If I can master my hand gestures, anyone can
Aug 30, 2016‘Oh that’s fantastic!’ I said, very excited. Nick Vujicic is one of the most recognised people on the planet, a great speaker and one of the nicest people you could ever meet. To have him as a special guest during the IMC Speaker Training was a real coup!
We started introducing special guests in February 2015 – Les Brown surprised everyone when he came up on stage in the middle of the workshop and blew everyone’s minds with his talent.
Then in August of that year John Maxwell was my special guest – 45 minutes of pure gold from one of the very best speakers in the world.
And now Nick Vujicic, this was really great news!
A few days before the workshop, Paul and I were in Paul’s suite at the Marriot where the event was being held when Nick arrives at the door.
‘Come on in Nick, great to see you!’ Paul said.
Nick drove over to the settee where I was sitting ‘Hey Roddy, how’s it going?’ he asked with a smile.
‘Great!’ I said ‘couldn’t be better'.
Then I watched as he leapt off of his wheel chair on to the sofa! ‘Can you pass me my phone there?’ he said. ‘Just put it by my foot.’
Then he sent a couple of texts with lightning speed, typing with his foot – incredible to watch. Two years before Nick was our special guest at the 2014 Influencing the Outcome seminar and he did Q&A on speaking with the audience. He took questions for 10 minutes on what people wanted to know, and as people give him their questions, he typed them into his phone in real time. Then he answered them all (most people could not type that fast with two hands, let alone one foot. It was simply inspiring to watch).
We talked for a bit about the event and what I needed him to do in the workshop. He was supremely confident as usual, and said he was looking forward to it.
When Nick came up on stage 2 days later, the crowd went absolutely nuts! He really was excited. I asked him the first question and he gave such a great and complete answer, it used up half our time! The next question used up about another 10 minutes.
‘We’ve only got time for one more Nick, I’m afraid, and then we’re gonna have to move on’
‘Oh no!’ he said. ‘Has this been the most rubbish interview ever?’
‘Has this been useful?’ I asked the audience. There was a 2,000 person roar of approval.
After he’d answered the last question he said ‘Let me just share something that I think is so important for speakers to understand.’
He then went on to demonstrate and explain how he’d been using his body language while sitting on his barstool on a stage. Whenever you watch Nick, he’s so enjoyable to watch, you don’t notice all the things he does, very deliberately, to make sure you have a good experience.
One by one he drew attention to each aspect of his body language. His eyebrows. His smile. His frown. His shoulders. Leaning towards me. Leaning towards the audience. Turning around to include the people on either side.
It was pure and simple, a body language masterclass! ‘If I can learn to master my hand gestures, Roddy, anyone can!’ he said. Another roar from the audience. There was something magical about Nick showing us what he’d been doing and us immediately noticing that we hadn’t really noticed it but we had when he pointed it out!
Isn’t it interesting how someone with no arms and no legs can be so unbelievably expressive?
Some people spend so LITTLE time complaining about what they don’t have, they are able to do so much with what they do have.
But then there’s that much larger group of people who spend so MUCH time complaining about what they don’t have, they aren’t able to do anything at all with all the gifts that they do have.
Every time I see Nick, I am so inspired, I’m determined to be more like the first group.
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Communicating is not just about words. We need to think about our body language, tone, and pacing. How we feel impacts the way we speak. Struggling to find the right content makes us ineffective. Great speakers know that becoming an exceptional speaker isn't just an art - it's a process with many essential elements.
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