Create Impact Through the Power of Your Feelings

IF YOU WANT TO STAND OUT as a speaker, let the audience catch you in the act of revealing deep feelings in public - feelings so strong and acute, you can't help letting them out.

Instinctively, the crowd will move to your side.

I learned first-hand the importance of emotion and of digging down into your stories to arouse the audience emotionally.

I was in a regional speaking contest, talking about my experience singing to my ailing mother in the last days of her life while she lay in a morphine-induced coma.

I had chosen to serenade Mom in her private room at the facility where she was living, because in the years before her debilitating stroke, she had enjoyed singing. Possessed of an uncanny ear for singing harmony, she had been in an amateur choir, and sometimes when we watched TV as a family, she would spontaneously join the movie or TV show actor singing, in perfect harmony.

OUR DYNAMIC DUET

My fondest memory of her, I told my audience, was the time the two of us sang a duet, over the kitchen sink, as we did dishes together. Mom washed and sang the harmony while I dried and sang the melody.

"Not only did our dishes sparkle," I told my contest audience, "but so did the harmonies we created as a mother-and-son vocal duo."

Now, at Mom's bedside, I told the crowd, I decided to sing love ballads from the 1930s and '40s, not only because they were in vogue when Mom was growing up, but also because they were the soundtrack of my parents' courting days.

(You can see the two of them, Albert and Gloria Barris, late in their lives, in the photo I'm gazing at atop this article.)

Dad had died the year before, and Mom had lamented on previous visits how much she missed him. I'd long heard that people in comas could hear you speak to them even if they didn't show it. I thought hearing these great old songs might bring Mom back momentarily.

And so, I pulled up a chair next to her bed and started crooning all the Great American Songbook love songs I could think of.

EXTRAORDINARY MOMENT

I had sung about 12 tunes when the extraordinary thing happened.

My mother was lying motionless in bed with her eyes closed as I sang Cole Porter's epic love song, "Night and Day." As I finished singing the first verse and was about to start the next line, which begins with the words, "night and day," Mom opened her mouth and started trying to sing along with me.

The caregiver and I looked at each other across the room; we could not believe what we were seeing.

I felt my speech audience grow still as I recounted pulling my chair closer to my mother, my feelings beginning to roil.

Speaking directly to the figure in bed, I said: "Mom, you love these old songs, don't you?"

And Mom, still lying motionless with her eyes closed, opened her mouth and said one word: "Yes."

And those were the last words I ever had with her.

Reliving my mother's demise and re-experiencing that one final incredible moment of bonding with her brought me to tears (as it is as I write this). It took me a moment to regain control of myself before I could carry on, but I did.

Needless to say, the speech had tremendous impact and I won the contest.

HOW TO DRAW IN CROWDS WITH FEELINGS

Here's my point:

• If publicly reliving pain - or joy - in front of an audience unnerves you, remember this: exposing your despair or delight to an audience is your key to capturing the hearts and minds of the crowd. When your listeners watch you deliver a report in a meeting, they can't help seeing you as a performer putting on a show on a stage. It's the way we're wired.

• Even if you've never thought of speaking as a performance and you don't tap-dance, play ukulele or do magic tricks publicly, the more you can use your emotions to communicate with the crowd, the greater the impact you will make.

• If you want to make a big impression on the crowd - be it in a meeting, a webinar or a keynote - pick a topic that resonates deeply with you. You don't have to have a tearful outburst, if it's not in you; you just have to be authentic.

• So if you are giving an update in a work meeting, do your best to find the things in the material that excite you, even if they are in short supply. Then do your best to engage with the emotions in your heart and let the audience see and feel you engaging with them. They will bond with you, and they will reward you by remembering what you told them.

• No matter what you feel, expressing genuine emotions will give your speech undeniable power. The most powerful people in the world are those who know how to relate to the crowd with their feelings. You can do it too.

• Use the recording tools on your phone or computer to record yourself practicing a talk or meeting comments. Then analyze the playback honestly. Is your eye contact direct and steady? Do you punctuate your words with relevant hand gestures and facial expressions? Do you over-do your use of your hands? Do you speak at an acceptable tempo to hold interest and move your message along? Do you stand or sit straight with a bit of majesty, and authority, like a leader? Do you try to be sensitive to how your words and actions are being taken in by the crowd?

• Get in the habit of critiquing your talks and presentations constructively and you'll be on your way to managing your emotions to create impact. And the senior managers who look for workers to promote will include you in their list because you'll have shown you know how to arouse curiosity in listeners, and to get them to bond with you, paving the way to get them to follow your calls to action.

What did you think of this article?

Did this piece resonate with you? Did you find it useful? Would you like to see more deep dives into public speaking topics like this? Please share your thoughts and feelings in the comments.

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MICHAEL'S MOTIVATING MISSIVE

If you know you want to cross the threshold to the next plateau in your career but feel worried about making an impact, overcoming speaking anxiety, or translating technical matters into simple English for your stakeholders, know that you not alone.

These issues can be managed successfully. It's a matter of helping you to take the first step.

And then, once you take the first step, you can take a second, and a third.

Because confidence is knowing that because you once did a little thing, you can do a bigger thing ...

THANKS FOR SPENDING TIME READING THIS NEWSLETTER! LET ME KNOW HOW YOU LIKED IT.

SEE YOU SOON ... UNLEASH THE POWER OF YOUR VOICE!

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

POSTSCRIPT ...

Join me on Tuesday at 2 pm ET on LinkedIn Live for the first broadcast of "Speakers Who Think Differently." These shows will introduce you to a variety of professionals who will talk about their body of work and how they use their public speaking skills to get their unconventional messages across. You'll learn lots of useful tips you can put back into your business, be it in speaking in meetings, webinars, media interviews, conferences or impromptu situations.

That's a wrap!