Ep. 035 — Becoming Presidential: Body Language Basics for Executive Presence

Hosted by Roddy Galbraith

A Maxwell Leadership Podcast Network production

Weekly highlights from The Speaker’s Edge — a Maxwell Leadership Podcast Network production hosted by Roddy Galbraith. Learn how to communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact — in business, on stage, and in life.

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This Week’s Big Idea

Your body is communicating before you ever open your mouth. Executive presence isn’t just “confidence,” it’s how people experience you — how you stand, move, make eye contact, pause, and carry yourself. You can change how others perceive you (and how they feel around you) quickly by becoming intentional with your body language instead of letting old habits run the show.

Key Takeaways

• There is no such thing as a “natural speaker.” Great speakers work hard, study, rehearse, and build the skill over time.

• A pro is at their best regardless of what’s happening in their personal life. The audience has paid with money or time — they deserve full value.

• Preparation is how you protect the audience’s time. You’re not just spending 20 minutes of your time. You’re spending hundreds of minutes of theirs.

• You don’t have to wing it to be “authentic.” It’s still you — just you on your best day.

• The goal is to make a practiced message feel like the magic of the first time, every time.

• You only perform at the level you’ve trained. You won’t “rise to the occasion” if you haven’t done the work.

• Reuse stories, but never phone them in. Say them like it’s happening right now, and shape them a little better every time.

• Connection beats perfection. Sound conversational, not memorized. Keep normal human “imperfections,” as long as they’re not distracting.

Quote of the Week

“Change is just doing something different. Transformation is being something different. Evolution is continuous transformation.” — Roddy Galbraith

Resources & Practice

• Do a full dress rehearsal: wear what you’ll wear, hold what you’ll hold (mic, notes), record it, and watch it back on mute first (just body language), then audio-only (just voice), then both.

• Check your stance: feet parallel, both heels and toes on the floor, knees not bent for “emphasis,” weight balanced and upright.

• Check your hands: no fussy “T-Rex” hands, no clutching, no pointing. Keep hands relaxed around your midline and use open-palmed gestures from the shoulder, slower than you think.

• Practice “pause / scan / nod”: pause what you’re saying, make eye contact with a few people, give a small nod to land the point — that reads as calm authority.

• Watch for nervous habits: swaying, pacing without purpose, fiddling with hair/earrings/pockets, crossing your arms out of self-protection. Strip those out.

• Film your walk-on. A huge amount of “executive presence” is decided before you say your first word.

Companion Guide: Get the full Executive Presence resources from Maxwell Leadership here → https://www.maxwellleadership.com/thespeakersedge/

Full Transcript (Ep. 035 – “Becoming Presidential”)
Released: October 27, 2025

This transcript was auto-generated. It may contain minor errors.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Speakers Edge podcast. The podcast dedicated to helping you to learn from some of the world's very best speakers and communicators so you can learn to master your message and inspire your audience every single time you speak. I'm your host for this podcast, Roddy Galbraith. Delighted that you've chosen to join us today. Today we're going to be talking about the next fascinating piece of the journey we began in the last episode, which was talking about executive presence. But before we get to that, if you haven't downloaded the companion resources, then go to maxwellership.comthespeaker's edge. And if you enjoy the show, we'd love it if you rate and review as well. That would be great.

All right. So, we started last week talking about executive presence. What is executive presence? What is stage presence? And how can we get it working for us rather than against us? And we talked last week, just quick bit of revision before we dive into to this week's session. We talked about how many people when we're talking about executive presence are really starting from a position of like imposter syndrome. It's like the the other end of the scale. So we've got this continuum between imposter syndrome and executive presence where you're really at home in your own skin.

And we're looking at ways that you can improve your executive presence. And so there's two kind of approaches. One is immediate. What can we immediately do to increase our executive presence? And we talked about the power of the first impression last week. This week we're going to talk about another way that you can immediately improve the way that you're perceived by others and that is we're talking about body language. So another great way that you can really change the way that you're perceived by other people.

Now there's a great deal to executive presence and we're not going to try and tackle it all. We're going to focus in on two key areas. How you're perceived by other people because that's something that we can do something about. And how people feel when they're around us. That's also something that we can influence. We can't control other people. Of course, we can't control how they feel, but we can influence how they feel. So, how are we perceived by others? And how do people feel around us? And when we say how do they feel, we mean how do they feel about themselves? How do they feel about us? How do they feel about work if it's a work setting? How do they feel about the home or the family? If it's a family setting, how do they feel about other people as well? All of these different things.

