I was asked to serve as a mentor at a workshop this weekend called Speaker Camp ATL. The workshop is designed to prepare attendees for conference submission season. Attendees came prepared with presentation ideas and with the help of mentors they worked through the bios and abstracts they’ll use when they apply at various conferences in the fall. Then, at the end of the workshop, they presented for 5 minutes in front of a video camera (sound familiar anyone?). Following each speech the mentors offered encouragement and feedback to help them continue getting ready for a conference speaking position. For me, helping other people is a really great way for me to learn things myself, so I was super excited to participate.

There was a ton of great information during the workshop including things like setting realistic expectations on prep time for presentations (they suggested that a 45 minute presentation requires around 40 hours of prep and practice), and paying attention to details like arriving early to ‘case the joint’ so you feel comfortable in the space where you’ll speak etc.  The ideas behind the workshop come from a soon-to-be-published book of the same name.

My favorite discussion from the workshop actually centered around pre-speech rituals. I loved hearing what other experienced speakers do to get ready for a keynote presentation. I’d always thought that my pre-speech rituals were signs of inexperience and I was happy to hear that in fact these rituals frequently become more developed and specific as speakers gain more experience.

One ritual that several people shared was something they call “Power Posing.” Power posing essentially involves spending several minutes in a body posture that conveys power, such as standing up straight, feet hip-width apart with shoulders back and hands on your hips. The speakers in today’s workshop assert that they always do this for 2-5 minutes before they go on stage and that the results are transformative for them. They feel calm, confident and ready to share their knowledge and information with the audience. And much to my surprise, there’s some good research that backs this up. Specifically the CNN article above includes the quote,

“[power posers]… experienced significant increases in testosterone — a hormone linked to assertiveness — and significant decreases in cortisol — a hormone linked to stress. In other words — two minutes of preparatory power posing optimizes the brain to function well in high-stakes challenges.”

I’m so interested to try this out. Have you guys every heard of this or done this? Does it work for you? What other pre-speech rituals are helpful for you guys?

My ritual involves writing down my worst fears about what might happen during my presentation until I can’t think of anything else bad that might happen and then tearing up the paper and throwing it away. It seems to help clear all those irrational fears out of my head so I can focus on the speech itself.