importantly) you have the confidence and pride to show prospects a product that you would use yourself in your daily life without a single second-look at any other software of its nature. Oh, and don’t forget that you need money for this!

What the Beatles' early failures can teach you about staffing, timing, market research, and product development.

The words "failure" and "the Beatles" seldom appear in the same sentence. But the Beatles' early career was actually a series of failures--a record that culminated in their unsuccessful audition with the leading record company of their era, Decca Records. This particular failure nearly caused the band to break up.

At the time of Decca's rebuff, the Beatles had been performing under various monikers for nearly five years. Faced with that kind of rejection, most bands would have returned to Liverpool, gone back to their run-of-the-mill day jobs, and continued to play occasional gigs. But the Beatles were not like most bands.

And you should not be like most companies. Setbacks on the path to success are inevitable. What matters is whether you allow them to build you up or tear you down. Be like the Beatles. They ignored the alleged musical experts, internalized their failures, and improved their value proposition by working their asses off.

Here are start-up lessons you can take from the Beatles' biggest setback.

Lesson #1: Know your product.

The material for the Decca audition was selected by the group's manager, Brian Epstein. Brian's musical qualifications? He curated the record section in his father's furniture store. Of the 13 songs the band played, 10 were covers of American tunes, which the Beatles sang with exaggerated American accents.

Brian's intent was to showcase the group's multi-generational appeal by drawing upon mainstream songs, including Broadway show tunes. Brian only selected three Lennon and McCartney songs for inclusion in the audition. Notably, the Beatles never released these original compositions; they didn't make the cut.

What can you take from this? Adviser input should not be unequivocally treated with reverence. You must know when to listen to your advisers and when to reject their well-meaning advice. Sure, advisers are helpful--and necessary--but they don't know everything. Do your homework.

Lesson #2: Know your audience. When band members looked back on the audition in later years, they realized they were ahead of their time. Per George Harrison, "It was unusual at that time to have a group where everybody did the singing. In those days, it was... one guy out front who sang." John's recollection was similar: "When they listened to these audition tapes, they were listening for The Shadows. So they were not listening at all."

Understand the potential investor's point of view, and don't try to change it. You'll be spinning your wheels. Instead, focus on wooing investors whose POV is aligned with your venture's value proposition. Ignore the rest. You're not going to change their minds.

Lesson #3: Gather the right team. The Beatles' ultimate lineup was incomplete at the time of their Decca audition. The affable but musically mediocre Pete Best was the drummer, rather than Ringo Starr. One of the keys to the Beatles' ultimate success was the creative tension and balance they achieved once Ringo joined the group. A start-up can likewise ill afford to compromise when establishing its core team.

Lesson #4: Timing is everything. The Beatles were simply not ready at the time of their Decca tryout. According to Paul McCartney, "Listening to the tapes, I can understand why we failed the Decca audition. We weren't that good, though there were some quite interesting and original things."

Start-ups have limited opportunities to secure key customers, investors and employees. It is very difficult (usually impossible) to recover from a bad first impression. You have to balance your desire to move fast with your actual capabilities. Get ahead of yourself and you're likely to fall flat.

Lesson #5: Know what you're getting into. Brian paid Decca £15 to record the session (equal to $42 at the time, $317 in 2013 dollars). It's unclear whether Decca's motivation was sincere or if it was an opportunity to score a small payday from an otherwise empty studio.

Your two most limited resources, time and money, must be strictly guarded. When a customer, investor, or partner makes a request, investigate. If their motives are not congruent with your goals, the opportunity should be ignored.

Lesson #6: Set expectations. Said John Lennon: "I think Decca expected us to be all polished; we were just doing a demo."

Establishing appropriate expectations among a start-up's stakeholders is imperative: Over-promising and under-delivering can be a death knell. For instance, if you deliver a prototype to a potential partner who is expecting a commercialized solution, the partnership may be irreparably damaged.

Lesson #7: Critics can be wrong. In their later years, John Lennon recounted their numerous early failed auditions, recalling, "They used to keep telling us, 'It's too much like rock and roll and that's all over now,' because they all thought rock and roll was dead, but they were wrong."

The Beatles recalled their Decca rejection with bitter satisfaction.

