Blog Archives
A Skill That Can Be Learned
WIN BEFORE YOU SPEAK explores how posture, facial expressions, eye contact, vocal tone, gestures, pacing, and physical presence shape trust and authority. Why was this an important book for you to write?
For years, I’ve watched talented professionals lose opportunities not because they lacked knowledge or expertise, but because their body sent a completely different message than they intended. They prepared the perfect presentation, knew their material, and chose the right words, yet they still struggled to earn trust, influence decisions, or be seen as confident leaders.
I wanted to write the book I wish more professionals had years ago: one that explains not only what body language matters, but how to develop it through practical training. Nonverbal communication is not a talent people are born with. It is a skill that can be learned, practiced, and improved.
My goal was to create a practical playbook rather than another book people read once and forget. Every chapter is designed to help readers apply what they learn immediately so they can become more confident, trustworthy, and influential in real business situations.
Many people think communication is primarily about words. Why do you believe our physical presence often has such a strong impact?
People often believe communication is mostly about words. In reality, our brain begins evaluating a person before we consciously process what they are saying. It immediately looks for answers to simple questions: Can I trust this person? Are they confident? Are they competent? Are they genuine?
Body language is humanity’s oldest language. It existed long before spoken language and allowed people to communicate through facial expressions, posture, movement, eye contact, and vocal cues. Although speech transformed the way we communicate, this ancient nonverbal system never disappeared. It remains deeply ingrained in us, and we continue to interpret these signals automatically and intuitively, often without realizing it.
One of the clearest examples is the communication between a mother and her newborn. Before a baby can speak, every need is expressed through facial expressions, body movements, eye contact, crying, and vocal sounds. A mother instinctively understands many of these signals without a single word. This shows that nonverbal communication is not something we learn later in life—it is part of our natural human wiring.
Words explain information, but nonverbal communication shapes how believable that information feels. When verbal and nonverbal messages are aligned, people perceive authenticity and confidence. When they conflict, people often place greater weight on what they see than on what they hear.
That is why improving communication is not only about choosing better words. It is about making sure your presence supports your message instead of unintentionally weakening it.
You write about the importance of entering a room with composure and confidence. What are some simple changes people can make to improve their first impression?
Most people focus on what they will say first. I encourage them to focus on what people see before they speak.
Simple changes make a remarkable difference. Slow your pace instead of rushing into the room. Stand tall with relaxed shoulders. Make genuine eye contact before speaking. Allow yourself a brief pause instead of filling every second with movement or words. Keep your gestures natural and purposeful, and let your facial expression reflect openness rather than tension.
Another overlooked habit is becoming aware of nervous behaviors such as fidgeting, constantly adjusting clothing, touching the face, or avoiding eye contact. These small actions can unintentionally communicate uncertainty. A strong first impression is not about looking perfect. It is about appearing calm, present, and comfortable enough for others to feel confident in you.
What daily practices can readers use to strengthen their communication presence?
Like any other professional skill, communication presence improves through consistent practice rather than occasional effort.
I encourage readers to spend just a few minutes each day becoming more aware of how they communicate. Record short videos of yourself speaking, observe your posture, facial expressions, gestures, and vocal delivery, and identify one small improvement at a time. Practice maintaining eye contact, slowing your speaking pace, and using purposeful pauses instead of rushing through conversations.
Equally important is observing others. Notice how confident leaders use silence, movement, voice, and body language to create trust and authority.
Small daily improvements compound over time. The goal is not to become someone else or perform confidence. It is to remove the nonverbal habits that hold you back so your expertise, confidence, and personality can be seen clearly by everyone around you.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
The problem? Most professionals have no idea what their body is actually saying.
This practical playbook equips you with the invisible tools used by top deal-makers, negotiators, and leaders who influence others without raising their voices.
In negotiations, leadership conversations, sales meetings, and presentations, people form impressions within seconds. Long before you finish your first sentence, your posture, gestures, eye contact, and micro-signals shape how others interpret your confidence, credibility, and authority.
It’s not luck. It’s nonverbal mastery — the quiet language that determines who leads and who follows.
Instead of theory, this book provides more than 100 clear tools, structured techniques, and actionable exercises you can apply in real professional situations.
Drawing on years of experience analyzing nonverbal communication in business environments, Tetyana Didenko, a nonverbal communication analyst, combines real-world case studies, behavioral and neuroscience insights, and practical methods to show how subtle signals shape trust, decision-making, and leadership perception.
