Episode 62: Posture, Triangle, Pace, Pause — How to Own the Room in Any Keynote

Most executives will be handed a keynote at some point. And most of them quietly hope it never happens. This episode is for the ones who want to stop dreading it and start owning it.

In this episode of The Sam Linton Show, Sam walks through the four-tool framework he uses every weekend on stage: Posture, the Command Triangle, Pace, and Pause. You’ll learn where to stand, where to move, how fast to talk, and — most importantly — when to shut up. Because your body is communicating long before you say a word, and silence on stage isn’t absence. It’s authority.

Key Takeaways:

• Posture is doing work for you when you’re silent — plant your feet, stand tall, and stop swaying.

• The Command Triangle gives every part of your talk a home: center for truth, left for stories, right for the stakes.

• Pace has three gears — normal, fast, and slow — and the line you want them to remember is the one you slow down on.

• The pause is the most underused tool in any communicator’s toolkit. Use it before the line, after the line, and at the close.

If you’ve earned the seat in the room, communicate at the level you’re leading.

Ready to close your competence-communication gap? Take the free Competence-Communication Audit at samuellinton.com — or email sam@samuellinton.com to book a free 30-minute strategy session.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Most executives like you are going to be faced with the opportunity to do something that some of you might find a little bit frightening, and that is you're gonna have to do a keynote. It's gonna happen. It's gonna come to a point where you are going to be asked to do something that is either going to invigorate you or something that you're gonna want to avoid at all costs. So if you are wanting to do a keynote, well, I've got some amazing tips for you. Not really tips because I don't like tips. I want to give you a framework that I use that is part of what I show my clients and really work with them on this idea because a keynote is different than a meeting. You still need your credibility in a meeting. But the keynote or a talk, well, that's gonna require more of you having executive presence than what a meeting would. So I'm gonna give you some things to think about. And I'm gonna tell you that if you look at a keynote or if you look at your presentation in this way and start to have a game of like how to do this, it's gonna really make you come across as a way more polished communicator. It's my goal by the end of this to get you to see what is possible if you simply start to own the room, right? Now, get rid of this gum because it's bothering me. I'm like, I'm gonna chew a piece of gum as I'm gonna do a podcast because I know what I'm doing. I haven't been doing this for over a year. I'm not a best-selling author. I don't know, you know, I'm just joking. These aren't the things I'm thinking, but uh I do want to make sure that you get the serious takeaways from this. So let's give you some ideas. So let's say you have your simple talk, you've outlined, you got a topic, you kind of know what's gonna happen, you have an idea of the outline. Now, I will tell you, and this is not a part of this, I'm gonna really speak to you about how your body ought to be in your body language, but we don't want to be reading anything for a keynote unless you're reading a quote, because they're there to see you. I preach every single weekend. Um, not every other weekend, I should say, four times a weekend. And every single time I show up, my goal is to have as little to read from my notes as possible. Now, I look at what I do kind of like a keynote. It really is, because I have to deliver it. It's a controlled audience. It's not interactive, really. I mean, sometimes I'll do a little bit of interaction, but it's limited because there's hundreds of people. It's broadcasted, it's sent to the interwebs, it's on social media. So it's not a meeting per se. So there's some things that I have developed over the years that are great habits that help me to connect with that type of audience and the type of audience that you might have to connect with when you're doing a talk that's just you talking to a group. And you have to remember that your body is doing the talking long before you start speaking. So this is going to be a lot about where you stand and the words you use. All right. Not the words you use, I should say, but where you stand when you choose the words you use. So I'm gonna give you kind of four, I guess, tools that will be your framework for how to focus when you're doing a keynote. And here are the four tools. We're gonna talk about posture, triangle, pace, and pause. If you remember that posture, triangle, pace, and pause. This is taken from my elevated communicator framework where I talk about the uh command triangle. This is a part of it, but it's not very, very uh derivative of it because I'm specifically talking about speaking to a room and how that looks. And in the elevated communicator framework, I don't talk a ton about what happens when you have to speak in a room and when you're going from one part of the stage to the other, but that's what I'm gonna do here. So the first thing you have to realize is your focus has to be on your posture. So I'm not I'm gonna spare you from trying to look this up on a video, but if you just focus or pull the show notes, this will help you better. Uh, we're gonna talk about where your feet ought to be. So your feet should be planted. You want your feet to be planted, about a shoulder width apart, maybe give or take, your weight even, and be cautious of swaying, going back and forth, the C-SIC. You wanna make sure that your spine is straight. Picture almost like a string lifting the crown of your head up. You want your spine a little back so that you're getting more of your shoulders back and you're standing tall. You want them to be back and down. You don't want them to be up like this. Sometimes people do that, like the shrug a little bit because they're nervous and that tension tends to come up. But you want to make sure they're back and down so that that way when you breathe, your breath is actually doing its job. Um, your hands, when you start, you want to make sure that your hands are visible and in front of you or at your sides. You don't want to do pockets, you don't want to do the arm cross, the bad manager take, and you don't want to do what I call the fig leaf. We'll talk about the fig leaf, but you want to make sure that your hands are back and/or hands are visible. And then you essentially you don't want to be reading, but if you have a note card or something, you want to have it there where it's printed large enough where you can glance at it if you need to take notes. Again, I read every single weekend, but I'm usually only reading scripture and the points of the sermon. And most of the time, I don't even read the points of the sermon, but I'm reading the points of the sermon because it's in their notes. And I'm reading the scripture because I'm