So, the power of the first impression is where we started last week. just the tops of the ways real quick. We talked about how we make up our mind very quickly and then we search for evidence. We look for evidence. We sniff out evidence that supports that snap judgment that we've made. That opinion that we formed in seconds without considering all of the facts. We've just jumped to an opinion to a conclusion. We've made a snap judgment and then we sniff out evidence to confirm that decision that we've already made.

And we talked about on what basis we make that decision. So, are you wellgroomed? Are you well-dressed? Do your clothes fit? Are you on time? Do you listen? You're a good listener? Do you lean in while you're listening? Do you have warm smile? Do you make eye contact? Is your tone of voice appropriate? Are you moving confidently with purpose? Are you mirroring appropriately and making the odd sincere compliment? All of these things make a big difference to the first impression.

Best thing you can do is study yourself, video yourself, and watch it back. That's the best way for you to see how you come across to other people. So, the first impression is how we can instantly change the way we're perceived by others and instantly improve our executive presence. Body language is another way that we can instantly improve the way that we're perceived by other people.

So, body language is fascinating really because a great deal of what we do is habitual, isn't it? Bruce Lipton, Dr. Bruce Lipton who wrote the book The Biology of Belief. I interviewed him a few years back and he said that around 95 to 98% of the things that we do are habitual. That's almost all of the things we do. And when we're talking about habitual, we're not just talking about acts. We're talking about perceptions. We're talking about our beliefs. We're talking about our expectations, the way that we act, and the way that we react to the things that happen to us. our emotions, all our thinking, all of these things are very often habitual.

I remember Deepak Chopra saying years ago that 95% of the thoughts we think today are the same as the thoughts we thought yesterday. And 95% of the thoughts we're going to think tomorrow are the same as the thoughts we thought today. So, we really are very much creatures of habit. And when it comes to body language, we perceive body language automatically and we act we we do body language automatically. So there's a lot that is controlled by habits when we think about body language.

Now our brains pick up on our body language and we process that. And so we have a a feeling about someone. We have an impression about someone. And it's got nothing to do with luck. It's nothing to do with magic. It's got nothing to do with their intelligence or anything else. It's just body language. Our brains perceive the body language. And so if we can change the body language, we can change the way that we're automatically perceived by other people. So isn't that interesting?

On a subconscious level, we don't think about it. It happens on its own. That's why we reach slap judgments without any conscious thought at all. On a subconscious level, our brain responds to body language and those perceptions are automatic. It's interesting, isn't it? Now, if we can get our body language right, even if it's uncomfortable for us, if we can do the things that people do when they're comfortable, we'll be perceived as comfortable.

I remember working with someone a few years back on their body language. I was videoing her. She would speak for about a minute. We'd watch it back. I'd make some suggestions. She'd make those changes. I'd video her again about three or four takes. And then she looked completely different because she got her feet right and her hands right. and she was looking towards the audience and she was speaking and she looked very elegant. She looked very elegant and I remember her looking and seeing herself because she still felt terrified but she said oh yeah I do I do look quite confident don't I? So it doesn't actually matter how you feel. If you do the things that people do when they feel confident then you come across as confident.

Now with body language there's two kind of bookends or two kind of extremes if you like that we want to keep in mind. One is you can do what you want as long as it's not distracting. So, forget all the rules. If you if what you're doing works, if you come across in the way that you want to come across and people are influenced by you, then that's fine. As long as it's not distracting, as long as it's working, you can do what you want. So, moving your hands, sitting down, slumped on a bar stool like you often see John Maxwell putting coughs in and chewing while you're talking. If if it works, there's different rules for people like John, isn't there? If it works, then that's fine.

So, on one end, you can do what you want as long as it's not distracting. On the other end, sameness is the death of the speaker. So if you do nothing or actually even like pacing backwards and forwards can be too sy, can't it? So any kind of sameness, if the volume's the same, if your hands are in the same position for too long, if you're moving too much or you're not moving at all, if it's too high pitched, if it's too funny, if it's too slow, if it's too loud, if it's too quiet, if there's too many pauses, if the rhythm with the pauses is the same, any kind of sameness doesn't feel right. And so it's the death of the speaker, the death of the communicator.

