Know Your Performance

Overview

We tend to think a speech is about the words we say, but a great speech is also a performance. How you deliver your words—from your energy to your body language, to how you move on stage—all matter and can turn a good speech into a great one. In this session, we’ll share some tools to help you to perform at your best.

---

For many people, the performance aspect of public speaking is what makes us most uneasy. Whether it’s in front of twenty people or two hundred, the idea of getting up in front of a group can send hearts pounding, cheeks flushing, and stomachs churning.

But it’s actually a good thing to be a little nervous! It’s a sign that your heart is in it and you want to do your best. Physiologically, everything happening in your body can actually help you keep your energy up as you speak. The trick is to channel that energy into confidence. And that’s what we’re going to help you learn to do.

Confidence as a speaker comes when:

• You feel prepared: you know your story, the audience, and your message. You have practiced and you have notes, if you need them.
• You envision your success: You’ve imagined being your most captivating, funny, and warm self in front of the crowd.
• You are yourself: You give yourself permission to be your most natural and authentic self.

Sparkling Speakers

Truly sparkling speakers bring their authenticity to the stage. They come with their humanity showing, and share stories that don’t show how great they are, but how humble and honest they are. Despite what’s going on in their bodies, on stage, they appear comfortable, confident, and compelling.

Think of a positive story from your life. It can be personal or professional, and you can define positive in whatever way you want. Maybe it’s a success, an accomplishment, a time you were happy, felt joy, or pride. Now think about sharing that story with a friend. (Do take a few minutes and do this in your mind, then continue.)

What did you feel? Maybe you felt energy, or connection, or happiness at the thought of being able to share your heart with a person you trust.

Something very powerful happens when you speak from the heart about what you’re passionate about. You light up. You sparkle! And when you come from a place of authenticity and joy, confidence follows.

Studying the Script—and the Stage

Of course we know that every great speech is a performance. And a great performance begins with preparation. First and foremost, you need a strong script. Module 4 Know Your Message is a great resource to help you refine your script – the core content of your speech. Once you’ve crafted the content of your talk – your script – you then need to practice with it to make it organic and natural.

Secondly, you want to feel prepared to take the stage. Knowing Your Audience, which we covered in Module 3 [LINK] can go a long way in helping you feel prepared to connect with your audience and land your key ideas. Of course, feeling ready to take the stage also requires an understanding of the space you’re operating in. Watch this quick video for some tips on how to feel prepared to take the stage.

The Performance

Think of yourself as a performer. As a speaker you are both the player and the performance. Below are some ideas and tips to strengthen your performance on stage.

Body Language & Energy

We want you to be you, to bring your best self to create that authentic connection with the audience. High energy is a great way to create that connection – it’s a magnet for the audience’s attention. Match your energy to your content – your excitement for the ideas you want to share – and that will help you project confidence and conviction to your audience.

Timing & Pace

And don’t underestimate the power of a pause to break up the pace:

Using Your Voice & Mic

When it comes to use of your voice, consider tone, volume, pitch, pacing; all the ways that you can modulate your voice to bring drama and dimension to your delivery. And remember that your voice comes from your breath! Breathing from deep in the belly will not only keep you from sounding breathless as you speak, it can also help calm your nerves, too.

You can also use the volume of your voice to command attention: raise your volume if you want to underscore a key point, or lower your volume to a stage whisper of you want audiences to lean in and get curious about what you’re saying.

When you have the opportunity to use a microphone; take it! Because your audience can’t follow your message if they can’t hear you.

And don’t forget pitch. In conversation, we all raise and lower the pitch of our voice naturally, raising our voices at the end of question or lowering our register to make an important point, fact or idea.

In order to have a great performance, which statement is true?

1. Breathing from your belly, or diaphragmatic breathing, helps to calm your nerves and speak with a strong, controlled voice.
2. Speakers use their energy to convey emotion, authenticity, confidence, and conviction.
3. Varying your pace keeps listeners engaged and will help emphasize a point and the emotional weight of what’s being said.
4. Be mindful of the time you’ve been allotted to speak, practice in order to stick to it.
5. All of the above.

Submit

Face

As a speaker, you want to use your face as a full part of yourself. Be expressive and emotive; let how you feel about your topic shine through with a warm smile, or a furrowed brow of concern. And remember the power of eye contact to connect with your audience and command their attention; speaking to one particular person to land a point will not only engage that person, but the people sitting around them, too.

Body

We all use our bodies when we talk—some more than others. Your posture is a key component of confidence, so stand with your shoulders back and head held high. If you’re at a podium, you may only be able to gesture with your hands and head. If you have a headset, you can likely walk a little, turn to face different parts of the audience, and even throw your head back to laugh. Get comfortable with your body’s natural way of interacting while speaking, and then think about how to use it to be engaging when you speak.

Use your whole body as you move about the stage – step forward toward your audience to make a point or create a sense of intimacy as you share a personal story. Moving deliberately from one end of the stage to the other as you speak can help engage people sitting at the edges of a large room. If you’re seated for a panel, use standing energy, sitting on the edge of your chair, which will naturally incline your body forward to appear more engaged with the other speakers and the audience.

Worried about what to wear? The best advice is to avoid dressing to distraction, and instead dress to match your audience.

Props

Many speakers use props to support their performance; notes, slides, or videos to complement you as a speaker. These can be so helpful in supporting and bringing depth and dimension to your speech – as long as they don’t replace or distract from it.

To engage your audience through performance, which approach is not effective?

1. Your facial expressions—eye contact, expressiveness, emotions, and warmth—are a huge part of non-verbal communication.
2. When speaking behind a podium, there is no need to be concerned about engaging your audience with body movements or facial expressions and it’s acceptable to read your speech right from your notes.
3. Use notes, videos, and/or slides to support you as a speaker, not to replace you.
4. How we look and move are important elements of our talk.

Submit

Every time you speak, it is a performance. You are not just reading something out loud to an audience. You’ll leave folks disappointed if they could have gotten the message just as easily - and faster - by reading it. So remember that you are a performer. Here’s a list of ideas to consider in turning your speech into a performance. You don’t need to do everything in the list. Pick the ones that work for you and relate to the specific performance you will be giving in a specific place to a specific audience.

Handout: Know Your Performance

Performance in Action

Watch the following video – A TED Talk on from journalist Celeste Headlee – and make note of the presenter’s performance. Pay attention to how this speaker integrates all of the different ideas you just learned about and creates an experience that will be memorable for the audience.

What did the speaker do that employed elements of performance that we learned about earlier?

1. Humor
2. Pacing
3. Pauses
4. Body language
5. All of the above

Submit

Write down two techniques from the talk that you want to use in your next speech.

Practice Makes Perfect

Practice prepares you to wow your audience three important ways:

• Reduces Anxiety: Practicing your speech multiple times makes the content and delivery feel more predictable, which can significantly reduce anxiety and nervousness.
• Builds Muscle Memory: Practice builds muscle memory for your speech to help you get back on track if nerves cause you to temporarily lose your place.
• Boosts Confidence: Practice builds confidence. Being well-prepared can provide you with a significant boost in confidence when you step onto the stage.

Remember, a great speech is a performance. How you deliver your words—from your energy to your body language, to how you move on stage— can turn a good speech into a great one.

• I’ve reflected on what it feels like to speak from the heart.
• I’ve reflected on the elements of performance – energy, timing, face, voice, body language.
• I’ve reflected on the scaffolding that might support my talk – notes, slides, etc.
• I have a plan to practice my speech.