Body Language Archives - Improve Your Public Speaking Presentation and Influence Skills Training Coaching Melbourne Australia

08OctOctober 8, 2020

Intimidated by People with Power over You at Work?

It's so easy for this to happen. Whether you’re giving a presentation or having a conversation, feeling intimidated by people with power over you at work - either higher up the food chain, or with some other power over you - it can be a real challenge. Intimidated by People with Power over You at Work? My experience I vividly recall working with my first CEO client, years ago now. We’d spoken on the phone, and I turned up for our first coaching session. I remember getting into the lift of this expansive, echoing marble foyer, heart pounding, as I tried desperately to...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Body Language, business meetings, Delivery, Mindset, Overcoming Nerves0 CommentsRead more...

11JunJune 11, 2020

How to Show Warmth to Any Audience

How can we deliberately show warmth to any audience? Or to a person we're about to communicate with 1:1? No matter what sort of a mood we're in before we speak, or how we feel about that audience? And fast? I've been working with a client this week on exactly this concept. I asked him how he believed he came across in meetings with his team when he opened the conversation - was there any specific process that he followed at the start? His reply was basically "No process...and how do I come across? It depends on how I'm feeling". This is...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Body Language, Delivery, Mindsetaudience connection, authentic public speaking, emotional contagion leaders, emotional leakage, extend goodwill to audience, high audience engagement0 CommentsRead more...

27SepSeptember 27, 2019

Public Speaking Body Language Loop

Public Speaking Body Language Loop In this video, I discuss the public speaking body language loop and how yours can help you, as well as signal competence to your audience. So many speaking coaches talk about public speaking body language, and there's a lot of advice out there. Here's a small part on video about how positive body language at the start of your presentation can become self-reinforcing and help you to move confidently into the rest of your talk . Transcript: Hello! So today I would like to talk to you about body language - obviously a huge topic, and there are...

By Sarah DenholmBody Language, Delivery, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blogaudience believing body language, audience judgement, beginning of presentation, body language in public speaking, eye contact public speaking, two channels of communication in public speaking0 CommentsRead more...

28DecDecember 28, 2017

Three key factors which reduce speaking stress

Studying 'stress hardiness' research is part of what I do to help clients become more resilient presenters; and there's been a lot of interesting work done in this area over the past nearly 40 years by two psychologists, Salvatore Maddi and Suzanne Kobasa. They've worked with 1000's of Control, commitment and challenge - key factors which reduce speaking stress professionals and have found three critical factors in resilient people. Resilience shows up when people go through life stressors and come out the other side showing the ability to grow and thrive. (Whereas non-resilient people suffer physical and/or mental ill-health.) These three critical...

By Sarah DenholmBody Language, content, Delivery, Mindset, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, Rehearsalcalm system, challenge public speaking, commitment to public speaking role, committed to words, control when public speaking, Dr Salvatore Maddi, Dr Suzanne Kobasa, help with speaking beliefs, internal locus of control, presentation anxiety, public speaking anxiety, public speaking opportunity for growth, public speaking practice, resilient presenters, stress hardiness0 CommentsRead more...

31MarMarch 31, 2017

How To Get Into A Strong, Energetic State Before A Presentation

How to Get into a Strong, Energetic State Before a Presentation How do you come across to others when you present? And how do other people judge our energy levels? You might think this is an obvious question, but I bet there will be things you're missing - we can't always tell what's really going on, and even less so how we come across to other people, because we have so many mind filters in place and miss or delete information as we process it. So today's exercise is a way for you to find out personally how other people...

By Sarah DenholmBody Language, Delivery, Mindset, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Bloganxious speaker, nervous energy, nervous speaker, speaking energy triggers, speaking with energy and conviction, strong state as speaker3 CommentsRead more...

29OctOctober 29, 2015

What’s the Right Level of Presenting Energy for You?

Clients often ask me about the right level of presenting energy for them - what's effective and appropriate? My answer is that there are a few variables, so let me give you some pointers to start the discussion in today's post. Firstly, how do people judge our energy levels? It can be boiled down to a few factors: What's the right energy level for you as a presenter? 1. The over-arching factor: enthusiasm level; how engaged do we appear to be? How interested in our topic, and enthusistic about being in front of the room as the presenter? Remember that if we're bored...

By Sarah DenholmBody Language, Delivery, Mindset, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog1 CommentRead more...

16JulJuly 16, 2015

Vocal Presence – Using your Voice to Own the Space

Vocal Presence - Using your Voice to Own the Space Creating vocal presence Our delivery style is crucial to getting a message across effectively to our audience, and one of the key factors in delivery is using our voice to create power, warmth and persuasiveness. Our voice gives our audience clear messages about our confidence, energy and vitality. When we contract and mentally “turn away” from the audience, our voice follows; we swallow our words, mumble and rush, or become monotonous or ‘lifeless’ in our tone. Of course, one thing which will always affect vocal presence is how much we trust ourselves and...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Body Language, business meetings, Delivery, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog0 CommentsRead more...

09MarMarch 9, 2015

9 Mistakes Presenters Make

9 Mistakes Presenters Make Mistakes Presenters Make Do you want to be a more dynamic presenter? You will be if you avoid these frequent mistakes. I've discussed all of these ideas in previous articles, but thought it was worth clustering them together for a 'common mistakes' overview. 1. Forgetting the WIIFM filter One of the most common mistakes that presenters make is forgetting to run their whole presentation through their audience’s No.1 filter – and that is always WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) From the moment you open your mouth, to the summing-up, you’re being judged through this filter, and in...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Body Language, content, Delivery, Mindset, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, Rehearsal, Structureaudience management public speaking, audience recall in public speaking, body language in public speaking, energy level public speaking, presentation structure, public speaking rehearsal, stories public speaking, storytelling in public speaking, vocal tone presence public speaking0 CommentsRead more...

18FebFebruary 18, 2015

Public Speaking Fear: How Breathing will Help

Public Speaking Fear: How Breathing Will Help Think about public speaking fear and breathing: this may be a topic you resist. You may think you’ve heard it all before, or you've Public speaking fear: how breathing will help tried working with your breath and didn't find it helpful. That certainly used to be my experience, and I've had a client recently who told me it didn't work, because he could only do a breath or two before his negative thoughts started up again. I told him it's inevitable that our thoughts are always there, just keep coming back to the breath; and that...

By Sarah DenholmBody Language, Delivery, Mindset, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blogavoiding nasal tonality public speaking, breathing during public speaking, breathing techniques for public speaking, calm and control public speaking1 CommentRead more...

17JulJuly 17, 2014

Should you Move About When you Present, or Not?

Should you move around when presenting? As presenters, people tend to fall into two opposing ‘choreography’ camps when they’re in front of a group - you may recognise yourself here: You stand stock-still (often hiding behind – even hanging onto – the lectern), barely twitching except to advance a slide Advantage: you feel better because you’re in a safe space (or safer – of course it’s all relative!) Disadvantage: it’s a boring, un-engaging look for your audience, and using so little physical energy is unhelpful for you too - if you're nervous, that adrenalin and cortisol will 'bank up' in your system and perpetuate any...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Body Language, Delivery, Overcoming Nerves, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, Rehearsal0 CommentsRead more...