So a great way to kind of pick up on some of these things. So you you you can't stay still all the time, but you can't move all the time. So you want to try and decide. So watch yourself. Watch yourself with no volume is great for body language because then you're just focused on the body language and you can see is it distracting or is it too sy or is it appropriately in the middle? Nice and varied but not too distracting. So watch with no volume and then you can see and then also just as while we're talking about watching with no volume, you can also listen without the video. This is a great way to tune into your voice as well. I know we're talking about body language now, but I'll mention it at the same time. Turn the volume off and watch. Turn the video off and just listen. And then you'll see it in a different way. And you know, watch and listen at the same time, of course.

Now, as with the first impression, videoing yourself and watching it back, reviewing it, making some notes, having another go, changing the way that you come across, it's so important to get that perspective, to get audience perspective on what you look like, how you're coming across, how you're likely to be perceived by the audience.

So, videoing yourself, and it's a good idea to kind of, you know, like in the in the theater, they do a full dress rehearsal. It's a good idea to do that as well. Particularly if you're you're new, if you're starting out or you're speaking in front of a group for the first time, you're going to be wearing different clothes. It's a different setting. Do a full dress rehearsal. Practice out loud like it's the real thing before you think you're ready is a great way to get better. So, practice out loud like it's the real thing. Like it's a real thing means wear what you you would wear. If you're going to be using notes, use the notes like like you would. If you're going to be using a microphone, then try and practice with a microphone or at least something representing a microphone.

Practice out loud like it's the real thing before you think you're ready. You can see then how you're perceived by others. You're also going to pick up on things like if you have your button undone on your jacket and you have a pale shirt on and you sweat, then maybe that's going to be visible, whereas if you had a different color shirt, it may not be visible. You see things like that. You see how much you're moving your hands. You see unconscious body language. You see all of the fussing that you do, all of the fiddling, all of the the angst that's coming through in your unconscious body language that is not helping you. You see how much you move your arms around, move your hands.

Generally, we want to move our hands around about the belly button level. We don't want to bring them up too high. We don't want to have them too low. In fact, we don't want to move them too much. But if you video yourself and watch it, then you're going to see all of those things. And then you can make up your own mind. So, body language is key. Body language is a key part of um automatic perception and body language is also something that we we do without thinking. So habits in action and we may need to change some of those habits, some of those perceptions to change the way we perceive people and to change the way that they perceive us.

And this is work. This is work. It's possible. But changing habits is tricky. And you know this, you know, if I take my watch off my left wrist and put it on my right wrist, intellectually I know I've changed it, but the habit is still there, isn't it? And if I forget with my conscious mind, stop thinking about the fact that I've moved the watch, I very quickly forget. And when I want to know what the time is, I look at the old hand because that's the habit. And so that that needs to be reprogrammed. So our body language, our our behavior is the same really, isn't it? It needs to be reprogrammed.

Alvin Tooffler said, "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and then relearn." That's so good, isn't it? So, we're talking about learning and unlearning and relearning. That's continual growth, isn't it? So, change is just doing something different. Transformation is being something different. And when we we change some of those habits, we're changing that part of us. So, we're being something different. And then evolution is continuous transformation. And when you're working on something like your speaking, then we've got that evolution as a speaker where we constantly keep transforming to the next best version of ourselves.

Now, often when I'm teaching this, I'll do a very simple exercise where I'll get people to do circles with their hands outwards and inwards and then both this way and then both the other way. And everyone can do that. So, I big them up and tell them they're amazing. And then we do it forwards with one hand and forwards with the other hand and then backwards with the right hand, backwards with the left hand, both forwards, both backwards, and then one forwards and one backwards. And 99% of people can't do that.

Every so often there's someone can do it. I was just speaking in Argentina, as some of you will know, and I did this exercise with um a group of musicians, and it was surprising how they were very good at this. It was like, "How how can you do that? He could do it way better than me." And he said, "Well, I play a lot of instruments, so I'm using both my hands." It's like, "You kind of ruined this whole exercise."

Most people can't do it. They're like, "Is this it? Is this it?" Like, I I think I've got it. I think I've got it. I think I've got it. No. One forwards and one backwards. Now, how long would it take you to be able to do that if you put your mind to it? Not very long. Not very long. You'd pick it up in no time.

So you can you can hear some of these things and think I know that and that there I think that I can do it. So you can hear some of those things and you can think oh I I know that and you think that means that you do it but actually no you can't do it. Just like this exercise it's going to take a little bit of work to internalize some of these these habits so that they become part of your automatic experience.