Inside this playbook, you will learn how to:
• command attention the moment you enter a room
• influence decisions before the conversation begins
• read people with precision and detect hidden resistance
• eliminate nonverbal habits that weaken your authority
• guide conversations toward agreement without pressure
This book is designed for professionals who want practical methods they can apply immediately, including:
• leaders and executives
• entrepreneurs and business owners
• sales professionals
• negotiators and consultants
• professionals who want to strengthen their influence and presence
Mastering nonverbal communication gives you an advantage that words alone cannot provide.
Because in many professional situations, the outcome is shaped before the conversation even begins.
Apostolic Technologies – Supernatural Algorithms
David Stafford’s Apostolic Technologies: Supernatural Algorithms is a bold, scripture-rich exploration of how divine knowledge becomes spiritual practice. Stafford takes familiar language from technology, including coding, operating systems, DNA, input values, and algorithms, and uses it to explain the orderly ways God works through revelation, obedience, prayer, unity, and apostolic ministry. The concept gives the book a distinctive vocabulary and makes its central message clear: spiritual power isn’t random, and biblical principles are meant to be understood, applied, and lived.
The book begins by building a theological foundation around the first and last Adam, the apostolic seed, spiritual rebirth, and the believer’s new identity in Christ. From there, Stafford develops his vision of the church as a living body carrying divine truth, nurturing relationships, and an apostolic mission. His teaching is energetic and direct, moving between close readings of Scripture, word studies, scientific comparisons, church history, and personal ministry experience. It feels less like a quiet devotional and more like sitting in an intensive training session with a teacher who expects readers to engage, think, and act.
As the book progresses, its focus widens from personal identity to corporate reformation. Stafford calls for an active, Spirit-led church marked by apostolic and prophetic partnership, spiritual unity, courageous leadership, and practical obedience. His chapters on ancient Israel’s technologies, laying on of hands, spiritual confrontation, and the dangers of controlling leadership all serve this larger vision. The language of systems and processes helps connect subjects that might otherwise seem unrelated, showing them as parts of one spiritual framework designed to equip believers for service.
The final chapters on fasting bring the book’s ideas into their most practical form. Stafford presents fasting as consecration, spiritual warfare, disciplined desire, corporate agreement, and persistent prayer, with Daniel’s twenty-one-day fast serving as a powerful closing model. Throughout the book, his conviction is unmistakable: believers have been given more than a place in the pew, they’ve been given an identity, an assignment, and spiritual tools for carrying it out. Apostolic Technologies turns biblical revelation into a working blueprint for believers who are ready to move from spiritual potential to kingdom action.
Pages: 182 | ASIN : B0BKTMKDP7
Protecting Creativity
The B2B Reset is built around the idea of “buyability,” which is described as a brand’s lasting ability to stay top of mind and be selected when a buyer’s need eventually emerges. What inspired you to write this book?
Over the last few years, I have been incredibly fortunate to be part of a global community of people focused on progressing the thinking behind what best-in-class B2B marketing looks like today. I found myself in conversations with some of the smartest minds in the discipline, exploring ideas around brand, creativity, effectiveness, buying behaviour and, increasingly, Buyability.
What struck me was what a privilege it was to have access to those conversations, and how fragmented much of that thinking still was for the broader marketing community. I wanted to bring those ideas together into one simple, practical handbook that a CMO could read, but equally the most junior marketer in her team could pick up and use to understand what world-class B2B marketing looks like now.
At the centre of the book is Buyability because it fundamentally reframes how we think about the job of B2B marketing. A buyer may encounter your marketing months or even years before a genuine category need emerges. When that moment eventually comes, the question is whether your brand is already present in their consideration set and feels credible, familiar, and easy to choose.
That is really what inspired the book: a desire to make the best current thinking in B2B more accessible, practical and useful to the people doing the work every day.
What misconceptions do companies often have about how their customers actually make buying decisions?
One of the ideas I challenge in the book is the myth of rational consensus. B2B buying processes look incredibly rational on paper. There are committees, procurement processes, evidence, validation, and business cases. But underneath all of that are human beings navigating risk, emotion, identity and accountability.
Buyers don’t arrive at a decision carrying only the information presented to them at that moment. They bring everything they have seen, heard, felt and inferred about a brand over time. Eventually, something gives them enough confidence to act. That means every interaction before the buying moment matters because it is either making that future decision easier or harder.
