How to be Heard

Whether you’re standing in front of one person, a room of eight people or an auditorium of 800, you own it to them (and to yourself) to be fully conscious.

you talk about a problem with a left-hand gesture when you have just indicated the future with the same hand, though of course the specifics of what you anchor, where, are entirely up to you.

You will make people rather uncomfortable if you retain your natural timeline and talk about the future with a gesture to your right (which will be their left). I am so used to this now that I’ve essentially reversed my own timeline, and instinctively indicate to the right when I talk about past and the left when I talk about future.

Voice If I can do only one exercise for some reason, this is the one I will always go to. It’s called the Siren, and it really gets your voice ready to give of its best. It’s like a sine wave, moving from the highest your voice will go to the lowest, with the sound WEEE at the top and AWWW at the bottom. As your WEEE-AWWW-WEEE-AWWW sound swoops from high to low, be conscious of any discontinuities.

carrying a copy of your presentation (and anything else that’s critical, like required fonts) on a USB stick.

there is a doomsday scenario, even a highly unlikely one, it pays to take precautions against it, because the cost of not preparing may be catastrophic, while the cost of preparing is probably very small. It’s the old umbrella argument: the cost of carrying one and not needing it is quite small, while the cost of not carrying one and needing it can be a soaking—and yet so often we choose to leave it at home.

This breaks long content into bite-sized chunks, each timed and practiced, so that you can plan accurately. To create a syntax, I use a simple spreadsheet with five columns. The first describes the chunk of content; the second the duration of that chunk in minutes; the third the start time (copy the end time of the previous chunk); the fourth the end time (using a formula to add the duration to the start time); the fifth any notes required, for example describing props or exercises.

I always try to go back and thank them afterwards, because they do an amazing job.

here simultaneous translation? In which case, go and introduce yourself to the translators and run through any jargon or unusual words you may use so they are prepared.

Where do you come onstage from and where do you go off to? There are few things more awkward that someone ending a speech and then looking uncertainly around, clearly not knowing which way to leave.