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When
we were selling our old house several years ago, my
five-year-old daughter Annie loved giving tours to
prospective buyers. She hustled husbands and wives
around, showing off the kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms
etc.
Arriving at the living room she would
stand at a spot in front of our large, framed
wall-mirror. Then she would look at the prospective
buyers and say, “This is where my daddy stands when he
talks to himself.”
And it’s true. I practiced a lot of
presentations in front of that big mirror. I still do.
That’s because rehearsing in front of a mirror – one of
the oldest tips in public speaking – is still one of the
best things you can do to improve your presentation
style.
Mirrors Help You See What
you Look Like
Speakers often have no idea what they
look like. And that’s a bad thing.
I was working with a senior executive in
Atlanta recently and I videotaped her rehearsing a
speech. When she was done, I showed her the tape and
she was appalled. “I had no idea that I looked so
angry,” she said. “I look like I’m about to bite
someone’s head off.”
Of course mirrors can be better than
video cameras for seeing how you come across. Mirrors
are more accessible than video cameras. And when you’re
practicing in a mirror, you don’t have to wait for the
replay.
Mirrors help you Learn
How to Smile
My grandfather had a saying about people
that he thought looked too serious: “He looks like he
was weaned on a pickle.”
Mirrors help you overcome that
“pickle-faced” look that so many of us carry around with
us in business. Indeed, when I left the practice of law
and got into the training business, I spent a great deal
of time in front of the mirror, working on smiling and
just getting more animated.
Next time you rehearse in front of a
mirror, try forcing a smile as you speak. It’s not that
I want you be phony. Rather, I want you to learn how to
ignite the charm that often gets overwhelmed by public
speaking anxiety.
I once urged an attorney to “fake a
smile” when he spoke. While he tried his best, it
looked like his face was in pain. I walked him to a
nearby bathroom and made him watch himself. With a
little practice, he figured out how to make it look
natural.
Mirrors Also Help with
Eye Contact
One of the worst things you can do as a
speaker is read your presentation. Overreliance on
notes is just as bad. It makes you look like you’re in
junior high reading an essay to the class on what you
did on your summer vacation.
Great speakers stand in front of
audiences and tell their story. You want it to look like
it’s coming from the heart. Practicing in front of a
mirror discourages over-reliance on notes. After all,
you can’t look at your notes while looking at yourself
in the mirror.
If you practice in a mirror, you learn to
connect with that person looking back at you. You get a
feeling for what your audience experiences. And that’s
a good thing.
Joey Asher is President of Speechworks, a selling and
communication skills coaching company in Atlanta. He has
worked with hundreds of business people helping them
learn how to communicate in a way that connects with
clients. His new book “How to Win a Pitch: The Five
Fundamentals That Will Distinguish You from the
Competition” is available on Amazon and at
www.speechworks.net. He is the author of “Selling and
Communication Skills for Lawyers” and “Even A Geek Can
Speak.” He can be reached at 404-266-0888 or joey@speechworks.net.
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