That is why confidence is such an important idea throughout the book. In complex B2B decisions, where buying committees are larger, and the consequences of a poor decision can be significant, the challenge is not simply persuading one buyer. It is building enough accumulated confidence for multiple people to believe this is a choice they can support.
What does a B2B brand need to do differently to remain memorable during long, complex buying cycles?
The first thing is to accept that memory is part of the commercial strategy.
Buyability is built through the long, patient work of becoming mentally available to people who may not be in-market today. A buying decision might ultimately happen quite quickly, but it can draw on years of accumulated impressions about a brand.
That places a premium on consistency, distinctiveness and meaning. Every interaction should leave something behind. It might strengthen familiarity, reinforce trust, express a point of view or create a little more confidence. Over a long buying cycle, those effects accumulate. Brand creates preference, familiarity and confidence, while demand converts that accumulated confidence into action when the buyer is ready.
For me, this is also why creativity matters so much in B2B. Buyers cannot choose a brand they don’t remember. In markets where several organisations may be perfectly credible and capable, being understood, trusted and easy to choose becomes a genuine commercial advantage.
What advice would you give to teams trying to protect creativity while operating under increasing pressure for short-term performance?
I would start by looking very carefully at what your measurement system is rewarding. Measurement is one of the most powerful forces shaping behaviour inside a marketing organisation. If we reward only immediate response and clean attribution, we shouldn’t be surprised when the work becomes narrower, experimentation becomes harder to defend, and longer-term brand building starts to look indulgent.
Protecting creativity doesn’t mean protecting it from commercial accountability. It means being much more rigorous about what different parts of the marketing system are designed to achieve, over what timeframe, and therefore how they should be measured. Some work exists to convert demand today. Other work is creating preference and confidence that will make future demand easier and less expensive to convert. A mature marketing organisation needs to be capable of valuing both.
The line from the book I would come back to is that good measurement should make it easier to defend the right bets, not harder. Creativity and commercial discipline belong together. When performance loses creative ambition, it becomes indistinguishable, and when creativity loses commercial pressure, it can become self-referential. The strongest work holds both at once.
Author Links: GoodReads | LinkedIn | Amazon
The B2B Reset is a practical handbook for the modern marketer navigating that gap.
It explores the real questions B2B marketers face every day, from brand and demand to creativity, measurement, AI, and the complexity of buying groups. It strips away jargon and outdated thinking to offer a clearer, more coherent way to approach the discipline as it exists now.
Written for marketers at every stage of their career, from those building their foundations to those leading entire teams, this is a book designed to be used; picked up, applied, and returned to when the work gets harder.
THE SILENT BULLY. A Journey from Abusive Brain Chatter to Self-Love: A Personal Transformation Self-Help Book
The Silent Bully is a memoir-infused self-help book about recognizing and changing the cruel inner dialogue that Jacquie Elliott calls “Abusive Brain Chatter.” Elliott draws from her experiences with depression, compulsive eating, unhealthy relationships, childhood expectations, sexuality, parenting, work, body image, and aging. Her central framework is easy to remember: become Aware of the abusive voice, Believe in a kinder inner source, and Challenge the core beliefs feeding the criticism. That structure gives the book a clear direction even as it moves through many areas of personal life.
The book’s most engaging quality is Elliott’s willingness to be open about her own history. She describes moments of shame, addiction, fear, family conflict, sexual trauma, and self-sabotage without presenting herself as someone who has reached a flawless state of healing. Her account of lying in bed, eating compulsively, and listening to an inner voice tell her she’d never change gives the concept immediate emotional weight. Later stories about training for a triathlon, building healthier relationships, setting boundaries, and creating a satisfying life show how her transformation happened gradually. The tone often feels like a candid coaching conversation with someone who’s been through the struggle herself.
This is also very much a working book rather than something meant to be read passively. The “Self-Love Work” sections ask readers to rate the severity of their self-talk, identify triggers, journal about fear and shame, examine inherited beliefs, clarify values, practice meditation, create affirmations, set manageable goals, and work through resentment and forgiveness. Elliott uses memorable terms such as “Tornado Head” for escalating thought spirals, along with practical tools like grounding exercises, breathing methods, visualization, SMART goals, gratitude practices, and progress tracking. Spirituality is woven deeply into the method, but she defines a Higher Power or Loving Source broadly, allowing readers to interpret it through religion, nature, inner wisdom, community, or another compassionate presence.
