CHAPTER 12
Finding Your Own Style
Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you.
— PABLO PICASSO
Iam often asked in coaching, “What does it take to get really good? How good am I, and how do I get to a higher level?” On a scale of zero to ten, I would rate most speakers I meet in business at about a four. Not bad, but not good. The same as I was when I started originally. They coast on their talent and intelligence and have had very little actual training. But, there is much more potential in them.
Improving from a four to a six is relatively simple. Most people can make that leap with a good 25-hour training course. Improving from a six to an eight takes a greater investment of time and training, including working in front of a camera, additional coaching, and opening your mind to embrace, not just hear, feedback.
Beyond that, to get from an eight to a ten, either you’ve got it or you don’t. Most people assume that personality and charisma are the key factors in being a great speaker or presenter. Charisma is part of effective speaking, but only part of it. The true power of public speaking, the stuff that gets you invited into the Olympics of presenters, is the ability to read an audience. Once you learn how to read an audience’s eyes and body language, there is no limit to how good you can get. If you can read a person one-on-one, you can learn to read an audience.
The great artist Pablo Picasso became famous because of his very distinctive style, which took common objects and forms, including the human body, and represented them in highly altered ways. As much as Picasso can teach us about the power of our own individuality and uniqueness, and the necessity of marshaling that power to stand out, he can also teach us a much more useful lesson about connecting with an audience.
Close your eyes and imagine a human face. Do not look at any pictures or people; just imagine a face. In terms of a fraction, how far down from the top of the head are the eyes?
Most people say one-fourth or one-third of the way down the face, when they are actually located halfway. On every human face they are exactly halfway between the top of the head and bottom of the chin— directly in the middle of the head (the hairline throws us off).*
The problem with our early drawings was not that we couldn’t draw. The problem was that we couldn’t see. Even though, as children, we had seen thousands of faces, we didn’t see them in their proper proportions. We correctly drew what we incorrectly saw. This is why most people think they can’t draw. Not knowing that the problem is our inability to see, we give up, thinking we don’t have the ability or the talent to draw. To learn how to draw, first you must learn how to see.
Artists know this. They also know that they can’t just draw what they see. Sometimes they draw what they don’t see. They use shadows and shading to create mood, or the illusion of an object.
Our art teacher eventually teaches us not only where to place the eyes, but that the distance between our two eyes is equal to a third eye, that the top of the ears is level with the eyes, and that the bottom of the nose is two-fifths of the way from the eyes to the chin.
Speaking works the same way. Before you can learn how to speak, you must first learn how to hear. You must learn how to hear what makes an audience’s filters go up, and what makes them go down. You learn to hear what parts of your presentation become memorable for your audiences, and what parts they are not retaining. You must learn to hear the beauty of silence, and how to communicate without speaking. To unleash your own ability, you need to hear the patterns of response that indicate that your presentation is working, so that you can create things that your audience has not yet seen. You must learn to hear what the people in your audience are telling you through their eyes, body language, and other verbal and nonverbal clues. The ability to convey to those in your audience that you “hear” them can be a form of charisma. It’s also a skill that you can develop and a technique that you can use very effectively, regardless of your natural charisma.
Natural Charisma
Good news! Not only can you create charisma by learning to read your audience, but yes, you do have your own natural charisma. Everybody does. Charisma is your ability to make your audience members feel good about themselves. Most people don’t know how much charisma they have simply because they’ve never developed it enough to find out.
Imagine that your laptop battery has died, and you need to charge it. You attach the power cord to the computer and plug it into the wall outlet. An hour later, when you try to use your computer, it still won’t boot up. Why? You check, and you realize that the cord had fallen out of the outlet. The cord has to be plugged in on both ends for the computer to charge.
It’s the same with charisma. Your authentic personality is the cord transmitting your message to the audience. When you make that connection, that’s when the energy flows. But, it has to be plugged in at both ends. Rule of thumb: Presentations should be customized at both ends. Your presentation style and goals, and the audience’s presentation style and goals.
Charisma is just the starting point, though. It’s the way you create your connection to the audience so that your message can be delivered. It is possible to have charisma—which we can also think of as real presence—and not deliver content, so we have to be careful about placing too much emphasis on sheer personality. If an audience can’t remember anything from a presentation, but thought the speaker was great, that might be an example of a charismatic speaker who didn’t deliver much value. That can be all of us at times. Then there are perhaps less naturally charismatic speakers whose audience remembered their message because they used effective techniques to deliver their content successfully.