reading it from the Bible. I teach the Bible. That's what I do for my main thing. So you want to be able to have what you need visible, but you don't want it to be where you're looking and speaking to that. So things that you avoid. Number one, don't sway. Be careful. Swaying happens when you shift weight from foot to foot. But if you pretend like you have been stapled to the ground, your feet have been stapled, that will help you. Swaying almost always means nervousness. Movement doesn't mean nervousness if it's deliberate, but when you're swaying back and forth, it almost always means that the energy of your nerves is being channeled and it's going out instead of up and over. So you don't want to do that. The fig leaf is when you're crossing your hands in front of your nether region. You're kind of covering everything, you're kind of covering up. That almost always means that you're uncomfortable there. It almost always means that you don't feel like you belong there. So it reads as defensive. Same with pocket. I'm not, you know, I'll be honest, I'm not a huge uh anti-pocket person. If you're a guy, uh, it's harder if you're a lady, because you know, most men, when they're speaking in these types of things, are wearing suits with dress slacks. Um, but it doesn't look as good as if your hands are in front of you and visible. And then also make sure that you're not holding on to a lectern like you're hugging a life preserver after you jumped off of a cruise ship that you just found out has a virus. You don't want to do that. So you want to make sure that the lectern is there as furniture, but you're not leaning on it. You might put your hand on it, you might rest your water on it, you might touch it, but you don't want to be hugging it or holding it, it is not your long-lost relative. Posture is communicating for you when you're silent. So don't throw this away because if you realize that the posture is actually doing some heavy lifting for you, it makes you kind of excited to be able to speak because your posture is doing the work. If you're able to stand and stand still, so that's just the posture. This is just the start. We haven't even gotten really into the meat of how you're presenting yet and what you're gonna do, but I'm gonna give you some pointers. So the next thing is the command triangle, which again, we've talked about this. And the command triangle is a part of the elevated communicator framework. And the command triangle as a part of the elevated communicator framework is more about posture, pacing, and pauses. Well, today I'm going to add some elements to this of the triangle that we have to stand in when we are speaking from a stage. All right. So I'm gonna give this to you. And again, this is a little more visual and a little bit more utilitarian than what you might be used to for me. But I want you to picture three points of where you can go. Here's the three points. Picture it, you're on a stage. Center is where your truth claims are. This is where you're gonna be making your ask. This is where you're gonna make your clothes. That's your home base, that's your plant. To your left is where you're gonna tell stories, illustrations, anecdotes, human experience, a funny quip, whatever. And then to your right is going to be your data, your numbers, your stats, what's on the line, logistics. It's going to be essentially where you're gonna do all that stuff. Now, why am I saying stand and focus on the center for your truth, the big moments, to the left, for the stories, to the right, for the stakes? Well, for two reasons. Number one, I want you to move a little bit. Now, if you have a lectern, you can move your body slightly. Okay, you can move slightly, like picture, you're a bit on a bit of a swivel, not just your head, but maybe your torso, and you want to move and face different parts when you're doing those things. And you can look around, but stay kind of moving in that direction because it's showing that you're changing it up. Um, so the first reason is this this is, you know, a dynamic way to do this. The second is this will help you to memorize parts of your talk. So you know when you're moving and you plant and you're moving to the right, that's when you're talking about the stakes. You know that when you're moving and you plant and you move to the left, you're talking about a story. An example, something that happened to you, something that happened to your spouse. And it makes your body line up, maybe for the first time ever, with your message, which is huge. Now, the other thing, and you know, there's a lot that this benefits, but this gives you, without a doubt, deliberate movement. Now you know what you're doing, you know how you're moving, you know which way you're going, and your audience is going to see that you are confident about what it is that you're doing when you're up there. So when you walk, you walk on purpose. When you get to the, don't speak until you get to that point. If it's a little bit here, a little bit there, plant, speak, move. Plant, speak, move, plant, speak, move. The center is always your home. That's where you always end up. If you lost your place, if you're not sure what where you are, come right back to the center and you'll be okay. Whoever moves with intention is the one that owns the room. If you pace back and forth and move back and forth, that nervousness is gonna make you blow the presentation. All right. So you want to make sure that you stay focused on deliberately moving your body and not letting your body take control with the nervous energy that it has when you're going into a presentation. Now, the next thing, and this is where almost everyone is a mess when it comes to keynotes. And you can go back. I want you to look at a previous episode that I released called the three gears of pace. It hasn't been that long ago. And I'm just going to review these, but I'll I'll give you them right now. The three gears of pace. We have the normal pace, which is a normal, like you and I are having a conversation at a table. You want it to be slowed down so that people can understand. It probably should be slower than what you're thinking in your head. It probably shouldn't be as fast as when you're telling a story to your parents or to your siblings or to your spouse. But you want it to be a normal speaking tone. You can go fast, but it has to be when you're building energy, when you're giving lists, when you're trying to build momentum in the talk, short bursts. Remember, and then I went this, and then I bought this, and then I got a tractor here, and then I did this. And you're giving a list, and it's a good way to make a story seem energized. But most people, when they speak, they speak like that through the entire presentation. The whole thing is at this breakneck pace that is impossible to pay attention to, and it really shows a nervousness. And then when it matters, slow down the line you want them to remember.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Slow it down. When you slow down, people lean in.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

