Move Your Hands When You Speak

• 00:05 You heard me the previous lecture talk about how key movement is.
• 00:09 Now, let's talk about one particular body part.
• 00:13 This is a body part that gets people into trouble.
• 00:16 There's huge debate.
• 00:17 People are adamant on one side or
• 00:20 the other about what to do with this body part.
• 00:23 I'm talking about, of course, the hands.
• 00:27 Of all the myths out there this is, perhaps, one of the most pernicious.
• 00:32 The idea that a professional speaker isn't supposed to move their hands,
• 00:35 they're supposed to have them down clasped, like this, or in your pocket.
• 00:39 Complete, utter, nonsense.
• 00:43 Now, there are people who claim to be body language experts who will tell you, well,
• 00:47 just bring your hand up eight inches, keep one hand in the pocket.
• 00:54 Complete nonsense.
• 00:55 Be careful not to have your hands high.
• 00:57 All of this is nonsense.
• 01:00 You don't need to learn how to do anything new with your hands when you're speaking.
• 01:06 You don't need to learn how to act with your hands.
• 01:10 You just need to learn how to stop acting.
• 01:13 The problem most people have is they freeze their hands.
• 01:20 And I had people who were incredibly confident, authoritative, successful,
• 01:24 wealthy people come to me and were sitting down talking, they're highly expressive.
• 01:30 They get up to give a speech and all of a sudden, TJ,
• 01:32 what do I do with these things that are stapled to my torso?
• 01:36 I have no idea how to move my arms or hands during a speech.
• 01:40 It's ridiculous.
• 01:42 Do what you do all day long when you speak.
• 01:47 You move your hands.
• 01:51 Now, I know there's some debate about this.
• 01:53 I even have people on the internet, Youtube, and say, TJ,
• 01:56 you move your hands, a professional speaker isn't supposed to.
• 02:01 It's nonsense.
• 02:04 Here's the thing.
• 02:06 The second you stop moving your hands, you're tensing your hands,
• 02:09 you're doing something unnaturally.
• 02:11 The tension goes up your hands, up your arms, in your shoulder,
• 02:15 in your vocal chords.
• 02:17 It tenses your body.
• 02:18 Your hands move less, your body moves less.
• 02:20 Next thing you know, you get this sort of substitute teacher telling your voice now
• 02:25 class sit down, settle down, we're gonna take attendance.
• 02:28 See how awful that is.
• 02:31 It's tensing you up, it's freezing you.
• 02:34 It makes you look nervous and uncomfortable.
• 02:39 Oh, but teacher, I just wanna hold these notes, so
• 02:42 I don't have my hands doing this.
• 02:44 I wanna hold a pen, so I'll be more comfortable.
• 02:47 I don't care about you being comfortable.
• 02:49 Sorry, that sounds mean.
• 02:52 I care about your audience being comfortable with you.
• 02:55 Your audience is going to be much more comfortable with you if they see
• 03:00 you doing the things that people do all day long when they're talking and
• 03:05 they're comfortable.
• 03:07 So, here's your next homework assignment.
• 03:10 When you are with friends, family members, colleagues,
• 03:14 you're at the water cooler talking about last nights game, you're with
• 03:19 friends debating who was the most popular or least popular in highschool,
• 03:24 you're with family debating over where you should go on your next vacation.
• 03:29 I need you to really watch what people are doing with their hands.
• 03:35 I guarantee you when you're with friends,
• 03:38 family, colleagues, and you're talking about something you really care about,
• 03:41 people are not holding their hands in a prim, proper way.
• 03:44 They're not anchoring it with a pen.
• 03:47 They are moving their hands.
• 03:51 No, it's not about well, it's because we're Italian or it's because.
• 03:54 No.
• 03:56 I work with people from six continents.
• 03:58 I don't care the culture.
• 03:59 When people are comfortable and they're talking, they move their hands.
• 04:06 If you're giving a speech, whether it's to two people,
• 04:10 200 or 200,000, you wanna come across comfortable.
• 04:14 But easiest way to do that is to move your hands.
• 04:18 Because by moving your hands, It's a lot more likely that your body is moving,
• 04:22 your vocal chords are moving, and you sound conversational.
• 04:26 Freeze the hands, you set off a negative chain reaction.
• 04:29 Everything becomes frozen stiff, canned, mechanical, and
• 04:33 that's not what makes people in a business situation feel more comfortable about you.
• 04:41 There are those who say, well, but TJ, it's a formal presentation.
• 04:45 So of course, I have to have my hands on the lectern.
• 04:48 Newsflash, folks.
• 04:50 There's no such thing as a formal speech.
• 04:55 There's also no such thing as a financial speech, or a technical speech, or
• 04:58 a PowerPoint speech.
• 05:01 There are only two types of speeches or presentations in the world.
• 05:05 Do you know what they are?
• 05:08 That's right. It's either good cuz it's interesting or
• 05:11 it's bad cuz it's boring.
• 05:13 If you're an audience member,
• 05:14 that's the only thing you're thinking of when you're watching someone speak.
• 05:19 You're not saying, boy I sure am glad TJ's being formal today.
• 05:23 I'm glad he's standing up stiff and holding the.
• 05:25 No one has ever said that in the history of the world.
• 05:30 What people have said is, this TJ guy is pretty boring and I've heard this before.
• 05:35 Let me check my email.
• 05:36 Or they said, oh, Samantha is interesting.
• 05:41 That's useful here.
• 05:42 Let me pay close attention.
• 05:43 I may even take a few notes.
• 05:46 That's the only thing going on in the audience's mind.
• 05:49 So, you need to be interesting and
• 05:52 you need to come across like an interesting person.
• 05:55 Interesting people move their hands when they speak, all the time,
• 06:00 not just when they're comfortable.
• 06:02 So, that's what you've gotta do in your speech.
• 06:05 You gotta move your hands, and that will set off a positive chain reaction
• 06:10 that will get most of your other body langauge in sync as well.

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