How To Spot The Great Speakers: What Makes a Speaker Inspiring

The great speakers know how to be an open expressive channel. You can feel them. 

There is emotional range and variation throughout their talk without being a catharsis-fest. Most of us haven’t experienced some recent trauma that we’re speaking about (like Emma Gonzalez in the picture above). 

We’re sharing about things that we’re passionate about, angry about and believe in deeply. 

That means that you’ll have to access a range of emotions over and over again while staying grounded in your body and connected to your audience. 

Here are 3 Ways To Create More Emotional Range in your talks to inspire and engage your audience, potentially get standing ovations and even make them cry. 

1. Move around

   Are you stuck in one place on the stage? Are you using your hands in the same way over and over? 

   To be felt by your audience and to contact your own emotions make sure to move your body freely on stage. 

   That might sound oversimplified, but I don’t want to give you specific prescriptions of what to do or not to do with your body. I want you to find the movements you body wants to do in connection with and in response to your content. Let your body speak. 

   I had a client yesterday that used the word “deluge” in her talk. It’s a very expressive word. I paused her from the presentation and asked her what it means to her. She told me it’s like a overwhelm of information and she started to use her hands and her face to show me what a deluge felt like. I said, that’s it! do that! Now, when she talks about the deluge of options in her talk her body moves and speaks at the same time that her content choice speaks. We as the audience get a much deeper sense of what she intends with her word.

2. Breathe

   Perhaps you’ve heard already but breathing regulates your emotional state. Most speakers are not breathing deeply enough to even be feeling anything but stage fright. 

   Oftentimes we are taught that breathing deeply is relaxing, and it is. But breathing for speaking is not only about relaxing. We don’t want you going to sleep, or going into a meditation on stage! 

   No, you’re breathing on stage needs to be activating and enlivening.

   It’s similar to the way you breathe when you’re going for a jog. You’re breathing more deeply then when you’re sitting at your computer, but in a way that gives you sustainable energy. 

   More specifically, I recommend taking big gulps of air in on your inhale. Breathe in quickly almost like a gasp but without the shoulder tension. See if you can gasp into your belly and your back. This will feel like seriously a lot of air. You might even get light headed so take it easy.

   What if you breathed in like that before every sentence? Well, you’d be much more likely to be connected to your emotions. 

   More about this in a future episode… breathing is a big topic!

3. Activate vocal resonators

   Do you know what I mean when I say vocal resonators?? 

   Your body is a resonating chamber just like a violin. Your vocal chords create vibration by rubbing together (just like the strings of a violin and the bow). When you make sound the vibration in your vocal chords bounces off some part of your body more then others to create a certain tonality. This is part of what makes each of our voices unique, and what communicates a lot about our emotional state. 

   The other cool thing about vocal resonance is that wherever I’m resonating in my body, you will resonate in your body as well. So if you are listening to me speak (in person or virtual) and I’m using a head resonator, you’ll feel vibration in your head. Cool, huh?

   I could totally geek out on this but to be brief here let me just say that there are 3 main resonators that are useful to talk about for speaking: Head, Chest and Belly/Back. 

   The head resonators tends to activate emotions of excitement, joy and also pouting, or annoyance. The Chest resonator tends to activate anger as well as power and commanding tone, especially if the movement of the voice is forward and out. The belly/back resonator tends to activate emotions of grief, sadness and a sense that this moment is important, as well as pleasure and sensuality. 

   In invite you to explore your own resonators by simply making sounds with these emotional intentions and see what happens. Where do you feel vibration in your body? 

I hope this article helps you to bring out more emotional range in your speaking and let yourself be felt more by your audience. Let me know how it goes for you.

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