I’d love to address an issue that comes up quite a bit with my clients .. emotions.
When we are telling personal stories and doing public speaking they will definitely pop up… and that’s a good thing. How you handle those emotions when they come during your presentation makes all the difference between using them effectively and letting them distract you.
If you’ve ever seen me on stage seen my video telling one of my stories, specifically my bodybuilding signature talk you will see how I handle that emotion on camera as well as on stage.
The story is about a fail that I had in doing a bodybuilding competition. Every time I tell that story, it gets me. I feel that emotion come back up about this epic fail that I had. The throat starts to close up. You feel that gut churn, and you feel the tears come in.
Emotions are like waves of the ocean…
A lot of public speakers are afraid to show emotion. I got to tell you, when you show emotion, your audience is on your side. Often times, it can choke you up at the same time, so how do you handle that?
A lot of people are going to want to stifle it, try to stop it. What will happen is “ugly cry face” or UCF for short.
When you try to fight the emotion it’s very difficult to stop it. It’s like a snowball effect. It just keeps gaining momentum. Now, when you treat emotions like waves it becomes easier to move on with your presentation. They’re going to come and go, and they’re going to go up and down. You just need to ride them out, not fight them and let them dissipate.
If you’re a good surfer of those waves, you’ll ride that wave, let it dissipate and go on. That is the key when you have emotion in your stories during public speaking. It will allow that emotion to just float over you. Take a breath. Allow that audience to be with you at that moment.
Trust me when I say the audience is going to be rooting for you. When you are showing vulnerability, you are showing emotion, that audience is going to be with you for the rest of your talk. Don’t deny your audience your emotions. I need to say that again. Don’t deny your audience your emotional impact on them. Ride that wave.
This is what top public speakers do. They ride the wave of emotion. They know it’s going to come up. They’ve prepared for it, and then they let it dissipate. Then they can go on. When you do that the audience is going to be with you from that moment on.
And when the audience is on your side, they will want to book you again and again AND they will want to do business with you.
I hope this was helpful for you.
Put some comments below.
All of this advice is part of my full program Dramatic Impact Story Academy. If you’d like to chat about how to become a better Public Speaker either on stage or on camera then please schedule an Impact Call at no cost here: www.TomJackobs.Com/Impact