I’d recommend The Silent Bully most strongly to readers who recognize that their self-talk has become harsh, repetitive, and limiting, especially those who enjoy a blend of personal testimony, spiritual reflection, journaling, and hands-on exercises. It may also resonate with people recovering from emotional abuse, codependency, addiction, difficult family patterns, or long-held feelings of inadequacy. Readers who take their time with the prompts will probably get more from it than those who rush straight through. At its heart, the book is a warm, earnest invitation to stop treating self-criticism as truth and begin building an inner relationship based on patience, responsibility, and genuine care.
Pages: 318 | ASIN : B0FXHM1XP8
The Spiritual Journey
In Into the Flow, you share an open account of your search for spiritual freedom throughout decades of grief, Catholic certainty, marriage, work, money, divorce, and desire. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I wanted to write the book I couldn’t find when my life split open; I was drowning in the questions, and suddenly couldn’t seem to relate to anyone or anything around me, including my old self.
There were plenty of books out there offering help. Self-help. Psychology. Spirituality. Many made big promises. (You name it, I read it!) There were also great novels to get lost in. I was devouring all of the above, but what I craved was the best of both worlds: a story with one continuous narrative arc about someone on a spiritual journey, but that was grounded, honest, and realistic.
I wanted a book that told the truth about spiritual awakening. What does it really look like when your life falls apart and you start rethinking everything: your beliefs, identity, career, marriage, and all your old notions of success? Where was the book that portrayed the seeker who’s not only wrestling with the questions but trying to embody those new revelations through the messy realities of grief, money, and day-to-day life? I wanted the book that would have made me feel less alone in my journey: the confusion, absurdity, missteps, and especially the humor. Because life is pretty ridiculous, so let’s all have a laugh about it, you know?
Anyway… I couldn’t find that book, so I wrote it!
What was the most challenging part of revisiting your experiences on the page?
At first, lawd, it was just getting the experiences down in whatever form I could!
In the very beginning, I decided the easiest way for me to start this monster was to send myself emails. I literally created a brand new email account dedicated solely to this endeavor of seeing what sorts of things wanted to emerge. I’d set aside an hour, sometimes less, sometimes more, open a blank compose-email screen, and write. Some of the stories were funny, and I laughed my way through writing them. Some were gut-wrenching. Some made no sense at all. I didn’t judge or censor, and I definitely didn’t tell myself I was writing a book. I was simply allowing creation… and it was arguably the most fun part of the process. No pressure or expectations—just the joy of it.
Then came the larger challenge: How do I wrangle all these random, disparate stories into one cohesive narrative? Gah! And how do I find a voice that can hold both humor and depth?
That took years to nail down.
But, looking back, wow: what an amazing, totally mind-blowing thing the creative process is.
You write openly about the desire to be rescued by something outside ourselves. Why do you think that longing is so universal?
I’ve given this one a lot of thought over the years. Many psychologists and spiritual teachers talk about this “oceanic feeling” we have as infants, where we don’t experience ourselves as separate from everything around us. There’s just… this sense of oneness.
As we grow and develop, a story of “me” starts to come online. (In Western cultures arguably even more than others.) We start to see ourselves as separate individuals with our own identities, and personalities. We develop our own particular brand of fears, defenses, and conditioning. This separation is a completely natural and necessary part of being human.
However, my personal take is that the moment we start to experience ourselves as separate, there also begins a longing for that deeper sense of connection we remember.
Many call this the wound of separation.
And so begins the journey of seeking that connection, that love, outside of ourselves: parental approval, societal approval. If we are raised religious: approval from the God-man-in-the-sky. We start to associate safety with achievement, performance, certainty, beliefs, roles, money, success, or simply staying so busy and numb we no longer feel the longing and discontent anymore. With childhood trauma, often this seeking and suffering is even more magnified.
Over time, we get further and further from our inner knowing.
For me, the spiritual journey – call it awakening, self-actualization, individuation, whatever term you prefer – is about getting back to that inner knowing. Slowly peeling back all the fears, defenses, and patterns we’ve accumulated so we can remember who we really are and reconnect with the deeper wisdom, wholeness, and aliveness that was there all along but just maybe got buried for a while.
From that place, in my experience, we can start partnering with life differently. Instead of trying to force life to conform to our perfect little script, we begin trusting its twists and turns a little more. We fight with reality a little less.
