Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2022. It describes Angela Merkel as “the German chancellor”, although she left office in December 2021, before publication.
If you’ve ever felt that when you speak, people ignore you, interrupt you or simply don’t pay you much attention, the problem is most likely not what you’re saying. It’s more likely to be the delivery with which you’re communicating the message.
Vanessa Van Edwards, author of the book Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People and an expert in public speaking and body language, says that when we listen to someone speak, our brain identifies only two things: confidence and emotion. Confidence is a very powerful signal that makes people take you seriously. If you give the impression that you lack confidence in yourself (insecurity), people will clearly pick up on it and won’t take your message very seriously.
Emotion, on the other hand, is a kind of warmth that makes people find you interesting.
Vanessa has devoted her whole career to helping people improve the way others see them when they speak. If you want to make a good first impression or raise your standing with people who didn’t know you, here are the five most common mistakes people make and that you should avoid when you speak in public, or when you’re giving a presentation in your own company.
More on public speaking:
- The techniques the best TED speakers use
- 11 common public speaking mistakes and how to fix them
- How to lose your fear of public speaking with a few techniques
5 mistakes to avoid if you want to seem more confident, self-assured and interesting
1. What to do with your hands: steeple or free hands?
Although speaking in public on a stage calls for gesturing with your hands, for other kinds of speeches or presentations the recommendation is to use the pyramid, or steeple. This hand position has been seen a great deal with German chancellor Angela Merkel and other television personalities.
The pyramid or steeple consists of placing your hands facing each other and gently bringing your fingertips together to form a steeple or pyramid. It’s known as the power pose, because it’s the posture almost all of the world’s most powerful people use in their public statements.
In this sense, the brain perceives these people as more confident and more committed. Signalling confidence with this pose will also make the listener tend to trust you. It shows that you’re relaxed and open at the same time, so your listeners should be too.
However, this hand position isn’t ideal for a talk where you need to grab the audience’s attention, such as a TED talk or a conference, because if you stand still on stage with hardly any body language, you could end up boring even the microphone clipped to your collar.
This position is used above all when you’re delivering a serious message and you need people to trust what you’re saying and to feel that you trust yourself.
Author’s note: the liar’s position
Although the pyramid or steeple is known as the power position and is used by politicians and people in high places, I’ve personally nicknamed it the liar’s position, because it’s a position that may well be used by someone who, even though they’re going to lie to you, needs you to trust the message.
It’s also a position insecure people adopt to look more self-assured. You should know that while the listener’s brain may perceive it as confidence and self-assurance, those of us who know it isn’t a natural position for the hands see it as a way of protecting yourself and hiding behind a gesture. Somebody had to say it.
2. Don’t hide your emotions
Research shows that our brain takes just a tenth of a second to recognise an emotion through “vocal cues”. Vocal variety is what carries emotion, and it’s one of the main ways we communicate our emotions, mood and attitude to others.
Many people think that conveying emotion can get in the way of their message, but in fact, according to research, it enhances it. Conveying emotion is what makes people interested in you and hooks them into wanting to listen.
That’s why the advice is that when you’re proud of an idea or care about something, don’t act indifferent. Instead, speak with motivation, and your listeners will feel inspired. Share your thoughts with power and emphasis.
What if you’re an introvert?
For introverts in particular, Vanessa recommends remembering that you’re not talking about yourself, but trying to draw attention to your ideas. Remember that you’ve worked hard to build up experience, skills, knowledge and ideas. Be proud of those ideas and put them out there with enthusiasm.
3. Having an over-scripted script
Vanessa says she coaches many people as they prepare their TED talks, and many make this mistake: writing the script of their presentation and then rehearsing it ad nauseam.
While it’s a good idea to rehearse your talk, when it comes to conveying emotion, having everything too tightly scripted can make you lose the vocal variety we need so much to express emotion.
That’s why she recommends leaving the stories and the emotional parts of the speech unscripted. She suggests writing down a few key points to remember, but drawing on the real emotions behind your words completely naturally.
4. Using verbal fillers
Most people use verbal fillers for two main reasons. First, to buy time while they think about the next point they need to cover. In other words, slipping in filler words or phrases while our brain gets ready to tackle the next point. And second, out of fear of being interrupted.
That’s why many people talk too fast and end up tripping over their words. Here we need to understand that confident people understand the power of pauses. A confident person isn’t afraid of being interrupted. They have no need to fill in with phrases, let alone any fear of creating silences. And that shows competence and confidence.
5. Avoid question inflections
A question inflection is a complete giveaway of insecurity. And some people use them very often. For example…
A salesperson is in a negotiation meeting and says: “We’d love your company to become our client.” So far, so good. But then he says: “The price of our service would be… 500 euros a month?” That way he isn’t stating the price of his service. He’s asking it.
And that’s why some salespeople have such a low closing rate. They may do an excellent job and give a great presentation, but at the moment of truth, when they need confidence most, that inflection makes the other side feel they have room to haggle over the price and renegotiate it. And in fact, they do.
See also: Psychological tricks: how to be more confident when you lack self-confidence
Featured image: Brisbane City Council, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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