Speaking Tip Of The Day: What Your Posture Says About You

YOUR CREDIBILITY DEPENDS ON IT

How you look when
you speak determines to a large degree whether or not your audience
believes and trusts you. A stooped, slumped posture will affect
everything about your presentation: your energy, the opening of your
windpipe and vocal chords, your ability to breathe, your level of
tension and stress–even your credibility.

YOU DON’T WANT TO LOOK BORED NOW DO YOU?

From
a nonverbal standpoint, a slumped posture can give the audience the
impression that you are bored with your subject or that you have low
self-esteem.

AN ELONGATED POSTURE IS VERY POWERFUL

Instead, stand in an open, elongated position when
you deliver your speech. An elongated posture is very powerful. Not
only does it tell your audience that you are confident and relaxed, but
it will also improve every other aspect of your speech when you speak
from this position.

FINDING A MORE NATURAL POSTURE

Here is a simple exercise for finding your most open and elongated posture:

• Imagine
  that you are relaxed and sitting in a theater waiting for a movie to
  begin. A rather tall person sits down in front of you. If you sit up
  and stare straight ahead, you are looking at the back of this person’s
  head and it partially blocks your view of the screen.
  
• Now try to imagine the sensation of posture elongation:
  Stretch and elongate your head and body just tall enough, so that you
  can imagine you are able to easily see the movie screen just over this
  tall person’s head in front of you. Make sure your shoulders stay
  loose, relaxed and down.
  
• Seated in your chair, try to imagine this scenario several times in your mind and elongate your body upwards each time.
  
• Next try the same sequence standing.

TRY IT! YOU’LL LIKE IT!

 Ideally, you will stand in this open, elongated position when you deliver your speech. Try it! You’ll like it!