Peggy Klaus by Brag!: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It Page A

the performance. In fact, he rather bluntly suggested that I take my talents to the stage rather than the courtroom. So it was good-bye law school and hello to drama school in London. It’s funny, today I work with a lot of attorneys and half of them tell me they wanted to be actors, except they didn’t want to be the “starving actors”—definitely a smart choice! Anyway, most days my life in the entertainment business seems far away from my current incarnation as a communication consultant. And yet it was my graduate training and experience as a director and producer that give me the expertise to work with business leaders on developing executive presence, because the same skills that make performances dynamic in Hollywood can be applied with equal success to trial work and client relations.
    Situation:
A coaching session with my client. She asks, “How’s the business?” and I reply:
    You know that phrase, “Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it”? Well, I think that has happened for me. Work is fabulous. Your boss was complaining to me this morning that I don’t have enough time for him anymore. In fact, he told me that I was like the mold on his shower curtain: I keep spreading through his organization. And I told him it was his own fault, because he had done such a great job turning around his communication style. Now everyone wants to follow suit. I’ve been very lucky and blessed. I get to do everything I love to do
and
make a living. I perform, direct, teach, write, produce, and critique really smart people, who want to improve and with whom I share a genuine connection. What could be better than that? Someone should smack me if I ever complain!
    Situation:
I’m courting a new client. The man I’m speaking with by phone, the CFO of a large health care organization, was referred by a friend of his, the president of a hospital in San Francisco. The first question he asks me is whether I’m a doctor. My response:
    No, but I almost played one on TV! Actually, my background is in the arts, not the sciences. But because my expertise is communication, I’ve lectured on doctor-patient communication and personal diagnosis at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, UC Davis, and UCSF. I have also worked with physicians to prepare them as expert witnesses for trial, press interviews, and, as I did with your friend, coached them on communication skills. For the last eight or so years, I’ve taken all the skills I formerly used in the performance arena and translated them into the business world, where I have been working with corporate professionals, from CEOs and CFOs and all those other Os, all the way down through the organization, in a wide cross section of industries from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, and all points in between. I’ve coached my clients in everything from presentation skills—which most people consider getting up behind a lectern, although it’s really about getting them out in front of one—to interpersonal development and leadership skills.
    Situation:
My class reunion. An old friend, whom I hadn’t seen since the last reunion ten years before, asks me, “Are you still working with actors and comics?” I reply, “My goodness, we haven’t gotten together since I started my own firm in communication and executive coaching? I wasn’t a corporate mutt just yet? Oh dear, it really has been a while. How much time do you have? This could be an all-nighter.”
    We chitchat some more, and then (because we really do have all night!) I proceed with:
    So when we met last I was working in Hollywood. I began getting panicked calls from friends on Wall Street who were climbing the corporate ladder and actually making money. They were asking for help with their client and sales presentations. At the time I didn’t think I was doing anything of great artistic importance, so I figured why not see if the performance coaching I was doing would translate to the world of Brooks