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How do I stop moving so much when I'm giving a speech or presentation?

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work, and in Life. Speaking with T.J. walker.

This is a question I received the other day from one of my online training students. It's a question I get frequently. I want to hop right into it and examine this from every perspective on the show today.

Body language.

Of course, body movement is a part of your body language, so it is important to pay attention to it. Some of you have heard me say this before, but it bears repeating. You want to move. When you're giving a speech, the worst thing you can do is just be frozen, feet planted firmly, hands on a lectern, sort of head down, and nothing's moving but your lips. You can have a great speech, frankly, and good slides. But if this is what happens, it's too easy for people to fall asleep or feel like you can't see them. And they start reading their email or talking or getting up and walking around in a worst case scenario. So movement is actually good. This is one of these things where audiences perceive speakers very differently than speakers perceive themselves. When you are in the audience, whether you realize it or not, you tend to feel more comfortable. You tend to feel better about a speaker who walks around. Now, you don't tell yourself that, oh, I like this speaker. He, she, they're walking around. We don't say it consciously, but subconsciously. We just feel that this person is more confident, more engaging, more authoritative simply by moving more. And when someone stands perfectly frozen stiff, we feel this person is nervous, lacking in confidence. Therefore, they do not come across as authoritative. Now, the case of my student, she watched a video of her. She did as I asked, which is great. She recorded a video of herself speaking, watched it, and I asked her to tell me what you like, what you don't like. And she instantly focused on the fact that she didn't like her movement, thought it was horrible, thought it was awful, thought it was way too much, wanted me to teach her on how to stop moving. And I certainly do want to be responsive to my students. But sometimes people go down the wrong path. They start fixating on a problem that isn't a problem. And in the process of trying to change the phony problem, they actually create a new problem that is real. And this is a phenomenon I've seen time and time again with speakers. They watch video of themselves and their movement is natural, it's relaxed, they seem confident, but they see themselves moving. They're like, oh my God, I didn't realize I was moving. It was awful. Teach me to stop. And my question to them is always, why? Number one. Number two, you think it's awful. Did anyone else mention to you that it was distracting or awful? And 99% of the time, the answer is no. And then I'll ask them. Or if I'm in the room with them, I'll ask the other people in the room. I'll say, how many of you felt that Jim walking around was horribly distracting? And then without my prompting, other people in the room will typically say, well, no. I liked him walking around. I thought that made him look more comfortable. I thought it made him look more confident. Now, when it comes to moving, certainly there are some things that can be distracting and can be a problem. I'll address those in a moment.

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I'm certainly not suggesting that all movement is good movement, and forgive me, those of you listening on the audio podcast, but what I'm doing now is I'm walking back and forth, pacing like a sitcom character, an expectant father. If you're pacing, if you're doing anything that seems mechanical, that will convey nervousness, that will distract the audience, that's bad. Right now, I'm playing with my ring on my ring finger in a nervous, fidgety way. So if I were to do this in a speech, it would come across as nervous. And people are wondering, like, well, you know, is TJ Secretly trying to take his ring off and act like he's not married? All sorts of things can pop into people's heads. So you don't want to fidget. That's the problem with holding a pen. My clients ask me all the time, TJ I'm more comfortable holding a pen. Can I hold a pen? My answer is no. When you hold a pen, it shuts down your ability to gesture in a natural way, and it just doesn't make you look as relaxed or comfortable or confident. But with respect to movement, the only thing you really need to know is a, move. B, do it in a way that doesn't seem mechanical. If you do those two things, you're probably going to be in great shape. And by mechanical, I just mean too rigid. If you're going back and forth. If you're rocking front and backwards or from side to side, that's too mechanical. That will look nervous. If you're pacing and walking the same speed, same place, like you're wearing a hole in the stage. That can be profoundly distracting too. You do not want to do that. The best thing to do with movement is to do it in a way that is seemingly purposeful, but also somewhat random. Walk to the left side of the room. Occasionally walk to the right side. You're making an important point. Stop. Don't move at all. If you're moving most of the time, but occasionally you stop, it puts more of an emphasis on your important points. It sort of underlines it. It shows something really important here. But if you're always stopped, if you're always frozen, then it's the equivalent of everything you're writing in a text memo, either being all caps or all lowercase, either one. It's too consistent. It doesn't stand out. When you stop moving during a speech. It's highly effective if it's within the context of general movement. Now, there are degrees of movement. If you're completely frozen and stiff and not moving an inch, and the next speaker gets up and moves sort of around at a two foot area, their hands are moving, they're occasionally taking one step forward, one step back. That person will look so much more comfortable and confident than you. So that's better than nothing. If you can get away from the lectern, what many people call a podium. Even though a podium is what you stand on the stage, the lectern is the thing that you put your notes on. Quite often, if you just walk away from that, occasionally you'll send a message to your audience that, hey, I'm not some boring stiff up here, just reading you a bunch of stuff that somebody else wrote. I'm having a real conversation now. To take it a step further, walk around the room even more. I'm not suggesting you have to run around the room. Run around the auditorium like the old Phil Donahue show where he's running to the top of the steps with a microphone yelling. It doesn't have to be that dramatic. But the more you do move around the room, in my experience, the more the audience perceives you as confident. Interesting. Harder for them to zone out. Here's a trick that I do. I'll share this with you in one moment. This is kind of an advanced, advanced tip.

