The “Trick” to
Calm Your Speaker Nerves
By Nilofer Merchant on May 04, 2013 04:34 pm
Lift one corner of your mouth up.
Then lift the other corner up. There. You have it. An asana, or pose, for how to face the world. It’s also the “trick” speakers use to connect.
Earlier this week, I shared with you the backstage story of nervousness just as I
was about to give my talk at
TED2013. Two hours before I was shaking violently. In the moment itself, I
had a smile on my face and showed up fully alive. What happened in the middle
is a trick you can use next time you want to really resonate with a crowd or
even just one person.
A month before the talk, someone I hadn’t yet met in person
wrote a note asking if a few people could take me out to breakfast the
morning of the talk as a way of showing support. I was pretty sure I would
have thrown up on their shoes that morning of, so I’m glad I never said yes.
Instead, I suggested they wear a bright color and sit up front in the
audience. When you see a few friendly face, you remember how much a community
wants you to do well. Whenever that happens, I can stop fretting about remembering
every idea I had on the topic, and instead just connect. I was counting on
this technique to ground me, so that I wouldn’t mentally run up the ladder
into my head. When I speak from my head alone, I am going to try and impress
with braininess. When a speaker combines head and heart, they not only
inform, they resonate.
As I walked into the hall, I made eye contact with Jane McGonigal. If you don’t already know of
Jane, you should. She’s a fellow TED speaker, the NYT best-selling author of
Reality is Broken, and a brilliant game designer. (I met her years ago
playing Werewolf, which
is a weird strategy game, at something called Foo Camp at 1:00 in the morning or something
like that.) She made a heart with her hand, and gave me a big smile from a
few rows away. (Here, in this picture, she’s reproducing the moment for
posterity … just caught on my cell phone camera).
I calmed right down.
So that’s the trick. It’s so simple, perhaps even too simple to
believe. But research shows people listen better when they connect with you,
emotionally. No faster way to do that than to smile. or Laugh. It’s a stance
or asana you can use anytime. In family life, in meetings, and if you are
ever lucky enough to address a crowd. Just lift up one corner of your mouth
and then the other.
The post The “Trick” to Calm Your Speaker Nerves
appeared first on Nilofer Merchant.
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