George: "... [Decca] signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead. The head of Decca, Dick Rowe, made a canny prediction: 'Guitar groups are on the way out...'"

Paul: "He must be kicking himself now."

John: "I hope he kicks himself to death."

Not a natural optimist? Use these simple exercises to train your brain to more easily pick out the positive.

You know how when you play Tetris for awhile, even after you stop, you can still see those little falling blocks in your mind's eye?

The persistence of Tetris isn't simply an annoying effect of a cleverly designed game, according to scientists. Instead it's a reflection of something deeply positive about our brains--their plasticity.

That's a according to a recent post by iDoneThis founder Walter Chen on productivity blog buffer. He cites studies on Tetris (yes, there is such a thing, and yes, this is going somewhere helpful to non-video game addicted entrepreneurs), which found that playing the game for a few hours a week over a period of months, actually changed the brains of players.

"Every time you reactivate a circuit, synaptic efficiency increases, and connections become more durable and easier to reactivate," Chen writes, before summarizing the importance of the findings: "Whenever you do specific tasks over and over again, they take up less of your brain power over time."

That's probably not a shock to anyone who has learned to play the piano, speak a foreign language or even hit a tennis ball roughly where you want it to go. So what's the big deal? This same brain plasticity allows you to master simple skills or sports, also allows you to train yourself to be more positive.

Chen quotes Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage who has previously spoken about his work on the brain and happiness to Inc. Just like we can train our brains to more easily recognize the patterns of Tetris, “we can retrain the brain to scan for the good things in life—to help us see more possibility, to feel more energy, and to succeed at higher levels,” Achor says, dubbing this ability "the positive Tetris effect."

So how do you do this? Chen offers four very simple interventions that can, over time, actually rewire your brain to see things more positively:

• Scan for the 3 daily positives. At the end of each day, make a list of three specific good things that happened that day and reflect on what caused them to happen. The good things could be anything — bumping into an old friend, a positive remark from someone at work, a pretty sunset. Celebrating small wins also has a proven effect of powering motivation and igniting joy. As you record your good things daily, the better you will get and feel.
• Give one shout-out to someone (daily). I love this technique. Take the positive things you’re getting better at recognizing and let people know you’ve noticed. Take a minute to say thanks or recognize someone for their efforts, from friends and family to people at work. A great way to go about this is by sending 1 daily email to someone. It can be your old school teacher, whose advice you are now appreciating every day. A co-worker or someone you’ve only met. Show courage and say thanks.
• Do something nice. Acts of kindness boost happiness levels. Something as small and simple as making someone smile works. Pausing to do something thoughtful has the power to get you out of that negativity loop. Do something nice that is small and concrete like buying someone a coffee.
• Mind your mind. Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment without judgment. Opening our awareness beyond the narrowness of negativity can help bring back more balance and positivity into the picture.

Looking for more details? Chen's post has much more on the science and what actually happens physically in your brain. You can also check out Achor's interview about how happiness affects brain function (hint: it doesn't make it worse), or get tips on how to reframe situations more positively in the moment from my colleague Geoffrey James. Finally, if you're looking to add more mindfulness to your day, check out this post on how many entrepreneurs incorporate meditation into their lives.

Do you agree that it's possible to alter you basic orientation towards the world and become more positive?

Forget your best friend. Working with someone who drives you crazy is more likely to help you achieve your dreams.

When you think about founding your dream business, you might imagine working side-by-side with your best friend, or your spouse, or your sibling. You love spending time with this person. You feed off each other and have such great ideas. It will be awesome.

Or maybe not. Maybe what you should do is work with someone who drives you insane.

It works for Discovery Channel Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. They do, by all accounts, great work. But, they are not friends. They do not hang out together and, according to Adam, they drive each other crazy.

So, why does the relationship work? Because they respect each other. And that is the critical piece. If you respect someone you don't need to like them in order to have a successful working relationship. It can even be a benefit. Here's why.

You like different things, so you see different things. When your business interests and your outside interests are similar, you'll both focus on the same things. You'll see the same side of every problem. While this makes for pleasantries and warm and fuzzy feelings, it can also cause you to miss things--big things.

A partner, or an employee, whose viewpoint is different from yours will see things you cannot. She will see areas that you are weak in and you will see areas where she is weak. You will see different things and this is beneficial.

