You’ve probably seen the speaker who was introduced as the expert rushing through as if the speech or presentation was taking up his/her precious time.
Or have you seen a speaker who is funny and humorous and even able to make you laugh a lot, but somehow you feel a distance with him/her?
Let alone speakers who are too nervous to reach out to you and connect with you.
You can have all the expertise, excellent platform skills, and past glorious achievements. If you fail to own the one single trait as a speaker, you’ll never get the real connection with your audience, you’ll never touch the audience’s lives in the way you hoped, and you will forever stay in the pool of those so-called “good speakers”. And that one and only trait is “being present.”
Seriously?
Think about actors. Speaking and acting are often being compared in many ways. Have you ever seen and felt an actor in some performances is not in the character and you couldn’t feel the pain, the suffering and the joy the character is supposed to go through? That’s the feeling I got from Jennifer Aniston in the movie The Switch. It was as if Jennifer Aniston was having too much in her head (perhaps her struggles in her own personal life), couldn’t get into the character, couldn’t feel what the character was supposed to feel, and as if the character has nothing to do with her, leaving the audience feeling nothing.
It’s the same for you as a speaker. If you have too much in your head – “what’s my schedule for tomorrow”, “where shall I be after this”, “what will the audience think about me”, or “I’m still in the mood of what happened just now” – you are not present, you are not available for your audience in that moment, and it will surely lead to disconnection and nothing will be left in your audience’s mind and heart. You’ll be soon forgotten or be remembered as a negative example.
Great speakers who touch lives, as well as great communicators, are those who are present, who are available for the audience, right here right now. Have you ever talked to someone who constantly checks his/her phone and looks around? What made you feel? Have you ever been one of those people?
Being present indicates your interest in the other person or your audience, shows your care about the other person or your audience and tells the other person or your audience “you are important.” It is indeed the secret to engaging people and thus influencing people.
Being present can be learned. I still remember the disaster I had years ago when I was not present and too much in my head about what had happened to me prior to one of my training sessions. I’m afraid those participants still remember me, as a negative example! Today, being present has become a habit to me. I don’t need to think about it when I’m with people, be it one or one hundred. It’s just there when I need it.
Here are some techniques that worked for me. Hope they’ll benefit you in your journey to “being present.”
- Ground yourself.
Most people never thought about grounding when being put in front of an audience. That’s why they tend to lose the ground. Root your feet on the ground before you start talking. Feel the support. It’ll calm you down and make you focused.
- Develop consciousness of your deep breath.
Deep breathing, i.e. to breathe with the support of your diaphragm, makes you calm, concentrated and connected both to yourself and the other person. It is one of the best ways to practice being present. Many meditation practices also use it to develop concentration.
- Shift your focus to the other person.
People think about themselves too much, be it to show off themselves, think about their agenda, or be nervous about how people think of them. It’ll only lead you to disconnection. Whoever you talk to, one or one hundred, always focus on what value you can bring or add to the other person. Every one of us has great values to share. If you don’t think you have, you just haven’t found it.
The key is to practice as often as possible, preferably on a daily basis, so that it can become a habit. When anything becomes a habit, it’s powerful. You don’t need to think about it. It’ll just be there when you need it.
