7/29/2019 Delivering Your Presentation - Create a Stage Presence by Robert Keiber

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Delivering Your Presentation - Create a stage presence

Robert Keiber - Sun, 02/01/1998 - http://www.trainingmag.com/article/delivering-your-presentation-create-stage-presence

You can't learn to present effectively by watching other great speakers and then trying toimitate or copy their styles. That copycat approach is difficult if not impossible. You may beable to eventually imitate speakers, but you will never become comfortable or effective. Andworst of all, it will never appear natural, because their styles are not your style.

Although you can analyze and identify what characteristics make certain speakers moreeffective communicators than others, you simply can't apply speech-making skills just bywatching. Like good acting, presentation prowess comes from within.

Almost every young actor begins her career by imitating some famous star of the day.Copycat J ames Deans and Marilyn Monroes clutter auditions. Would-be Al Pacinos andMeryl Streeps appear on stages everywhere. I personally started my career as a MarlonBrando, then switched to J ack Nicholson. But I didn't begin to get real acting work until Istarted being myself -- Bob Keiber. Actors never really become successful until they find outwho they are and what is special about themselves.

What separates the good actors from the bad is a certain charisma. Everybody has charismaand charm. To be an effective communicator (and enjoy speaking in the process), you musttap into your natural charisma, not try to emulate Winston Churchill's, J ohn F. Kennedy's orMartin Luther King's. These were all great speakers, but what made them great was notnecessarily their strong voices or large vocabularies. What made these speakers great wastheir personal charm, which came out stronger than anything they said or did.

What is charisma and how can I get some?

Don't worry -- you already have it. Charisma is what makes you interesting, charming,appealing.

It is what makes you...well, you. Here's the secret. When you relax and let your natural,heartfelt emotions communicate your message, your charisma comes out and you touch theaudience. When that magic happens -- when your natural emotions are bared for theaudience to see -- they begin to listen to you, believe you and follow you.

The Charisma Factor explains charisma as "a specialized form of communication techniquesused by leaders to reach the hearts and minds of those who follow them." Charisma comes

from your emotional makeup and your personal beliefs, and visions of what you feel is trulyimportant. Since our deepest-held beliefs are personal by default, it is literally impossible toborrow or imitate someone else's charismatic style. You can try to analyze the words ofcharismatic leaders and try to understand what gives them their presence, but only in aneffort to search for and identify your own personal emotional characteristics.

Whatever you do, forget the art of speech-making

Forget about the art of presenting. That's the wrong way to think about it. Art isnonfunctional; effective presenting is a function. When you speak before an audience, youhave a purpose of action. A presentation is not a tap dance that you do for someone'sappreciation. It has a goal -- inform and persuade.

There is an ancient Greek adage, "When Demostracles speaks, the people say, 'My, what a

7/29/2019 Delivering Your Presentation - Create a Stage Presence by Robert Keiber

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wonderful speaker he is,' but when Pericles speaks, the people say, 'Let us march!'" Byfocusing on being informative and persuasive whenever you present, you remove much ofthe pressure of trying to perform. One of the intimidating factors regarding presenting is thatwe have too many false examples of what the art of speech-making looks and sounds like.We have a tendency to compare ourselves with the over-inflated, unreachable images ofgreat speakers and actors, past and present.

Developing the actual skill of effective presenting is akin to body building. The skill must beexercised with proper training, and you must always keep in mind that your personal effortswill bring about the best response to your public presentations.

We are all interesting, charismatic people, and we must take some risks and experiment toidentify and exercise our charisma. Begin to search for your own natural charm andcontinually practice using it in front of people. It is not so much an art as a very natural actthat we have been performing all our lives.---------------------------------------------A former TV actor, Robert Keiber has more than 100 commercials and the role of Kitt on "All

My Children" to his credit. Now president of The Tuxedo Group communications company(914.633.2903), in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., he is the author of I'd Rather Die Than Make aSpeech.