So very quickly we're going to look at what doesn't work and then we're going to look at what does work and then the best way that we can put it into practice. So number one, the your stance is very important. You don't want your feet like pointing out at 45°. I've seen this a great deal and a lot of people say, "Well, I'm just comfortable like that." Some people put them at like 90° to uh what's that? Right angles to each other where one foot is pointing one way and the other one's kind of at 90° to it. So either at 45 degrees off the middle or 90 degrees or sometimes like the beauty pageant with one leg round one way and the the hips facing the other way. Anything like that really becomes interesting and so it becomes distracting.

So you don't want to do interesting odd positions which you wouldn't normally do. And here's the test. If you were talking to a close friend and you were relaxed and having fun, would you stand like that? And most of the time it's no. As I said, for some people, their their bodies are made in a way that they feel more comfortable with their feet sticking out like at 45 degrees. Uh it's better if they're parallel. Normally, this is a good thing to practice. Practice with your feet parallel, not out at odd angles.

Similarly, the toes off the floor. This is speakers trying to look comfortable with their toes off the floor. Uh you you wouldn't do this if you were talking to a close friend. You wouldn't have your heel on the floor and the toes off of the floor. And you wouldn't have your, if you're talking to a close friend, you wouldn't be like crouching like you're going to pounce on them. You wouldn't have your heels off the floor and just your toes on the floor either.

So don't lift your toes up. Don't lift your heels up. Keep your feet flat on the floor, both of them, and keep them parallel.

Similarly, bending your knees is something you wouldn't do if you were talking to them. So we don't want to bend our knees for emphasis. People like bend their knees for just a second or they go up on their tiptoes for just a second. It looks odd. It looks odd. So, it's not professional. We don't want to do that.

So, keep your heels on the floor. Keep your toes on the floor. Keep your feet parallel. Don't bend your knees for emphasis. And uh don't go up on tiptoes for emphasis either. It looks odd.

Also, don't rest one knee and kind of slouch. Think of it as like I'm too cool for school. I've bent one knee and I'm resting that hip and then I shuffle to the other side and rest the other hip and then it's not long before I shuffle back. It It doesn't look professional. You want to come across as professional and so don't rest either knee. Just both legs straight. Stand up straight. Weight slightly on the balls of the feet like standing up straight.

And you don't need to be overly protective. Remember, we want to be welcoming, don't we, when we're speaking to people. So, if you kind of cross your arms in front of your body or you put your hands down in front of your your groin in a very protective kind of position like you're a bouncer, a nightclub dorman, then it's the opposite of opening. and welcoming, which is what we want.

So, we don't want to we don't want to do that. Don't we don't want the arms crossed. We don't want the hands very like, you know, you're not adorable. You're not in the in the CIA, the Secret Service. Um, knitting the fingers together where you like push them together and then it's like very tense. You don't want to do that. You don't want to grip your hands together. You don't want to do the diamond hands. You don't want to do anything with your hands that's odd that you wouldn't do when you're in conversation.

So if you touch your thumbs together and your four fingers, it creates a diamond. This is a position that speakers only speakers you again you don't do when you're talking to your friends. Speakers do when they feel like they need to stop moving their hands and so they just bring them together in front of their normally quite high up like in front of their solar plexus and it makes your shoulders tight. It looks very unnatural. It's very distracting and it just says that you're uncomfortable. And so we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that.

We also don't want to have the elbows attached to the body too much so that any movements we make with the wrist or the elbows going up and down and the hands are in front of the body very fussily. It's easy to avoid. We don't we don't need to have fussy movements in front of the body. So if you think of T-Rex with short arms, if your elbows are attached and you didn't have the upper arm, your arms would be shorter. You just move them from the from the wrist, then they look very fussy. So we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that.

Often women or men who are blessed to have long hair, they'll sometimes fiddle with their hair. And again, it's unconscious, but it looks distracting. It looks distracting. It doesn't It doesn't look like you're focused. It doesn't look professional. So, no twiddling.

Men sometimes will have their keys in their pocket or coins in their pocket or playing with the the cartilage in your ear and it just again, you don't want to be fiddling. You don't want to be twiddling. Don't fidget. We don't want unconscious body language. and we want to try and remove that. We don't want to be like touching our face all the time either or like you know playing with our neck or any of those types of things. All of those it's like it makes you look a little bit anxious like you're not comfortable and happy to be there.

