Use Your Body to Command the Room

Standing behind the podium reading slides makes you forgettable. The most memorable presenters own the entire stage and use movement to drive their message home. Here's how to use physical space and body language to keep every eye locked on you instead of their phones.

Transcript

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Welcome to Lee with Confidence. I'm JP Warren. Every episode we take a theme from our Monday morning leadership call and apply it to real life scenarios. So you can build your confidence, crush your imposter syndrome, and step into the leader you actually want to be. Short, real, straight to the point. Let's get into it. Welcome back to a new Lead with Pop Lead with Podcast. No, Lead with Confidence Podcast. I'm your host, JP Warren. Uh, I get too excited, I guess. Anyway, I gotta slow down. Okay. Well, if you are tuning in, these are short uh weekday, 10 minute or less uh tool sets for you to use to strengthen your soft skills. And what are soft skills? Well, soft skills are our ability to connect, communicate, to influence others around us. And why is that important? Well, 85% of our career success is based off of soft skills. Only 15% is the technical skills. So this is to help you level up and strengthen your soft skills. We are covering how to deliver presentations uh that actually stick, right? How actually how to get up there and not bore your audience where they're checking their phones, they're stepping out, getting refreshments, or they're getting some shut-eye from last night's happy hour, but they have to sit through your presentation anyway. So this uh this this episode is all gonna be about using your body to command the room. Okay. So you gotta think about this, all right? You gotta think about this. The stage is a stage. What are stages for? Stages are for performances, stages are for for pastors, uh, stages are for people to communicate for the focus to come in on them. Now that should not make you nervous because you're already up there, right? But a lot of people stay prisoner behind that podium, okay? And they deliver, and the podium actually is an anchor and it holds them down where they actually repress their energy and it disconnects the room. You have a great opportunity to be speaking in front of all your peers. So might as well take advantage of it and live in the world of being uncomfortable. That's how we gain confidence. Keep putting ourselves in these uncomfortable situations, okay? So the reality is this: most speakers, you know, put themselves behind the podium and plant them there and they stay chained back there, right? And then what happens? The energy drops, you stay safe, you want to stay in your podium, you want to stay with the slides, and next thing you know, you lose the audience's um engagement, okay? All right. A lot of times you they people use a gesture, uh, they use little gestures and they avoid eye contact, they stick to this, they stick to the slides. And that's not a conversation. You want to be having a conversation with your target audience, not being stuck behind the podium doing mini gestures with low energy and reading the slides, okay? And again, you don't want to disconnect your audience. So, this is kind of the frameworks I want you to try out as you walk upstage. Remember, how we communicate our uh how we communicate is 55% body language, okay? And 38% is our pitch, tone, and cadence. However, the majority of people only focus on the 7%. That's the words, that's the script, that's reading from the slides with the words on the slides. We lose 93% of an opportunity to actually connect, influence with our audience. Rather, we're focus on those the 7%, which is just words, right? And that's that's kind of boring. I mean, I can get up during my seminars and we're memorize a script and land that script every time, but at the same time, it is not authentic and it actually disconnects the audience. All right. So here's some frameworks I want you to do. Number one, claim your space. When you get up there, get behind that podium within the first 30 seconds. Don't stay locked back there. Use the sage to your advantage, okay? Work the room, go both sides. And a lot of times there's a lot of eyes on you that gets very nervous. So here's the second thing: pick out a couple people and make eye contacts with them throughout the room and just have those mini conversations with them. All right. Just like a couple people throughout, spaced out throughout the room, and just keep going back and forth between those people. I would say this also: whenever you are gesturing, gesture big. Remember, you're on stage, there's a whole uh audience behind you. Gesture so the people in the back can actually see what you're doing. Okay. When you gesture also, and these are also little tricks and all that stuff. Whenever you're gesturing or pointing somewhere and all that stuff, never point with your index finger, okay? There's something called if you're watching this on YouTube, that's great. If you're not, I'm gonna try to describe the best I can. But pretty much gesture with open palms, like, oh, reference this, the exits are over here. Always use open palms, never point. And there's some reason behind that. And I'm not gonna get into it, but trust me, look at all these effective uh uh speakers, these present presenters out there, they're always gesturing with open palms, okay? And again, have eye contact on your target audience. All right. So the next time you present, do this. Step out of the podium within the first 30 seconds, okay? Stop looking at your slides and you're presenting. No, the the audience can read your slides, all right? They don't need you to read the slides for them while they're reading because then uh uh stop reading off the slides. We talked about actually how to do a slide presentation actually sticks, I think, two or three episodes ago. So go check that out, okay? And then ask yourself, how would your presence change if you acted like you owned the room, right? So fake it till you make it. So how would you be if you did own that room, right? If if if if you could deliver what you want to deliver, just you and a friend, right? What would you, what, how would you own the stage? How would you own the environment, right? So practice, start working on that, okay? So your message deserves the audience's full attention at the end of the day. You're up there speaking, so don't blend in to 95% of these presenters and bore your audience to death. Use the stage, use the uh use the arena, use your body to gesture big and to be excited, create some enthusiasm behind and work the room. Okay. Think about any comedian, think about any pastor, think about any uh uh executive leader who who's really good at you know public speaking. Chances are they're working the room. And I can guarantee you this eight out of 10 people experience a positive syndrome. So even those people are probably nervous to be on stage thinking that who am I to talk to the? I uh but they have done it enough where they are comfortable or they are comfortable being uncomfortable. So I challenge you, get uncomfortable, use a stage, use your body and connect with your crowd. All right, y'all. Thanks for tuning in. Leave with confidence. If you know someone that might have a presentation coming up, feel free to share with them this uh episode and the previous ones that we're doing, and the one after we're gonna be doing this that's coming out. Uh I guess it might already be out. But anyway, so share with this. We're covering how to own the room in a presentation environment. So thank y'all for tuning in. And uh comment, like, share. If you have any other soft skills that you would like to kind of cover, leave them in the comments or anything like that. And uh we'll be sure to kind of address those at some point. So thank y'all for tuning in, and we'll talk to y'all soon. That's your framework for the day. Go lead with it. I'm JP Warren, lead with confidence.