You're not distracted by social lures. You don't stop working on a project to plan your weekend activities. Your relationship will be built around the business and the business only.

It's easier to terminate a relationship. I have received numerous emails from people who desperately want to leave the family business, or who no longer want to work for their best friend, but cannot because they are terrified of damaging the relationship. Likewise, I've received emails from people whose best friend is not doing a good job, and they want to fire and replace that person, but won't go through with it.

If your relationship is purely business, if it's not working out, it's easier to part ways. If your partner wants to take on a new job, you say, "Great idea! I wish you the best of luck!" and there is no angst over it.

While this may seem like a silly, little, thing, the stress reduction from having purely business relationships is tremendous.

Smart is better than yes. You need to surround yourself with smart people. People with great ideas. Not necessarily with people who you'd like to go to lunch with. Great ideas can come from all sorts of people. Someone who challenges you makes you think harder. Someone who will say, "But..." and will point out the flaws that you'd otherwise overlook.

Respect is key. If you are so annoyed by this person that you are yelling, the business relationship won't work out. You must respect each other. You must be polite. You must listen to what the other person has to say. But, you don't need to be friends.

The next time you are looking to hire someone, or partner with someone, look for someone who has great ideas and thinks differently than you do. In fact, you may wish to look for someone who, like Jamie Hyneman does to Adam Savage, drives you nuts. If you are as successful as they are, you'll be off to a great start.

Let’s get this right: mobile ads suck.

And if you’re planning to have that as your revenue model, you are throwing your app into a gorge unless it’s a really kickass application that people can’t do without. Chances of the latter being very thin in a very competitive world, today, it would be prudent to think of other revenue streams than mobile ads.

The Not-so-curious Case of Facebook Mobile

You’ve probably heard this a million times already but here’s it again: Facebook’s mobile monetization model was decreed “not-so-convincing enough” to encourage investors to turn the IPO into a massive success. Instead, it turned out to be a flawed scenario resulting in valuable lessons about mobile ads.

Facebook is one of the few popular companies that haven’t yet solved the puzzle of mobile revenue models. There are plenty of small-time developers and companies who are still struggling to figure out how their mobile apps can generate acceptably decent revenues.

Why Do Mobile Ads Suck?

1. Real Estate

First off, there’s this huge difference between a mobile screen and the desktop screen. There’s so much less real-estate on the mobile that the content itself is shrunk. Now, if you’re going to put some ads in between, on top, at the bottom or anywhere else, that’s going to steal under broad daylight very valuable space on the small screen. It drives people mad. We, as users, don’t like that at all.

2. Banner Blindness

People are getting used to banner ads. This is a generation that has seen a lot of banners in online advertising and we’ve grown immune to these. Mobile ads that aren’t disguised within the content – and that don’t provide relevant and intensive value – are easily filtered out and completely ignored. This is why there isn’t much to be made out of mobile ads as a revenue model (lower eCPMs)

Users are looking for a high level of value on the mobile platform than on desktop. The mobile being a very personal gadget, users have this subconscious feeling that their experience with any content (in the form of an app) shouldn’t be diluted, disturbed or contorted by ads.

Valuable content holds the key to connecting with your users and anything that mars this experience even by a tiny bit kills the chances of establishing a connection with your users.

With so many paid apps doing great, it’s clear that people prefer paying once to remove ads than to experience a free app filled with ugly ads.

There Are Many Alternatives

Sure, mobile ads do suck and mobile eCPMs are pretty weak compared to their desktop counterparts. But there are various other alternatives that you can think of. Some of these are being successfully implemented.

• if you can provide a truly amazing app and then top it up with an essential feature that people can’t do without, you can try the freemium model. It takes time and experience to crack the freemium model but it’s worth it.
• like Flipboard, you can promote a service/product through specifically targeted ads that are clearly demarcated from the content in a “usable” way.
• Alternatively, you can use your app to promote a related product/service in your industry. Think of teaming up with other service providers.

From the users’ point of view, mobile ads are definitely not the way forward and if users aren’t going to be interested in it, you won’t find publishers either. Thinking of mobile ads as a revenue model? Time to rethink your strategy.

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