If it's virtual you know you might find that you want to kind of lean sometimes again it's like slouching isn't it like leaning against the wall. So Master Reena always used to say don't lean against the wall. It's very disrespectful. You're supposed to be listening to what I'm saying. He was our martial arts instructor and it was that you know well sometimes we do it when we're tired or when we're resting or we also do it when we're bored. So like you know this just looks like we're bored doesn't it?

So it can it can mean that we're calm and relaxed or it can mean that we're bored or it can mean that we're interested. So are we leaning in or are we leaning out? Best thing watch yourself and decide for yourself you know am I coming across as I want to come across?

Some of these things like, you know, the arms crossed, which people talk about, oh, you're so closed off and aloof. No, I'm not. I'm just cold. Well, it doesn't matter whether you're cold or not. It doesn't matter whether it's comfortable or not. It's how you're perceived. And that's up to them, the person that's perceiving you. So, you can't say no, you got it wrong. If that's how they feel, then that's how they feel.

So really we don't want to we don't want to take if it's important to read people's body language we don't want to take some of these things in isolation but like clusters of body language together does paint a picture though doesn't it over time so body language is a a very powerful way I think it's more powerful it overpowers the message sometimes but it doesn't always mean what we think it means another one is where people wobble from side to side or sway from side to side if people are very anxious or they're kind of thinking very hard about what they're saying or they're a bit overwhelmed with the occasion, then they tend to engage in rhythmic body language from one side to the other. And this immediately changes the way that you're perceived by the audience, doesn't it?

If you're swaying backwards and forwards or sometimes it's stepping forwards and stepping back, it just doesn't look professional. you wouldn't see like Obama or whoever your favorite president is, Clinton or um Reagan, you know, they're standing up and and swaying around like that because they're professionals. They come across, you know, presidentially because they're presidents.

So, we don't want to sway from side to side. That's something that's easy for us to avoid. Or any kind of unconscious body language, stepping forwards and stepping back. We want to avoid that.

Generally speaking, we want our palms to be kind of open. Um, we don't want them kind of too uh closed off. Like open is good. It's very It's an open gesture, isn't it? Like we've got nothing to hide.

Another one that people do a great deal is moving their hands and trying to emphasize everything. So they're they're trying to stress everything. They're trying to punctuate every sentence they're saying by moving their hands and there's like a beat or a rhythm to what they're doing with their hands. If you hold your hands out in front of you and you keep emphasizing every word you say, it just looks very uh oppressive actually. So, it's distracting, but it actually becomes too much.

And so, we don't want to be waving our hands around all over the place. And we don't want to like be pointing at the audience. In fact, open open palms, open gestures generally work much better. We don't want the audience thinking that they're back at school. And generally, we don't want the hands to be too high or too low. around about belly button level of around about waist somewhere around there. Maybe up just a little bit higher than that at times is about right for our hands. Not waving them around all over the place or pointing or uh punctuating everything that we say.

The thing to keep in mind with body language is it's at least as powerful and probably far more powerful than the words that we're saying. And so it overpowers the message if it's in conflict with what we're saying. So we want it to be congruent with what we're saying. We want our body language to support. We want our body language to be in alignment with what we're saying. So the words that we say and our voice and how we use our voice and how we say those words and what we're doing with our body language and our facial expressions and our mindset and our intention for the audience. If all of those things are in alignment, then our words have much more power.

So the way that I think we probably want to most of the time in a professional setting, the way that we really want to come across is presidential. Presidential standing up straight. Imagine there's a thread from the top of the head lifting you up so that you're keeping your height and you're proudly looking the world in the eye. Stand up, look the world in the eye. Don't shrink back and hide. You want to be like reversing away from the audience. That looks weak. but standing up to them, not aggressively or confrontationally, just comfortable and happy to be there, sharing this great message.

So, standing up straight, smile, make eye contact, not to freak people out, but just to to connect with them so you can speak to them for a moment, and then move on to the next person. A pause, scan, and a nod is a great way of thinking about this. So, that if you're coming to a pause, you're going to pause, but you're not just going to stand there silently without moving like a bunny in the headlights. You're going to make eye contact with a few people and then you're going to nod to affirm what you've said and you're going to move around making eye contact with as many people as you can on the way around while you're nodding and then you can start speaking again.