Back to our laptop. If you want to charge up your audience with your charisma, you have to express your personality and make that connection with your audience in an inspiring way.
One of the most effective ways to connect with your audience is, simply, to be yourself. Although you can learn something useful and important from every speaker you hear, there is only one style that will ever fit you: your style is perfect for you. Your perfect presentation is you being perfectly you, connecting perfectly with the audience. Trying to mimic or copy someone else’s presentation style is a tactical error that will only produce disappointing results. It will never be authentic. Each of us is unique; we cannot be duplicated. The only style that will ever be effective for you is your own.
Often, the way we come across to our friends, family, or colleagues when we are excited, passionate, or focused gets lost when we make an official presentation. I see this all of the time. Share your passion for your content, and let your personality shine through. If you don’t have any passion for the topic you are presenting, maybe it’s time to ask yourself why you are presenting it.
People used to say, you can’t be emotional in business. Especially you, women: don’t be emotional!
That’s ridiculous. Most business is emotion, but you have to access appropriate emotions at the appropriate times. Confidence, strength, hope, excitement, frustration—these are all emotions that, if we can convey them to and inspire them in our audience, can make our presentations extremely effective. Not only can you be emotional, but you have to be. In fact, research has shown that 80 percent of business decisions are made emotionally.* This doesn’t mean that there is no logic as the basis for the decision, but the final decision? Buy or don’t buy? That’s largely emotional.
Just make sure that the emotion you want your audience to feel is the one that you’re sending.
I’ve learned in coaching that some people feel, for a variety of reasons, that it’s not safe for them to “be themselves” at work. Another way to think of it is as being your “appropriate” self. You are being the “real you,” but appropriate to the context. To become a great speaker, you must get better and better at being your true and best self—in a way that is appropriate to the situation.
Some people interpret that last statement to mean “just be yourself.” That is the root of the theory, but the part about being “appropriate to the situation” is just as important. You can be passionate when you’re pitching an idea to the boss at work, and be just as passionate when you’re discussing your political opinions with a friend. But that doesn’t mean that you should be expressing your political views to your boss or making your friend listen to your sales pitch. What is appropriate in one situation is not appropriate in the other, but in both situations, you are being authentic, the real you, your true and best self.
World-class speakers sometimes make mistakes, large and small, in their presentations all the time. Do you want to know what their secret is for not becoming flustered or thrown off by mistakes?
They don’t care.
Most people never notice when a great speaker makes a mistake because the speakers themselves don’t care. They know that it’s not about them. They are focused on the audience and the delivery. A great speaker does not let himself be held back by the need to be perfect the way that need holds back others. Great speakers aren’t worried about whether they look good. They worry about whether their audience is having a good experience. How you view mistakes says more about you than it says about the mistakes. A speaker is good when she is herself and she delivers an important message or helps her audience get something meaningful. It doesn’t matter whether your technique is perfect, whether you make mistakes, or whether you are extremely entertaining. All that matters is that your audience gets what you want it to get.
Andre Agassi, in addition to his skills on the tennis court and in the boardroom (he is doing amazing work with charter schools), is also one of the best storytellers I know, and he told me, “We’re all swimming to Hawaii, and none of us is going to make it. Keep swimming anyway.”
I think of this as it relates to mastering anything, like communication, that is not truly masterable. There is no upper limit to how good you can get. There is always more to learn. To quote the smiling Dory in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming.” (You can see how old my kids are.) Enjoy the journey.
SUMMARY
Charisma is your ability to connect your authentic personality with the audience’s personality. Everyone has charisma.
The key to becoming a great presenter is to get better and better at being your best, true, authentic self in a way that is appropriate to the situation.
Never try to copy someone else. Your own style is the perfect style for you.
Great speakers don’t care about making mistakes. Mistakes help you learn and improve, and your audience won’t care that you made them.
Showing emotion can be extremely effective in public speaking. Let the people in your audience see your passion for your topic, and they will feel it, too.
*Bob Davies, How to Draw and Paint, PaintBox Art Media, Ltd., www.how-to-draw-and-paint.com.
*Dan Hill, Emotionomics: Leveraging Emotions for Business Success (London: Kogan Page, Ltd., 2010).