What Chekhov Taught Me

Every outstanding and memorable actor must learn how to relax, focus and “be in the moment”. A good actor understands in order to intellectually and emotionally convince their audience, they must be persuasive, relatable, and believable. (In other words, Logos, Pathos and Ethos, but let’s leave rhetoric for another blog post.)

This type of connection is also true for any effective public speaker, whether you’re in front of a large or small audience. If you want to be an influential speaker and reach many people with your message then you need to be fully present. The audience is innately intelligent, and they’ll know right away if you’re not present. Once they lose trust in you as a speaker, it will be very difficult to bring them back, hence your message will be lost. 

Personally, I don’t believe nervous energy ever goes away; instead, think of it as high-octane fuel. Learn how to focus your boundless energy on the objective and emotionally affecting your audience. By doing this, you'll get out of your head and be in the moment. Our nervousness becomes less as time goes on, but it's because we learned how to use the energy to our advantage.

The audience appreciates whenever we're present, and they measure this in the amount of energy we exude, and in our body language. First and foremost, the audience responds to the unspoken word.

Through many grueling years of stage training, I’ve become a technician of the craft. I developed many of communication skills through acting, namely Shakespeare and Chekhov. I learned how to deconstruct and remove habitual methods prevented me from performing at my peak. Needless to say, I don't always hit the ball out of the park, but I know how to make adjustments and that's the craft. 

However, I realize that many people's needs are different, and don’t have the luxury of years to learn such techniques. As a coach, I help my clients with their pitches and presentations to develop a solid system.

By having a good strategy it will eradicate the following:

Performance Anxiety

Vocal deadness

Nervous body language

Robotic and unemotional responses

Bored audience

Unsupported point of views

A sound strategy will allow you to have the following:

Conviction and a powerful sense of purpose

Know how to read your audience so you can respond to them authentically

Become a more engaging speaker

Soulfull storytelling skills

Convey your passion

Have an emotional impact

Be remembered

Close a sale

Love to hear your thoughts about this! As always you can find me here and at www.wintheroom.com