Presentation posture
What pitchers, keynote speakers and presenters can learn from professional dancers and mirrors.
As a boy, I wanted to be a professional dancer. I wanted to be Fred Astaire. I danced from the age of five until I was fourteen, when I realised I wasn't any good and stopped.
Why wasn't I any good? I was physically weak. I had bad posture, too, from watching my feet – I was a shoe-gazer.
There weren't any mirrors in my dance school, you see. If there had been, I would have been able to see what I was doing in the reflection. You may have seen footage from professional dance studios and wondered why they have mirrors. Now you know why.
A professional dancer never looks at their feet. Their eyes are on their partner, ensemble or audiences – entirely focused on the rhythm of their body and the story it's telling. They are not focused on themselves but on the moment and the audience. How do they do it? Skill and talent, of course, but they practise in front of mirrors.
I see so many presentations and pitches where the speaker is shoe-gazing. Stuck in the technicalities of their presentation, their script and whether or not the bloody clicker works, their figurative presentation-shoe-gazing is what keeps them being genuinely focused on the audience.
They have poor presentation posture.
That's where I come in to drag their gaze away from scripts and screens and out into the audience. I'll physically mirror what my customers and mentees do on stage. To show them what they're doing. I show them what they're doing wrong and how to correct their presentation posture.
They need a mirror to improve.
We all do.
With only sixty-five days to go, I thought it would be timely to introduce the specialist guests, speakers, and expedition leaders who will help delegates get a clearer view of public speaking at the Speakery Summit.
A stellar group of experts will travel to the Bavarian Alps on September 19th and 20th to share their storytelling, media, negotiation, and presentation secrets.
Emma Nelson is packing her media mint cake to help delegates get a clearer view of working with broadcast journalists.
Sam McAlister is putting on her beautifully hobnailed negotiation boots for her Scoop Masterclass.
Julia Hobsbawm will be translating the complexity of work underneath a Bavarian night sky for the very first Sparks & Stars Talk.
Cristina Do Rego will be sharing an actor’s perspective on impostor syndrome and fixing fear.
Magdalena Rogl will be joining us to give her insights into translating and presenting the complexity of diversity & inclusion.
Sebastian Weber will be giving a meteorologist’s perspective on how to radically rethink the presentation of weather.
Milka Loff Fernandes will discover how she wins the hearts and minds of audiences.
Tim Plester will be giving a filmmaker's perspective on storytelling and pitching the impossible.
Rishi Dastidar will be sharing the poet's perspective on presenting words.
Vimal Panalickal will be giving the tailor's take on weaving content.
Florian Michael Weber will be translating the complexity of live sport and giving a sprinter’s take on producing live spectacles.
This isn't the final list. There's more to come.
I've curated the Summit to ensure a wide range of perspectives on presenting, production, and public speaking. I want my delegates to go home with a bumper bag of tips, tricks and ideas that they won't get anywhere else – things that they can actually use to improve their presentation, media and public speaking skills dramatically.
We'd love to see you there.