Personally, the more I’ve trusted life, the more I’ve come to see that life really isn’t something “out there” happening to me… I am life, and life is me. It’s all one unfolding. Life on Earth may drive me absolutely bonkers sometimes—Christ on a bike, the endless minutiae!—but there’s an intelligence there that’s often a lot smarter than I am. I’ve found I’m much better off partnering with it than resisting it. Life always wins anyway. Ha!
That said, please: we’re human. We’re going to lose our footing. Maybe we just get a little better at returning to ourselves when we wobble. As they say in yoga, the master isn’t the one who holds the perfect pose uninterrupted. She’s the one who knows how to return to the pose after falling out of it… and learns to laugh more at the absurdity of it all.
What does living “in the flow” look like for you today?
Great question! I’ll answer with a story.
Seven years ago or so, I kept hitting obstacles trying to publish this book. None of the various next steps felt right. I just couldn’t find the spark needed to take this book across the finish line, and I was deeply discouraged by this. After all that work… now just… nothing?
Then one day, on a winter trip to San Pancho, Mexico, still feeling lost around the whole thing, my partner Greg looked at me and asked, “What would we do right now if we weren’t afraid?”
Five months later, I’d put the book on ice, we’d sold our house in DC, our cars, and just about everything we owned… and spent the next six-plus years vagabonding around the planet while working remotely. Definitely NOT the original plan, but best detour ever.
Then COVID hit while we were in the middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile.
We scrambled onto one of the last flights back to the States, canceled six months of travel plans, and ended up wandering around the U.S. until the world reopened. One of those unexpected detours led us to Asheville, North Carolina, which eventually became our home… and where it finally felt right to bring this book across the finish line.
Absolutely none of it was part of the plan.
That’s what living in flow means to me now. Not the shiny Instagram version where everyone’s perfectly aligned and somehow has amazing lighting 24/7, but the kind with uncertainty, frustration, plot twists… where life has its own timeline.
For me, it’s about listening inward while also learning to partner with life. Taking ownership of the choices that are mine to make, but letting go of the illusion that I have to control every outcome. More often than not, I’ve found that life has much better ideas than I do. Or as Byron Katie writes, “Let life live you. It does anyway.” Maybe easier said than done sometimes! But it rings true to me.
Author Links: GoodReads | Instagram | Facebook | Website | Amazon
What would you let go of to be free—to live a life that feels truly yours?
When loss and burnout upend her life, Kathleen Branigan launches a quest for truth . . . and ends up with an existential crisis. She questions her Catholic faith, devours self-help books, goes skydiving, earns a master’s in religious studies, and ventures into the Amazon for five back-to-back nights of ayahuasca.
Into the Flow is a funny, soul-baring memoir for anyone seeking answers to life’s Big Questions, healing from heartbreak, or craving deeper purpose when the old maps stop working. Through encounters with spiritual teachers and therapists, plus a few wild adventures, Kathleen discovers what she’s looking for isn’t found in miracle cures or endless self-improvement, but in trusting herself again.
If you’re navigating fear, uncertainty, awakening, or reinvention, Into the Flow offers laughter, honesty, and a reminder: freedom emerges when you stop the search and start creating a life that’s your own.
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Fiction
The Literary Titan Book Award honors books that exhibit exceptional storytelling and creativity. This award celebrates novelists who craft compelling narratives, create memorable characters, and weave stories that captivate readers. The recipients are writers who excel in their ability to blend imagination with literary skill, creating worlds that enchant and narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Award Recipients
Restoration by Laura Brooke
Even Angels Wear Leather Jackets and Ride Motorcycles by J.A. McGovern
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Nonfiction
The Literary Titan Book Award recognizes outstanding nonfiction books that demonstrate exceptional quality in writing, research, and presentation. This award is dedicated to authors who excel in creating informative, enlightening, and engaging works that offer valuable insights. Recipients of this award are commended for their ability to transform complex topics into accessible and compelling narratives that captivate readers and enhance our understanding.
Award Recipients
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Literary Titan Silver Book Award
Celebrating the brilliance of outstanding authors who have captivated us with their skillful prose, engaging narratives, and compelling real and imagined characters. We recognize books that stand out for their innovative storytelling and insightful exploration of truth and fiction. Join us in honoring the dedication and skill of these remarkable authors as we celebrate the diverse and rich worlds they’ve brought to life, whether through the realm of imagination or the lens of reality.
Award Recipients
Crescent City Requiem by Brian Kaufman
The Suicide Council by Victer Hugo Basurco
Departure from Innocence by WILLIAM WILSON
Steel & Ballast by Markella Kara
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
