- You're going to learn five body language tips
for public speaking.
You might feel anxious on the inside,
but if you do these five nonverbal behaviors
you will come across as more confident,
especially when you combine them all.
First, make more eye contact.
I'm starting with this tip
because the lack of eye contact during a presentation
is usually seen as a lack of confidence.
That might not be a fair evaluation,
but that's the conclusion that many listeners will make.
And the opposite is true.
We evaluate people who are able to maintain eye contact
as generally confident and credible people.
To make good eye contact in your presentations,
you want to look up and directly into people's eyes
about 90% of the time or more when you're presenting.
That's distributed among everybody in the room.
It's okay to glance at your notes about 10% of the time,
but only glance down and then bounce your eyes right back up
and look at people in the eye.
Don't look back at the PowerPoint
for more than a couple of seconds at a time.
Your goal should be to look at each person in the room
multiple times per presentation.
Some common mistakes are just to glance around
or scan the room rapidly.
That's not sustained enough for anybody listening
to feel as if they've made a connection with you.
And the same goes for looking over everybody's heads.
A lot of people give advice to look over listeners' heads
to make you feel less anxious,
but that will not make you come across
as more confident to your listeners
'cause you're not connecting with them.
Another common error is to only look at one or two people,
usually friendly faces.
That might make you more comfortable in the moment,
but in the long run it will exclude
most of the people in the room.
Instead, I recommend looking at each person
for about three to five seconds at a time,
and then move on to somebody else.
That's long enough to finish a thought
and for the other person to feel a connection.
Here's a phrase I've mentioned in other videos
that's worth repeating.
One thought, one look.
I didn't make that up,
but that means you look at somebody
for about half a sentence or so
and then move on to the next person.
You can even pretend to do this when you're practicing.
One thought, one look, one thought, one look.
Second, smile once in a while.
I'm not suggesting that you pretend to be happy,
but I've seen people with great personalities
when I'm talking to them in a one-on-one conversation,
but then they get a serious game face
when they're presenting.
There's a time and a place for that serious look,
but there's also plenty of reasons
to smile during a presentation.
We generally perceive people who are smiling
as relaxed and confident.
Smiling will also loosen you up a little bit
and help you enjoy the moment.
The trouble is if we're not smiling,
we may be communicating with a flat facial expression,
which is sometimes called a stone face.
That can come across as stiff, robotic, and anxious,
as if you're a deer caught in the headlights.
But smiling communicates a connection and confidence.
It'll also ensure that your eye contact from the first tip
will come across as warm and welcoming instead of piercing.
Third, stand with good posture.
That means you want to plant your feet
and stand firm from the waist down.
Maybe you've seen speakers do the opposite.
They shuffle their feet, they sway back and forth,
they cross and uncross their legs,
they pop up and down on their toes,
they pace back and forth.
These habits all communicate anxiety and nervous energy.
When you are planted, you literally look established.
The way to accomplish this
is to memorize the following position while you practice.
Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart.
Put slightly more weight on the balls of your feet
so you're not leaning back on your heels.
Balance your weight equally on both legs.
Don't lean or push one hip out to the side.
And stand up straight with your shoulders back a bit.
We call this the ready position.
It looks confident.
Nd make sure your knees are a little bit soft
so they're not completely locked.
Here's a tip within a tip.
Locking your knees is never a good idea
in almost any situation.
And I recommend you essentially memorize
what this ready position feels like as you practice
so that if you find yourself
doing some of the other bad habits I mentioned,
you can instantly reset yourself into the ready position.
A question I often get is,
"Is it okay to walk around as you present?"
Well, if you're walking with a purpose,
yes, that looks confident,
but if you're just pacing like a tiger in a cage
because you're nervous, then no.
Walking with a purpose might mean
you walk to the other side of the speaking area
to connect with listeners over there,
but then you stop walking, face them,
and get your lower body in that ready position again
and talk for another minute or so
before walking with a purpose again.
So pacing and walking with a purpose are not the same thing.
Fourth, use hand gestures.
I mentioned that you want to be firmly planted
from the waist down most of the time,
but from the waist up you can be more animated.
This is mainly about gesturing
with your hands, your arms, your shoulders.
Now, speakers do all sorts of distracting behaviors
with their hands that don't look confident.
Don't wring your hands or keep them in your pockets.
Don't put them on your hips or behind your back.
Don't hold yourself or cross your arms.
Don't hold objects like a pen.
If there's an object in your hand that serves no purpose,
you'll start to fidget with it,
and fidgeting does not create the impression of confidence.
Instead of all this,
find a comfortable home base for your hands.
The best home base is to keep your hands loosely together,
right about at waist level,
as if you're holding a can of soda.
Don't let them creep up.
Keep them loose and then just make small gestures
about once every sentence or so.
That's all you need to do to get started.
Just let your hands go
to add emphasis to whatever you're saying.
Easygoing gestures like this
you can do with one hand or both hand,
they look confident and composed.
And don't swing your arms all around
unless you know what you're doing.
This home base is an ideal position for gestures.
The second best home base
is to keep your hands relaxed by your side.
Not everybody gestures as naturally from here,
but if it works for you
then that's another option for your home base.
Just relax your hands by your side
when you're not gesturing,
and then gesture to add emphasis.
Fifth, pause to let your ideas sink in.
Pauses are not technically body language yet,
but there's an important nonverbal part to this
that I'll explain.
Let's talk about the opposite for a moment.
Anxious people rush through their words.
Anxious people speak in long run-on sentences
that blur everything together.
This anxious pace ends up spilling over
into all your other nonverbals and body language behavior.
On video, like I'm doing now,
we tend to speak faster than we do during public speaking.
That's true.
But video is a different channel of communication
and it has its own rules.
Live and in-person professional speakers
have a moderate pace.
Good pauses will slow you down enough
to make you sound extremely confident
about what you just said.
The tip is to pause for about a second after most sentences,
pause for about two seconds after your key ideas.
Let's add some body language.
Add a little nod to your longer pauses.
I just did it and I'll do it again.
A pause with a small nod like this
looks amazing during a live presentation,
supremely confident, and it's contagious.
It has a persuasive impact.
When you pause and nod,
you will almost always see members of your audience
begin to nod along with you.
Now, I'm gonna get a little fired up
as we look at this entire list.
I don't care how nervous you feel on the inside.
If you're making sustained eye contact,
one thought, one look,
if you're smiling to warm up your facial expression,
if you're standing firmly with good posture,
if you're gesturing comfortably
about once every sentence or so,
and if you're pausing consistently to regulate your pace
and adding a nod once in a while,
I don't care how anxious you may feel,
you are going to come across as a confident speaker,
especially if you do them all.
Now, the key is to practice like this behind the scenes.
If you make these habits while you practice,
you'll be more likely to do them
during the actual presentation.
Feel free to take a look
at all the free resources on my website
and downloads and a free class.
Leave a comment below with your own thoughts and questions.
Until next time, thanks, God bless, and I'll see you soon.