The Gate Keeper
Our evolution has been long and fraught. Species have come and gone and we are developed from many. Our brains have evolved as well, but we still have many instincts that we developed for survival in the wild.
One such example is the “Fight or Flight” reaction to a situation. Just like more primitive animals we evaluate situations and continually ask “is it safe?” this kind of evaluation is happening in what some people call the reptilian or “Old Brain” the evolutionary one that served us so well for thousands of years.
The problem is that when we put ourselves in front of an audience our old brain senses danger. All these eyes looking at us, we have exposed ourselves and are in the open – hence the judgement that we are in danger.
Our old brain wants us to fight or flee, or possibly stand very still and not get noticed. This is the complete opposite of what our new reasoning brain wants. It is a rational more developed brain the “New Brain”. It’s the one that got us up here in the first place and it knows that we are in no danger.
So we have to overcome our old brain with the rational thinking of the new brain. Sometimes this is easier said than done. But over the following days you will learn to turn this nervousness into positive energy and overcome the old brain.
The old brain is very important in our audience too. As each member of our audience looks at us their old brains are also asking “is it safe?” They are looking at us and judging our performance to decide if they should trust us. If their old brain decides it does not like the look of us, it will not let our message in. This is the gate keeper at work.
To get passed the gate keeper we need to appear confident and have a consistent message across all our forms of communication. This is particularly important for the 67% of non verbal communication mentioned earlier.
If the 67% is wrong or inconsistent our audience will not even hear our message. The gate keeper will decide not to trust what we say so our words will not be taken in by the new brain – which is our real target audience.
The importance of this cannot be overemphasised. We must be believed to be heard. If we do not, we can fail before we even open our mouths.
Be a New Communicator
New communicators are people like Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Oprah Winfrey: quite a mixed bunch. To be honest I am not sure if I am comfortable with Tony Blair because I always found him a little too smarmy and false. However, he was very successful at making a connection and influencing his audience. In looking at him we can see some of the techniques discussed here a little more obviously than with the others. I think this is because he seems to be trying so hard to implement them and be natural, that he comes across as a little false.
Looking at the others we can see a truer natural approach that seems genuine and lets the audience engage with the speaker. Think of Jobs at Mac World and the way he stood up on stage, with no notes, and spoke from the heart. The audience loved it, and consequentially loved what he was selling.
The worst communicators are those who read from a speech. If you want to do that just stand up and hand out a written copy to everyone. They can read it and get all the facts – they can even take it home and refer to it later.
That is not what speaking is about. Speak to influence; speak with passion, authority and confidence. If you know what you are talking about, and you should before you stand up, then you can influence people to your POV.
By all means, if the information you have is technical, give a handout at the END (never during or the audience will start reading that and not be listening to you).
New communicators are not really that new. It is just that so many people from the last century read speeches, that we became accustomed to the “old” style of speaking. It is so dry and passionless that audiences just tune out; especially in the modern age. You have to compete with short attention spans and multi media. If you lose your audience’s attention they will be on their smart phones Tweeting and catching up on emails before you get a chance to have any influence.