You want to make it where every word has weight. So slower brings it to what matters. Now, again, you have to know your subject and kind of know how you're wanting to connect it to people. But when you do it, you have to make sure that it's done with intention. Otherwise, it's gonna be like you're all over the place. The interesting thing is the audience will recognize and hear your emphasis before they hear your volume. So your audience is actually gonna pick up what you're emphasizing more than they're gonna pick up if you're loud or if you're soft. They're gonna be able to tell by your pacing what it is that's important to you. Instead of saying, this is really, really, really important. Learn this. No, show them it's important by slowing down. So I've covered a lot. This is super logistical. It's probably one of the most logistical um episodes that I've had. So uh the last thing I want to give you, and then we're going to uh disengage. And by the way, um, thank you again for the book sales. I spent a week as uh the one of the number one authors in the the subject of my in the field, the field that I was studying here, the confident communicator, of course, the public speaking book. It's not about public speaking, it's about being confident in any room. But I know that there are some of you that purchase this book and are reading it, and I really want to know how it's going for you. So please drop me a line, uh, let me know how it's going, um, and let me know how this book has benefited you. Also, I want to encourage you to think about working with me. I I know I say this probably not often enough. I would love to help you to be a better version of yourself as a communicator. So if you are interested in coaching, all you have to do is simply email Sam at SamuelLinton.com. That's my email address and say, hey, I want to get on your calendar and I'd love to have you get connected. There's, I'll actually put a link in the show notes to make it easier. If you just say, I want to book a call, I'm gonna, I'm gonna book a call this week and I'll do a free one with you, just one free one to give you some strategy, maybe around if you have an upcoming talk. I have somebody that I'm working with that has an upcoming presentation. I have somebody else I'm working with that's doing a job interview. And then when coaching on that, I coach on that as well. I have another group that I'm working with. I have a lot going on. Another group I'm working with that are going to be doing a lot of speaking here going into the fall. And so they wanted me to coach them up on getting ready to do some speeches. All of that is in my wheelhouse. So please, if you are looking to up your game and close that competence communication gap, what are you waiting for? Seriously, what are you waiting for? Let me help you. All right, last thing the pausing. The pause is the most powerful and yet underutilized tool in any communicator's toolkit. Not anyone that I know uses it regularly. And it's so criminal because it's so helpful. And this is why it works because people aren't expecting it. They expect that when you're up there, you are going to talk out of that hole in your face for the whole time you're up there. Like the word, you're getting paid by the word. You're not. So here's some places that pauses make the best impact when you are doing a keynote or a speech. Number one, the pause before the line, before the point, before whatever the point is that you're making. So take a pause. So, for example, when I say there is one of the most underutilized speaking tools ever.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

