The one thing you need to know to captivate your audience
When I started out, and felt stuck and anxious as a speaker the barrier to getting better was that I thought it was complicated.
Twenty years on, what I want you to know is that good speaking, when you get the fundamentals right, is far simpler and far easier than you can possibly imagine.
Now, simple and easy as in anything worth having takes attention and practice. When you practise the idea I’m sharing with you here, you will notice a big difference in your speaking. It will take you from rushed and tonally flat, to conversational and expressive - I watched it work on a client today, and its magic effect never fails to delight me. It gives you the power to captivate an audience with congruence and conversational power.
The simple principle that I was taught at drama school and have used ever since is that we breathe our thoughts.
It’s simple when you reflect that:
- Speech is out-breath.
- Your in- breath is your fuel.
The wonderful thing is that more than the power source of your voice, your in-breath is also the means by which you can vary the dynamics, because you can breathe in different emotions - and the body, particularly the diaphragm will respond. And as the diaphragm responds the voice follows. If you want your audience to feel excited, breathe in excitement, and your vocal tone will carry that feeling.
If we go back to the ancient world it’s all there, hidden in plain sight, in Latin the root of spirare, to breathe contains within it the idea of the spiral of breath as it enters the body. And as the word “inspire” implies and of course inspiration, suggests a spark of something genius coming into you. And because it's also related to spirare, the spiral, it suggests that as we breathe in, ideas come in.
To make this yours is simple
On the pause, close your mouth.
Wait, let the next thought arrive. Let it arrive with a particular emotional quality of your choice - excitement perhaps.
As you speak on the out breath, notice how the emotion colours your tone and also the dynamics of your delivery.
Enjoy this feeling of using the in-breath and having control, moment by moment of what you express emotionally and what your audience feel.
Practise it in safe spaces first and then take it to where it matters - notice that changes everything.
Let me know how you get on. For more please do take a look at my self paced courses
Have a great sunny weekend!
Caroline x