Friday, October 9, 2009

Communicate With Enthusiasm, Part I

In our experience, one of the most powerful applications of acting techniques to everyday life is in the arena of public speaking. In a world of PowerPoint drones, how can you learn to stand out? Our next few blog posts will teach you how to Communicate With Enthusiasm.


In public speaking as well as in theater, the audience takes its cue from the performer. If you’re excited, they’ll get excited; if you’re indifferent, then they will be too.

According to Meryl Streep, “All an actor has is their heart, really. That’s the place you go for inspiration.” Oddly enough, many public speakers go out of their way to circumvent the heart, to avoid all emotional expressiveness. They’re so afraid of overacting that they don’t want to act at all, or they worry that injecting personal feelings into their presentation will somehow undermine their status as “the expert.” Quite the opposite is true, however; the more value the material has to you, the more it will have to your audience. By speaking from the heart and sharing your enthusiasm for the subject, you actually increase your expert standing (because only someone who truly knows his stuff would dare to care so much about it) as well as your ability to move the crowd.

Some people are naturally enthusiastic communicators. They can make even the most mundane events seem like the stuff of action adventure movies. Most people are not. If you’re someone who can make the latest Vin Diesel film sound like a documentary on the digging habits of field mice, don’t worry. Like just about every other aspect of public speaking, the habits of enthusiastic communication can be learned.

Here’s a little exercise that can help:

Approach Every Speech Like a Motivational Speech

Take any passage from a speech (something you’ve written or something you’ve found)—the duller, the better! Now, instead of picturing yourself talking to the actual people for whom the speech is intended, imagine you are a college basketball coach, addressing your team moments before the start of a championship game. Use the actual words of your speech but imagine that they are intended to light a fire in this eager but anxious group of young players. Instead of merely imparting information to your team, you need to do what any great coach would do and whip them into a frenzy! If sports aren’t your thing, you can imagine you’re a preacher firing up a congregation, a politician giving a fervent stump speech, or even Joan of Arc leading the troops into battle. Any situation that requires you to speak from the heart to the heart.

When you’ve finished, take a moment to consider what effect this visualization had on your communication. Were you more physically active than usual? Were you emphasizing different words than you might have otherwise? Did you care more about the response from your imaginary crowd that you normally would? Any changes you’ve noted probably have to do with the fact that you were communicating more enthusiastically than you are used to. You might even feel like you were “over the top,” going so far with the image that you lost touch with reality. But it’s important to note that, because you’ve had years to build up your present communication habits, almost any change in the way you do things might feel like going too far. So you probably aren’t as “out there” as you think. Even if you are, you can always pull back later. In the theater, actors are always trying to go too far in rehearsal because it’s easier to pull back (do less of something) than push forward (do more).

Now ask yourself, which of these new habits of enthusiastic communication do you think you might successfully incorporate into your actual speech? From now on, anytime you feel lethargic about what you’re saying, conjure up the coach scenario and let the sparks fly.