People underutilize the pause.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Did you see that? I gave them a chance to get excited about whatever it is. Now, this isn't perfect, we're making this up on the fly, but get excited about what is the most underutilized tool in a speaker's toolkit ever? It's the pause. Next. After you deliver a line. The most underrated tool ever in a speaker's toolkit is the pause. One, two, take a beat. Let it land, let it simmer, let people realize, oh yeah, not a lot of people are pausing, right? That's what they're thinking in their heads. That's a good place. So it's before a line that's important, after a line that's important, and then between sections. This is where if you have the stage, you can walk from one spot to the next and start a new part. So you tell your story, your truth, and you walk over to your next spot on the left, and then tell your story, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Tell the story. Move to the left, tell the story. Then after you're done with the story, move to the right and back into the facts and what's important and where you're landing.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Then you go over to the right as you pause, and you give those data points, those statistics, whatever it is. And you make sure that when you're moving, you're pausing. So this way it gives you a natural opportunity to use your body as a guide for what people ought to be paying attention to. And then finally, if you're doing a speech, last place that you want to close, that you want to pause is right at the close.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Say your last line and hold that thought. Then thank you.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

I've seen people give amazing talks, unbelievable talks, and they get to this like firework type of clothes and then they are so anxious to get to the thank you that they're like, yeah, and that's how you start a new life. Thank you very much. They just run right from the last line to a thank you. So I go, and that's how you start a new life. Pause. Don't move. Take that in and let your audience take it in and then say, thank you. You don't fill that time with just a meaningless thank you to get out of the stage, but you own that space. It shows competence, it shows gravitas, it shows your confidence coming through. So time when you're pausing is huge. Silence on stage is not absence, it's authority. Silence on stage is. Is not absence. It's authority. So don't throw away the opportunity to take a pause. So no matter what, keep this in mind. You have earned the seat in that room. You've earned the seat in that room. There's a reason why they're asking you to speak. There's a reason why that group wants to hear from you. There's a reason why your company wants you to represent them in this way. And you are going to kill it. But you have to be willing to communicate at the level that you're leading. So, with that said, thank you for this week. And we look forward to seeing you on the flip. Own your confidence, own the room, keep going.