So the pause scan and the nod slows you down, emphasizes what you're saying and gives you a moment to connect with the people in the audience.

The hands probably you want them round about your belly button most of the time. Best thing to do is watch people on TV. Particularly the weather people are very good at this because they do it so much. What do you do with your hands when you're not moving them? Well, round about the belly button with the fingers bent, looking nice and relaxed is a neat place to start. A good neutral position for your hands.

Some people it works well for them by their sides. If it's virtual like this, then you can't leave them in your lap for too long. You need to break that sameness typically by just gesturing. Just moving them looks very natural. If they're here for too long, it becomes distracting, too wooden, too kind of stilted. Whereas, if I'm moving them every now and again, then like it just that's how typically how we talk, isn't it? So, it seems much more appropriate virtual or in live in person.

Feet, you want them closer together than you think and you want them parallel. That looks professional. Don't bend one knee or the other, but stand up straight. Weight slightly on the balls of the feet. Keep your height, relax your shoulders, and um look the the audience proudly in the eye, but don't freak them out with too much too much eye contact.

Facial expressions should support your message. So, smiling, shrugging, raising your eyebrows, raising your shoulders, looking away, disgusted, puzzled, you know, the things that you would do in conversation with a close friend if you were completely comfortable and completely yourself, then you would be more expressive. So, try and bring some of that into your communication. Include some of that variety in your facial expressions and your body.

Uh, your shoulders, you want them like up straight. You don't want them rounding off like you're trying to hide, but like standing up up straight, shoulders back. If you get your head right, your shoulders tend to take care of themselves. If you're like if your head's stooping, your shoulders round off. But if you're if you're standing up straight, proud to look the audience in the eye, then your shoulders take care of themselves.

your arms. Big movements from the shoulders look best. Like I said, open palms very often. Big movements from the shoulders. Not fussy in front of the body with the with the wrists or the the elbows. Not necessarily anchored to the body. The one exception to that with the elbow would be if you're using a microphone. It's a good idea to anchor the elbow to the body because then as you as you pivot from the waist, you can't move the microphone away from your mouth. It stays there. You can just sticulate with the other hand. you have gestures with the other hand and you can turn and the microphone stays in exactly the same place. So that that's the the one exception I think. But you don't really want your elbows attached to the body when you're making gestures.

Big movements from the shoulder looks best. Slower than you think. Leave them out there longer than you think. Bring them back slower than you think. And then leave them there for longer than you think. It just looks calm and confident and like you're in control.

Again, video yourself. Watch these things and you'll get better and better at it. you'll you'll be able to self-correct a lot of these things.

Hips not resting one or the other. Don't bend the knees. Stand up straight. Remember, keep your toes on the floor. Keep your heels on the floor. Don't bend your knees for emphasis. And don't go up on tiptoes for emphasis.

Pivot from the waist. This means keep your head straight from your shoulders. And when you want to turn, turn your shoulders to them rather than turning your head. Turning your head makes these people feel like they're an afterthought. Whereas if you turn your shoulders by pivoting from the waist, then your whole body is facing them. It's good thing to practice and experiment with. It looks classy when you pivot and lean and gesture. So all of those things work very, very well.

And then finally, movement. Moving with purpose. Moving intentionally looks confident. Moving around all over the place distractedly looks like there's a lot of nervous energy coming through. And guess what? It makes you look nervous. So moving with confidence. Even if you don't feel confident, practice moving with confidence, moving with purpose.

When you walk in, remember that first impression. Some of that is going to be formed, a lot of that is going to be formed when you're walking up before you say anything. So you can video yourself moving and see how you stand, see how you carry yourself. And if you're like most people, you're probably going to find, "Oh my goodness, I didn't realize I I stooped like that. I hunched like that. I shuffled like that." there's going to be some things you immediately notice.

Remember, habits are things that we do without any conscious awareness. They're things that we do without thinking. And so, we're not aware of our unconscious body language because it's unconscious. And so, by videoing ourselves, we bring it into consciousness and then we can go, "Oh my goodness, I didn't realize I was doing that. That's awful. Why didn't anyone tell me?" And then you can change. So, videoing yourself really, really makes a difference. It really does. as long as you watch it back. Videoing video yourself and watch it back.

