Some Personal Words About Meryl

Meryl Runion
Hi!
I’m Meryl Runion. I have a middle and a maiden name, but I won’t share those with you. My middle and maiden name are less spellable and harder to pronounce than my first and married name. I’m half Icelandic, and although I am proud of my heritage, “Meryl Runion” is more than most people can get right.

I get called Merle Runin and Merle Runyon and Merrill Runyan and Merly Reunion and Meryle Runyan. I get called other things too, but I won’t go in to that. My first name is the same as Meryl Streep’s name, and my last name is union with an R. My last name rhymes with onion.


I grew up in Minneapolis and moved to Nashville, Tennessee when I was eleven. That was a shock! Nashville has changed a lot since I lived there, but I can say I never quite cracked the cultural code. I didn’t know the rules and it sure seemed like there were a lot of them. I say that because I seemed to break every rule there was. Nashville became a major lesson in holding my tongue. It took a long time for me to unlearn that tongue-holding lesson.

Some Boats Need to Be Rocked Caricature I tell the story of how and why I stopped being silent in my article, Some Boats Need to Be Rocked.

Article Link

That article tells you a lot about who I am now, and why. It tells you why learning to SpeakStrong is so important to me,,,and my audiences.

I have a son, David, who is 30 now. Here he is standing for the first time. He was beaming with pride! He should have been proud - he was only four months old.

 




Here's David sitting in the dishwasher with his father, the late Mike Runion.



Here's David now.....

My, things have changed!

 





Now I live in Cascade, Colorado which is outside of Colorado Springs. Here's the view from my office window. This is what I see when I write in the winter. This is what i look at when I give webinars.

 

Meryl's Husband Bob

I live with my second husband Bob.

                    This picture is a bit more representative.....

 

 

 

 

We have a cat named Cindi. Bob didn't like cats when I got Cindi, but he's grown into a fan. He credits her with opening his heart. She's very popular around Cascade. She's good at catching mice, too.

Here's Cindi in her favorite spot - on my desk. She's one of my muses.

 

 

 


This is my father and step-mom.

This picture is so them. My Dad is an absent-minded professor. My step mom is the southern belle without the belle. I mean that in a good way - she's very down-to-earth.

My own mother died in 1989.




She was an actress. Pretty good at it, too. She was a Technicolor lady.

I have a brother and a half-sister. My half-sister is the normal one in the family.

 

I, of course, am a blend of them all. Balancing my father's brilliance with my mother's vibrancy, with a dash of my step-mom's hospitality. Adding my late husband's business acumen with my son's joy of living and my current husband's service orientation.

And of course that really means that being my authentic self means being multidimensional, and communicating is about finding ways to express as many parts of my nature as I can in simple, graceful expressions. And helping others to express themselves too. It's what I do, and I'd love to help you or yor organization.

What can I help you say today?

I've go words and scripts, tools and tips. Books and tapes and MP3s and lots of ways you can connect with me. I've discovered how to communicate authentically, and I can help you do that too.

Sincerely,
         Meryl

Meryl Runion's formal biography is Here

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Meryl Runion and Speak Strong (SpeakStrong) provides Power Phrases (PowerPhrases) and other tools to help you improve communication skills at work and at home. You can read more about her at www.speakstrong.com.

Meryl is the author of six books on communication that have sold over a quarter million copies worldwide, including Speak Strong, PowerPhrases!, How to Use PowerPhrases, Perfect Phrases for Managers and Supervisors, and How to Say It: Performance Reviews. You can reach her at 719-684-2633, or by email:

You can also follow Meryl on Twitter: http://twitter.com/merylrunion.