Command Attention with Your Body Language

Many of Norma’s brilliant ideas went unheard during the business presentation to the company’s international stakeholders. Her body language was stealing attention from her content.

As she spoke, she paced relentlessly from side to side. While she wore a groove in the floor, her arms hung lifelessly at her sides.

INJECTING FLAIR

Many people I work with get that using physical movements and hand gestures to underscore a point or to call attention to something can add panache to speech delivery.

But often, they go awry when they try to support their talks and presentations with these nonverbal delivery skills.

Knowing how to use gestures and physical movements is particularly important for higher-level professionals.

Not only do they need to convey the nuances of policies and ideas, but they must do it across all levels of the hierarchy and even across cultures while communicating globally.

Your body language should say, “I am here and you are going to want to hear what I have to say because my words are going to add lots of value to your work and lives.”

But it must come from the heart.

Just as they can smell phoniness in words, audiences can tell when physical movements are artificial.

Here’s a look at the do’s and don’ts of gestures and physical movements in speaking.

GESTURES

Some typical problems:

• Sending a fuzzy or wrong message
• Overdoing it so the gestures become predictable and distracting
• Underdoing it so the talk gets no help to keep it from becoming pedestrian

The cause of these faux pas? Usually, it’s nerves.

What you don’t want is for gestures born of anxiety to become more interesting to the audience than the speech. So follow these tips:

• Use gestures purposefully to punctuate or illustrate your talk.
• Develop a vocabulary of gestures. For example, to highlight an important point, have your two palms facing inward, fingers and thumbs extended (or do the same thing with one hand, keeping other at your side).
• Some other gestures are pictured below:

• However, remember that perceptions vary among people, and gestures can get unintended interpretations
• Be clear. Does your gesture truly support or reinforce your words?
• Learn to tell when you’re producing gestures out of anxiety – and stop them from distorting your message
• If you use too many gestures, practice speaking while sitting on your hands or keeping them in your pockets. Or try speaking with just one hand in your pocket.

PHYSICAL MOVEMENTS

Many people need liberation from standing stock still. However, others need to be reminded not to walk restlessly from side to side or back and forth.

Again, you don’t want to become more interesting than the presentation by indulging in physical movements that are anxiety-driven. Nor do you want to induce boredom by standing still.

• See the speaking area as an inverted triangle with you at the apex. Strive to share yourself with different areas of the audience by naturally moving to each point of the triangle. A good time to do this would be as you finish one major section and begin another.
• But also use the technique of stopping in your tracks to underscore a particularly dramatic point of your delivery.
• Be sure to share eye contact generously. If you find it distracting to look directly into people’s eyes, then look just above their eyes at their foreheads – from a distance you will appear to be looking them squarely in the eyes.
• While you’re finding your feet, it’s OK to pick out one person and look directly into their eyes (or at their forehead).

• Be mindful of the potential of lecterns or podiums to block your interaction with the crowd. Unless you need to stand behind the lectern because of a microphone, come out from behind it and interact with the crowd.
• Avoid gripping the sides or top of it tightly with your hands – doing so adds tension to your body that will be visible to audience members.
• Always strive to look presentable through good grooming and an overall tidy appearance. This shows you respect for the audience, the situation and yourself. But dress appropriately for the audience you are speaking to, given the occasion and the forum.
• To make an impact, you want to come out with your shoulders back, head held high, projecting an air of majesty.

EXUDE CONFIDENCE

You'll ensure you'll have natural physical movements on the speaking stage by preparing to feel confident.

Avoid reciting rehearsed scripts. Unless you need to give a speech where every word has to be authorized, it’s better to use key words – core words and phrases that speak to you emotionally.

That will allow you to speak as if fresh ideas and words are occurring to you spontaneously. The more relaxed you feel, the easier it will be for you to have natural-looking body language when you address the crowd.

Remember, the sole purpose of your physical movements is to underscore or punctuate the content of your talk.

Like a dot over an i, when you've got them working together with your words, the impact can be powerful.

And make your talk unforgettable.

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You Have the Power in Your Hands to Compel Other People to Follow Your Calls to Action

Where does this miraculous energy come from? Your emotions.

You can get people to bond with you by opening up about how something you’re talking about makes you feel.

If you can touch them with the revelation of your feelings, they will move toward you. That’s a natural law of communication.

Find out more about how to get that buy-in by clicking on the photo below.

Leadership and Influence Go Hand in Hand

“You cannot be a leader without being influential,” says Gary C. Laney. He is a keynote speaker, bestselling author, leadership expert and serial entrepreneur who was my guest this summer on my talk show, “Speakers Who Think Differently.”?

Gary, who lives in Utah, has 35 years of executive management, start-up and business growth experience with 20 companies.??

Always, he says, his mission has been to provide value to whatever industry he’s been working in.??His background includes domain expertise in business networking, e-commerce, sales process, customer relationship management, business process management, content/document management and search.??

In his bestseller, “The Power of Strategic Influence,” Gary dives into the essentials of leadership and networking.?

Find out more golden nuggets on how to gain influence from Gary by clicking on the image below.

MICHAEL'S MOTIVATING MISSIVE

Despite its reputation, positive thinking isn't all that powerful.

Not without a positive ACTION to accompany it.

So if self-doubt holds you back from taking a self-improvement program, the cure isn't simply to embrace a positive mindset.

It's to act.

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And remember, as the US business consultant and author Price Pritchett says: "If you must doubt something, doubt your limits."

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