TJ Walker argues that speakers worry unnecessarily about excessive hand gestures; in fact, the common problem is not moving hands enough. Using coaching anecdotes and cultural observations, he debunks the myth that visible hand motion is inherently distracting and advises speakers to allow natural, relaxed gestures to convey confidence and energy.
Chapters
So what do you do if you're worried about excessive hand motion detracting from your message when you're giving a speech or presentation? It's a concern a lot of people have. Well, time out a minute. Let me ask you, how often do you really see other people moving their hands wild and crazy when they're giving a present? I'm sure it's happened once in your life. Certainly I've seen comedians Will Ferrell and Ricky Bobby's character when. When he's in an interview after winning a race and say, I don't know what to do with my hands. But that's for comedy. In my experience, the number one thing people do with their hands to distract from their message is not too much movement. It's this or this. Hi, everybody. I'm very comfortable to be here today. I look frozen and stiff and scared. Or hands in the pockets. This. This is not a good look. Or hands on the lectern or leaning on it or holding a pen. Those are things you do with your hands that send a message to people. Hey, everybody, I'm kind of nervous. I'm not very comfortable here today. I'm not really confident in my message. So maybe you should pull out your cell phone now and distract yourself. That's the problem with hand movements or really lack of hand movement that most speakers have. Now. We as human beings all move our hands when we speak, when we are comfortable and relaxed. If you doubt me, go to any sports bar anywhere in the world, put earphones in where you're listening to music and you can't hear anyone, and just watch people, especially after a particular sports team they're watching has scored a goal or made points or there's a controversial call. You're going to see people's hands moving the whole time, and none of it is contrived. They're not thinking. I'm now going to bring my hand up here to demonstrate the fact that I'm displeased with the referee. No, it happens naturally. If you want to be more successful, then improve your communication skills. The best way to do that, smash the subscribe button. Right now. Here's what I've observed in my decades of working one on one with executives all, all over the world in their presentation skills. Typical setting. We've got five, six executives in a room. Each person stands up, gives a presentation. I'm video recording each one. We're playing it back. We're now asking each executive to talk about what they like and they don't like. And invariably someone will say, well, T.J. i hated the fact that I waved my hands around excessively and it was really distracting. I'll say, oh, really? Yeah, you're right. It must have been bad. How many of us agree that Smithers hand motions were wildly excessive and distracting? And people look confused, like, what are you talking about? Didn't even notice. Then we go back and look at the video, and what happened is the person's hands were moving like this, completely natural, in sync with what they were saying. So there's something about watching yourself on video, seeing your hands move, that just feels weird. It seems like it's wrong somewhere. A long time ago, someone said, a professional speaker, a professional executive, doesn't move hands in a distracting way. And it sunk in. Guess what? It's just a myth. It's complete, utter nonsense. In my experience, working with executives all over the world, and I have students from every single country in the world but one, North Korea, and I've trained in 45 nations, I can tell you, in every nation in the world, when you speak, your audiences will perceive you as more comfortable and more confident with your hands moving. Is it possible you could really overdo it? It's possible. Extremely rare. I think I've seen it happen maybe twice in the last 30 years, working with tens of thousands of executives face to face. So I want you to worry about real risk. The real risk for you and most people when it comes to your hands is not moving them enough. Being frozen, being stiff. This. Now, it's possible you could do some sort of fidgeting because you're trying not to move your hands. What you want is your hands to simply move the way they do all day long when you speak, the second you try to control them, to contain them, you're freezing not only your fingers, but muscles in your hands, your arm, your upper arm, your shoulder. You're containing your vocal cords, and before you know it, you've become sort of flat, monotone, and boring. That is what detracts from your message. Not bringing your hand up or just. Or even pointing, even though somebody could somehow get offended with an occasional point. Worry about the real risk. For most of us in the United States, in the Western world, our biggest danger in life is not that we eat too much broccoli or exercise too much. In theory, you could eat too much broccoli or exercise too much. But the far bigger risk for most of us is we don't exercise enough. And we eat too much processed food and too much pizza, not too much broccoli. I deal in the real world, in the real speaking world, the problem is not that you're moving your hands too much, that you're moving your hands excessively detracting from your message. The real problem is you're not moving your hands enough.
