PLAY WITH THE STAGES A Guide To Public Speaking... “The most powerful speakers show up fully as their authentic selves. The more you return to who you are, the more impactful you’ll be.” Christine Kane When most speakers get on stage, they become someone entirely opposite to who they really are. They experience a feeling that they’re not enough, therefore they don’t utilise the stage and how they present their speech powerfully. The dilemma is they act. However, in public speaking, it necessarily isn’t about being someone else who you think would be great for a person to be in front of the audience. It’s more about being yourself and natural. After all, the audience have come to listen to none other than you! When you act or pretend to be someone else that you are not on stage, you instantly lose connection and the opportunity to build rapport with the audience. This chapter will cover building your confidence as a public speaker to be able to use the stage and your body language to deliver an authoritative speech so that your audience will get the most from seeing you and hearing you speak. Speaking on stage all starts with your body language. When delivering a speech or presentation, body language has the power to either help us deliver a successful speech or not. We can thrive if we pay attention to how we present ourselves in front of the audience, or fail if we allow our nerves and fear get the better of us. Motion creates emotion. Even if you’re experiencing nerves and fear, by standing more confidently, relaxed and comfortable, you will start to experience those feelings. The more you tense up, start to shake, and look around the room instead of at the front – you’ll continue to reinforce feelings of fear and doubts before you’ve even had the opportunity to deliver your speech to the audience. Here’s a tip: there are two sides when it comes to body language in presentations and events. The presenter’s body language (you) and the audience’s body language. It’s very important to under-stand how to read the body language of your audience, just as they’re able to read your body language. Otherwise, you may think you are delivering a powerful speech or presentation when the truth is, you’re making them uninterested, and boring them by the way you are delivering your speech! Perhaps you are missing an element of engaging the audience, empowering the audience, entertaining the audience, or educating the audience. Remember, you are the expert in the front of the room. People have come to learn from you; it is your responsibility to ensure you are able to understand exactly what your audience is feeling by their body language and change the method in which you are delivering your speech and
presentation. You want people to listen to you, not walk out from you because they aren’t feeling engaged enough at your event. You can send across a positive body language; however, you can also send across a signal of negative body language. When this happens, irrelevant of what you are sharing with the audience and how valuable the content may be, you’re literally giving your audience the vibe not to listen to you any longer because their time is being wasted. It takes less than seven seconds to leave a positive or negative impression on your audience as a speaker. Now that this has been established, here are a few types of body language to be aware of when you are on stage. “If you want to find the truth, do not listen to the words coming to you. Rather see the body language of the speaker. It speaks the facts not audible.” Bhavesh Chhatbar CONFIDENT BODY LANGUAGE In 2011, US Social psychologists Amy Cuddy, Dana Carney, and Andy Yap said that holding a ‘powerful pose’ results in people experiencing a feeling of power. Their theory suggests that an open pose can raise testosterone levels and lower your cortisol levels – meaning increase your dominance and lower your stress. Therefore, through standing confidently in front of the stage, you’re more likely to feel confident. Wouldn’t you want to feel confident on stage, particularly at times when you’re nervous or afraid? When you come on stage, it’s important to stand right in the middle and front of the stage. Make sure you are standing straight with your shoulders back and feet shoulder width apart. Your shoulders should open from one another so they can rest centrally while you start to give confident and open non-verbal message to the audience. Place your hands either side of your body and make sure it’s level with your chest so that you can easily make confident hand gestures when you need to. None of this will matter though if you are not facing your audience as much as possible. Make your audience feel included in your speech by tilting your body towards different parts of the audience when you are in a large room. This will make them want to become more engaged and listen to what you are telling them. EYE CONTACT I’ve seen many speakers scan the room with their eyes but try to avoid eye contact with the audience. This makes them come across less credible, less confident, and inauthentic to the audience. The speakers start to feel they’re panicking themselves. You don’t need to look at every single person in the room. Making eye contact with a few different individuals across the room is enough. Don’t forget to smile as you make eye contact to build a connection between them and you and they will begin to feel more valued by you. Increasing your credibility by doing this, your
audience will listen to you and trust you because you’ve made them feel important while establishing yourself as a confident and trustworthy speaker. When you are maintaining eye contact with people in a large group, you will want to maintain eye contact for about four seconds before scanning the room for another individual. Ensure that you’re making eye contact with as many members of the audience as possible. When a member from the audience asks questions, you will want to maintain eye contact with them for 9-10 seconds then break away otherwise you might intimidate or scare them off. Don’t make your audience feel uncomfortable so try your best to avoid appearing intense when making eye contact with the audience. Remember, if you can maintain eye contact with the audience and smile – they’ll also do the same to you which will make you both feel at ease with one another. Finally, eye contact will also help you assess how your audience are receiving your message or whether it’s time to get them involved in an activity or exercise to improve the learning environment. HAND GESTURES Hand gestures are the most crucial way to communicate to the audience whether a speaker is confident in their speeches, their deliverance, and have an excellent presence or if they’re uncomfortable in their speech, lack the ability to deliver their content, and have no presence on the stage. Of course, both speakers could have a great message and story to share, but the audience will respond differently depending on the hand gestures and body movements. When you understand how to use your hands as an extension of your message, it can enhance that message and make you appear more relaxed and confident as though you are in control of the room. Gestures also magnify your stories because it shows the audience in a non-verbal manner how we feel as we are speaking. There are few things to remember when you are using hand gestures as it has the potential to lose its impact if it isn’t being done correctly. The important thing to remember is not to overdo it. When you’re using hand gestures, use it intentionally, make it strong, defined, and relevant to the words you are using. Otherwise, it could cause distractions for the audience as they’re trying to pay attention to you. You can use: Symbolic gestures (if you were to give a takeaway to the audience, you can put up one ● finger for the number one while getting your audience to also mirror you) ● Descriptive gestures (Using your hand to describe the shape, size, length of objects or people) Emotional Gestures (Use your hand gestures to communicate how you felt or are feeling ● when you are telling a story, so hands may be clasped together to show pleading, or you may create a clenched fist to show you’re angry…) The great thing about hand gestures and eye contact is that if you have a slide or presentation in the background, the moment you point slightly and look at your presentation, the audience will
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