There are always two distinct roles at play when speaking. The audience has a passive role and the speaker an active one. This is an essential dynamic. The audience and the speaker communicate well with each other to the extent that they both understand and respect this dynamic. They should not be confused or interchanged.
1-Self-awareness has to do with not trusting how we feel and consequently not taking charge of how we feel. It can be devastating. Self-awareness has to do with tension, which arises from not being in action on our purpose or not giving direction and power to our intentions. I get nervous when my eye is off the ball.
Creating a sense of space and place is also the responsibility of the speaker. Make visual and tactile contact with the room, distances, volumes, shapes, light, objects, furniture, ourselves, others…etc. It anchors our focus in the physical world, which has the grounding effect we desire.
2-The presentations, scores of actions, and everything that in a public performance must have a progressive and revealing quality. Speakers must reveal, not hide. Any attempt to hide interrupts and ultimately breaks down communication.
3-Always make sure that your energy is free to operate in the direction of your choices. In other words, provide more power than you think you need. Choice and actions is where we discharge our energy. The clearer the choice, the easier it is to commit. The more the two interact and feed each other, the better the chances of success.
4-Beware of apologies, self-pity, newspapers, dramatizations, mockery, humiliation and explanations as visible means of communication. It usually means disaster. The same goes for any way of hurting the audience. The same applies to overt or covert anger. These are cheating and/or very bad choices. Sometimes a speaker simply doesn’t realize that his performance contains these forms of expression. He or she must realize the devastating effect it has on the audience. Naturally, the only exceptions are when the speaker apologizes, explains, or views himself as a victim, or comments on her behavior as a way of illustrating, entertaining, or making a point.
5-An announcer always dominates or controls the scene or stage and the public. He does it through skill, actions, technique (which is the execution of actions) and his ability to believe in what he is doing. A speaker-audience relationship is a dynamic, which must be well understood and respected to avoid problems. It is the speaker who is in control and attracts attention, not the other way around.
6-Avoid serving an audience, or try to attract it artificially. They will turn their back on you. Watch for moods or attitudes. You may want your speech to feel good and that’s legitimate; try to achieve it through genuine actions, not an attitude. An attitude is always the result of something. It’s a second-rate option unless we intend attitude to be entertainment. If you play with the mood, it will be spelled backwards: DOOM.
7-When a speaker makes a mistake he should not draw attention to it. Just keep going. When a speaker becomes tense, shy, uncomfortable, anxious, etc., he should simply hide it:
- Commit to your actions
- Doing nothing.
If we get tense or nervous, it’s not the audience’s fault. There are effective ways to remedy it quickly and without being noticed.