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So here's the secret. If I'm starting a speech and it's in front of 500 or 1,000 people, I'll start at the back of the room. And it's not that my point is so brilliant, but simply by starting in the back of the room, it's a little bit different. It's not what people were expecting. The people in the back of the room now have the front row seat. It puts them on notice. And I walk up to the front of the room and I'll try to use the whole room. I'll go to the sides, I'll go to the other side. I'm not running, I'm not pacing. I use different speeds when I walk. I certainly feel free to stop at any point. I'll stop and reference one person in the audience. Again, some of you are saying, well, Tisha, how do you do all that movement? Do you have a perfect memory? If I don't stand right in front of my PowerPoint slides or my script, I would fall apart. So of course I can't move. No, you just need a script. You need a script on a piece of paper with large font. And if you're speaking to a large room, what I do is I just have three copies of the very same paper, the same page of text scattered throughout the room. That way I can move even more. Is it possible to move too much if you are walking too quickly? And again, it seems like nervous energy pacing, of course that is not desirable. But if it's just walking around in a purposeful way, as if you're having a conversation with different people at different times. In my experience, audiences appreciate resonates with them. They will not come up to you afterwards and say, well, I really like the way you walked around the stage and moved today. No one's going to say that directly. It's more of a second tier subconscious part of the reaction. They will simply perceive that you are much more confident and they'll listen to you more carefully. If someone isn't moving, there's not as much visual variety when there's not stimulation for the eyes. It's a lot easier for people to zone out or to grab their phones and check email because they think, well, you're not moving around. You're not going to come around here and see me. So I'll just check my email and I can kind of listen and halfway. No, you don't want people to feel comfortable enough to take their cell phones out in front of you. You want them paying attention to you. So this is why movement is so critical. So that's why I'm essentially begging you and I have to beg so many of my clients all over the world. Don't try to move less when you're giving a speech. Try to move more of Course, there are some particularities with respect to certain applications. If you're doing a television interview and you are seated and your chair swivels and all of a sudden you're swiveling, that's highly distracting and can make you look nervous and scared. And you do run the risk of that overwhelming the audience. But even for a seated TV interview, you want to move your face, your hands, your body from the waist up. You don't want to swivel because you don't want your chair moving. Worst thing you can do is freeze your legs for any sort of standing presentation other than a media interview and freezing your hands. Now, if you're standing for a TV interview, my advice would be feet planted. Unless it's obviously a walking interview and Oprah is walking and talking to you along the farm. But for most interviews, you're standing in one place. In that case, I would plant my feet firmly, but I would move from the waist up. I'd move my hands, my face, my body. Occasionally you want to take one step. As long as one foot is anchored, that's okay. Movement for media interviews as well. So that's the final tip. Move more, don't move less when you're presenting. As long as it's not pacing. Too mechanical. I'm TJ Walker. Really appreciate you spending some time with me here each day. Some of you, this may be your first time here. Some of you occasionally graze look on topics. That's okay because I am coming to you seven days a week. Some of you have time on your hands through your commutes and you want to get better at this. And you just listen to all of them. I want to thank you. I appreciate that. Others, once a week of TJ is enough. Nothing wrong with that. You look at the list of the topics. You click on the topic that you think is most relevant to you, and you do that. That's fine too. Some of you, it's just an occasional thing. I appreciate you being here. What I would appreciate even more, especially from you regular listeners, is to send me questions, topics that you would like to see in future shows. The best way to do that is to go to the blog@mediatrainingworldwide.com and hit the news section. You'll see this show and all the other shows and just leave a comment right there with your question that you'd like me to address or a future topic and that will become reality in a future show. Thanks so much again. May all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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