This presenter will come a long way to be with you—all the way from Heaven! America's 16th First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln, walks onto the stage and, with both humor and pathos, immediately begins to reveal fascinating, private stories from her famous family that mesmerize the audience. She not only reveals fascinating private stories from the famous Lincoln family, she shares lessons for life and success that she now understands with 20/20 angelic hindsight. Lessons from the Past is a galvanizing motivational program for your conference or corporate meeting. M. Kay duPont, CSP, CPDT, and author of the award-winning Loving Mr. Lincoln: The Personal Diaries of Mary Todd Lincoln, enthralls you with lessons and mistakes from her own life, captivates your attention, and warms your heart. Authentically dressed, and using Mary's "own words," Kay takes you back to the 1800s and reminds you that the more people change, the more they stay the same.

Woven within her story are lessons and reminders to help you be more successful and enjoy life more. Because of her angel sight and "friends in high places," Mary now has a unique understanding of life, love and success, and the principles she mentions can be customized for your group and organization.

Some of the lessons you might learn:
1. Be careful what you wish for.
2. Understand life's paradoxes.
3. Repress jealousy and guilt.
4. Keep growing.
5. Set smart goals.
6. Listen to wise counselors.
7. Be appreciative.
8. Hold yourself accountable.
9. Don't sweat the small stuff.
10. Carpe diem.

When you leave this program, you'll feel like you've been allowed inside the parlor of one of the world's most famous couples. You'll also be reminded of the values that never change, no matter what century you're in—determination, patience, accountability and hard work. Your group will love this program—we guarantee it!

A VISIT WITH MARY TODD LINCOLN
(one-person, 30 minutes)

OR

AN EVENING WITH MARY AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(two-person, 90 minutes)

A fascinating one- or two-person play for your annual conference, spouse entertainment, or corporate program. Dressed authentically and using Mary Lincoln’s "own words," M. Kay duPont, author of the award-winning Loving Mr. Lincoln: The Personal Diaries of Mary Todd Lincoln, will enthrall you with details and stories from the Lincoln family. Add in appearances by Abraham, and they will take you back to the 1800s, inside their life together, and all the way from Springfield, Illinois, to the White House.

You’ll learn firsthand about Mary Lincoln’s pain and frustration when Abraham left her at the altar, when her young sons died, and when Abraham Lincoln’s political career seemed to be at an end. When Mr. Lincoln joins his wife, you’ll also hear his heartbreaking thoughts on slavery and the Civil War, get to enjoy him read the Emancipation Proclamation and recite the Gettysburg Address, and hear their toughs on whether he should run for the Presidency. You’ll discover how and why Mary pushed her quiet husband in that direction, and share her joy when she finally achieves her life-long ambition of reaching the presidency.

When you leave this program, you’ll feel like you’ve been allowed inside the life of one of the world’s most famous couples to share their life and love. You’ll also be reminded of the values that never change, no matter what century you’re in—determination, dreams, and love.

The Magic Is You! is highly motivational, dynamic, and thought-provoking. It works well as an opening conference presentation because it sets the stage for continued learning and being totally "present" at the conference opportunity.

Navigating The High C's is a fast-moving, humorous look at the events that surround every businessperson - change, communication, computerization, competition, and culture change. It ends with the always-needed message that "If it's to be, it's up to me."

Business etiquette, professional appearance, strategies for career advancement, planning and attending meetings, being more successful on the telephone, office protocol, and many other tricks of the trade for businesses and businesspeople. May be enhanced with Kay's book, her cassette program, What Is A Professional?; and her video, How Your Image Affects Your Future.

Title Ideas:

• Business Etiquette And Professionalism
• How Your Image Affects Your Future
• Working With People From Other Cultures
• Your Company's Image Is Your Company!
• Cultural Protocol
• Friendly Fire

Practical tips and logical how-tos for understanding and building rapport with other people, functioning as a team, genderflexing, getting along with different cultures, relating to the corporate hierarchy, and overcoming defeating body language. Can include personality styles and neurolinguistic programming. Can also focus on Workforce 2000 and the dangers prejudice and discrimination.