Another interesting thing with um body language, I'll just quickly touch on is if you stand like very strong and confidently maybe with your hands on your hips or you do like the hero pose or any of those um like power positions, power poses, then it makes us feel more confident very very quickly. If you stand in a in a confident position for a minute or two breathing, thinking feeling positive, it's amazing how your body changes, how your mindset changes. And so walking with purpose, maybe before you walk on with purpose, uh standing strong and confident, thinking strong and confident, then it can change your change your physiology.

We'll talk about um breathing exercises, I think, in a few weeks time because that is also something that can make a big difference. mental rehearsal, visualization, and breathing exercises. We'll come back to that.

Don't drift around on stage because again it that nervous energy comes out and makes you look uh look nervous. And one more thing on body language, the the pause is really really important. The pause is more powerful if you include body language. So if you pause and do nothing, then the communication almost stops. But if you pause and shake your head, look down, shrug, you know, you're filling the pause with body language, which is communication. So you're still communicating. John says you're communicating big time. You're just not saying anything.

So body language is very, very important all the time. All the time.

A few quick things to keep in mind when you're communicating virtually. Don't put your hands in front of the camera. Very often people have the camera down lower and so it's looking slightly up at their face and their hands then are right in front of the camera and it's very distracting if your hands are moving around in front of the camera. And so it would be the equivalent for those of you who are watching the video if my hands are right up here and it's like right in the way. It's so distracting and if you move them around it like you can't you can't concentrate for very long. You can't concentrate at all.

So we don't want the hands in front of the camera. So you want to bring the camera up. In fact, the camera, you know, think conversations happen at eye level. So, if you are communicating virtually, the closer you can get the camera to round about eye level, the more it feels like a conversation with you if we're in the audience. So, conversations happen at eye level. You don't want the camera down low looking up your nose, and you don't want the camera up high looking down on top of your head. Both of those are unnatural. That's not where conversations happen.

But it is a trick to make people seem more stronger and more confident to to bring the camera down a little bit so you're looking up at them and then they're kind of statuesque and towering figure so they seem more authoritative. And if you bring the camera up and you look down on them and then it makes them seem weaker and insignificant. But we want to connect with people one emotional human being to another. So we want to we want the conversations to be eye level. So your camera ideally round about eye level. That's where conversations take place.

whether it's virtual or live in person video yourself. Watch it back and you can decide what works. And don't be afraid to push the boundaries and experiment a little bit. Try some things that you're not sure of. And then you can see and you're like, "Oh, actually when I did that, it really felt awkward, but when I see it, it looks really cool. So, I'm going to do that a little bit more. I'm going to experiment. I'm going to try and create a new habit there so that then it will feel natural."

Habits are things that feel natural to us because we do them without thinking about them. They look natural to us because they're things that we do without thinking. So if you can work out what works for you and then internalize it so it becomes a habit, then you end up with great safe body language habits.

All right, I think that's enough on body language and executive presence. As you can see, just by working on some of these things, you're going to make an instant impact to the way that you're perceived by other people and also the way they feel around you.

Now, every week I mention the Maxwell Leadership Certified Team. If you're interested in developing your speaking, I think it's really is a no-brainer. But also, if you're interested in being a coach or a trainer or you're looking to develop your leadership skills and ability, looking to develop your career, the Maxwell leadership certified team is good for all of those.

But my thing is really speaking and communication, and it's an absolute no-brainer. If you're interested in becoming a better speaker, there's about 60,000 people that have gone through the program. Now, I've been working with John on the Maxwell method of speaking since about 2010. There's nowhere better to learn that than as a Maxwell Liiff certified team member. And I think we're in about 168 countries now around the world, maybe maybe more. That's pretty much all of them. And so you're not going to be the first people to through the program.

We would love it if you check it out. It's a no obligation. So I think you'll you're free to just go to maxwellership.com/speak. You can jump on a call with a program advisor, have a chat with them, and find out if it's a fit. And if it is, you're going to see that it's wonderful, life-giving people just like you. And you're going to feel like you've really found your people. And even if it's not a fit, you've only lost a few moments of your time.

All right, guys. That's it for this week. Thanks so much for being with us in this episode. Don't forget to download our companion guide. You can go to maxwellleadership.com/thespeaker's edge. And remember, communication is one of the most important skills you can develop. It is a learnable skill, so you can develop it. And if you keep learning, you'll learn to master your message so that you can inspire your audience every single time you speak.

That's it for this week. Thanks for listening. I'll see you soon. Take care. Bye-bye. God bless.