Topics may include how to overcome podium fear, write a strong persuasive or informative presentation, use visual aids effectively, deliver the presentation, handle questions and difficult questioners, and customize for your particular group. We frequently adapt these programs, especially for sales and customer service groups, and include communication as it relates to sales, persuasion, overcoming lack of customer interest, speaking the customer's language, and the nonverbals that can kill a sale.

Writing for Today's Busy Readers (and Writers)
Writing ability is a highly important skill in today’s communication-overloaded business world. Whether email, letters, sales materials, explanatory documents, internal memos, or proposals, your documents need to say what you mean, appeal to busy readers, and showcase you and your organization in the most professional way possible.

The most common writing problems today are wordiness, lack of clarity, poor organization, inappropriate style or tone, failure to clearly state the purpose of the correspondence, and neglecting to ask for the outcome. Sound familiar?

If your employees or executives have been out of school for more than five years, they probably need a writing update. The rules have changed and styles have changed. Today’s readers are more time-conscious, less formal, more easily offended, less easily impressed. Tomorrow’s readers will be younger, and they will want to read even faster and more easily.

Your business correspondence needs to be as up to date and professional as your products and services, and your documents need to show every reader that you care about your image—and that you care about them.

How to Proofread Like a Pro
Typos, punctuation errors and grammatical mistakes not only make you and your staff or manager look bad, they cost your organization money because of the time spent proofreading and correcting mistakes and then proofreading again.

This program will help writers, assistants and typesetters save time and money because they will learn the most common and embarrassing mistakes found in correspondence and how to avoid them. They will discover effective techniques to cut proofreading time in half. They'll also learn to use simple tools that will double accuracy.

Kay uses a combination of lecture, class participation, visuals, and worksheets to help participants actually learn how to proofread. As a professional writer, editor and proofreader, and as author of a best-selling writing stylebook, Don't Let Your Participles Dangle in Public!, Kay brings to this program an understanding of all types of writing. Her knowledge of the American language is outstanding. She uses comprehensive and practical information, humor, solid advice, group discussion, and lots of skill practice to help participants improve their proofreading skills and remember the methods.

Grammar for Grownups
Writing ability is a highly important skill in today’s world, but to be a good writer, you have to have a good foundation. Grammar is that foundation.

Are Grammar and Usage More Important than Vocabulary?
Vocabulary is certainly important, but the skill to weave words together and use them to their best advantage may be even more vital. The magic computer keys required for this ability is grammar. Words—as irreplaceable as they are—are only words; it takes a careful hand, study, practice, and knowledge of grammar and style rules to make words, as Rudyard Kipling called them, "the most powerful drug used by mankind."

Why Is Writing Difficult for Some People?
The more I work with people to help them communicate moreeffectively, the more I realize that the major problem with English is its rules, and the problem with the rules is their complexity. I believe the study of communication can be fun. Communicating, particularly in writing, is a skill of logic—just like the logic you use in a puzzle. The pieces are the parts of speech and the object is to put them together into a complete picture.

Good writing requires the ability to analyze, make judgments, discover relationships between words and phrases, and communicate with others in a way that makes sense and will cause action. If you can follow the instructions for installing software, beat the computer at Solitaire, put in spark plugs, read a cookbook, or keep up with the day-to-day problems of family, work and life, understanding the rules of composition and using them to write more effectively should be no problem at all.

How to Excel at Editing
Your organization’s image will improve. If your outbound and web materials don’t reflect quality, people won’t expect your products or services to have quality either. This program will help you greatly reduce the misspelled words, incorrect grammar, poorly worded sentences, outdated letter and memo styles, and other problems that hurt your organization’s image.

You’ll save time. You’ll eliminate the worry about punctuation, spelling, proofreading and correcting errors. No more searching through dictionaries, asking others for advice, and retyping correspondence because of grammatical errors.

You’ll save money. According to the Dartnell Institute of Business Research, the cost of the average business letter is now as much as $18.54. At that rate, not one person in your group can afford to waste time.

You’ll be more confident. Confidence is critical to productivity. This workshop will not only improve your skills, it will make you feel better about yourself, your career and your written output.