What Is The Correct Breathing Method When Presenting?

Breathing is such a natural act and normally, we don’t pay it much attention. Some how though, when we are giving a presentation, our breath control becomes a factor of success. One component is our nerves, which are driving the chemical surge through the body, making our heart rate skyrocket, which speeds up our breathing pattern.

If we are not breathing properly, we can have mental white outs of the brain, because we are not getting enough oxygen. We can’t remember what it is we are supposed to say. We get lost, become panicky and come across as disorganized, unconfident and flakey.

Voice is driven on the winds of breath exhalation and lack of breath power impacts audibility. If we don’t have good breath control, we can find ourselves squeaking out to the audience in this little voice that says, “I am not confident. I am not confident, I am not confident!”.

We might find that our lack of breath control results in our final words of our sentences just dropping away to nothing. We often see speakers kill their key messages, by not supporting the key points with their words voiced with power and conviction. There is no opportunity to punch out a strong message, because we are just vocally doing a disappearing act in front of the audience.

It could also be that we are becoming very breathy when we speak. It sounds similar to people who have respiratory illnesses. They always seem to be gasping for breath. Actually they are and so are speakers with no breath control. They simply can’t pull in enough oxygen.

The lack of breath control gets transmitted to our cadence of when we speak. A lack of air means we are confined to short breathy sentences and the lungs are only being filled in a very shallow fashion just from the top portion.

So how do we stop this and better instruct our instrument – our wonderful speaking voice? I am going to pass on what I have learnt from nearly 50 years of karate training, where breath control is absolutely vital. It is the same method used by singers.  

Controlling our nerves is a key part of breath control, because if we don’t, we are working at cross purposes with ourselves. One of the techniques for controlling our nervousness is to go through some deep breathing exercises, before we go on stage in front of the audience. We can do these seated or standing and they don’t take very long.

Place both hands on your tummy and just touch lightly. As you breath in, imagine you need to fill the lungs from the bottom most part of the diaphragm. To help us do this we breath slowly and deeply and we can see if we are succeeding, because the hands on our tummy are starting to move forward. This pushing out of the tummy is a good sign, it means we are doing the deep breath sequence correctly. We reverse the process and slowly exhale and the hands are slowly drawn back in. We need to do this slowly, because a bit too much force and speed here and we can become dizzy, as the flood of oxygen to the brain makes us feel lightheaded.

This diaphragm breathing is actually how we should be breathing all of the time and I recommend you start the practice and make it your default habit. When we are in front of the audience, they cannot see the breathing rhythm, so there is no need to feel self-conscious. Every breath we take starts at the lowest point of the diaphragm and we sense our tummy being pushed out and then being pulled back in. This is how we should be breathing while we are on stage.

Interestingly enough, if we lose the flow and suddenly, the breath begins from the very top of the chest, we will feel our pulse rate pick up, our chest tighten and our shoulders start to rise. This might happen at first, before we can master this deep diaphragm breath control, but don’t worry. Just slow the breath down and concentrate on the lower diaphragm and trying to push your tummy out with each inhalation. Once you do this, the cycle will re-institute itself and you will be getting plenty of air. The key is to pick this up in rehearsal.

Correct breath control gives us the ability to make the tonal variations which keep command of our audience. We can bring power to words and build to crescendos, when we want to emphasis particular key points. It also helps us to relax and look super composed when we are standing in front of people. That confidence is contagious and our audience buys what we are saying. And that is what we want isn’t it.

Action Steps

1. Get to the venue early and find a quiet, private place to do some breathing exercises
2. Place the hands over the tummy and check if we are breathing from the lower diaphragm or not
3. Make this method your default method of breathing from now on
4. If you start to feel yourself lacking air, then re-set and concentrate on breathing from the lower diaphragm.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Where Should I Stand When I Am Presenting?

Usually this isn’t even a question for most presenters because the organisers have already set up the room and your speaking spot has been designated. But have we been designated a spot by experts in public speaking or by the venue crew who usually just haul chairs, lug tables around and set up the stage? Sadly the coalescence between expertise in speaking and membership of the logistic’s team is rare.

So where should we stand? This will depend on the venue size, the illumination of the room, the size of the audience, the layout of the stage, where the projection screens are located and what you want to achieve. I attended a talk where the stage was empty, yet the speech suddenly got underway with no speaker in sight. He was actually wearing a Lavelle microphone and was behind the audience at the rear of the room. The acoustics of that hall however, gave no indication of where he was standing and so it created a buzz as the assembled masses tried to place the speaker’s location, with the voice being the only thing they could all hear. He then strode manfully to the stage and continued his oration. As an attention-getter, to break through all the clutter in the heads of the audience, it was very effective and he did that just by varying his speaking spot from what everyone was used to.

If we are using a screen, then where is it: is it hoisted high above us, are there two giant screens on the left and right or is it at our height in the center of the stage? In smaller venues, the screen is normally at our height and usually set up such that the podium is on the audience right of the stage. No particular thought has gone into this podium location. The choice is purely random, often linked more closely to power outlets and cabling considerations, than the speaker’s effectiveness.

We should stand on the audience left of the screen, so that the audience can read our facial expression and body language and then move their eyes right to read text or images on the screen. We always want the screen to be subordinate to us. So set up the proceedings such that they have to look at you first, rather than at the slides on the screen. Our face is a trillion times more powerful as a communication tool, than anything that is on the screen.

How Not To Use Your Hands When Presenting

We think of speaking as an activity where we use our voice. That is true but we use a lot more than that. We use our face, eyes, legs, body and our hands. When we are speaking while seated it is different to when we are standing. We need to master all situations for when we are called upon to speak in front of others. One of our problem areas is what to do with our hands when we speak. Judging by most of the presentation I see in Japan, few speakers have worked this out yet.

Here are some common habits we can improve upon to make ourselves much more persuasive and professional.

1. Hands in front of the body. This for men will usually means wrapping the right fist by the left hand and holding both in front of the groin. For women, Japan has a specific requirements such as cupping the fingers of each hand so they interlock like the yin yang symbol and holding them at waist height or sliding the fingers together at the thumb and first finger intersection, so the arms are outstretched and all the fingers are pointing to the ground. This is usually a set and is combined with the foot positioning, so that one foot is forward of the other and the front toe of the rear shoe touches the back heel of the front shoe.

These elaborate rituals are a product of trying to standardise the form and to kill uncontrolled hand movements. It also kills the ability to use gestures to support and strengthen our words. The arms and hands when held in front of the body also create a subliminal barrier between the audience and the speaker. It is saying “I don’t trust you, I am scared of you and I need to protect my most vial organs from you, in case of sudden attack”. As a speaker, we want to be as inclusive as possible, so we need to eliminate all physical barriers (podiums, reams of notes, ipads, arms) between ourselves and our audience. We also want to show we are totally confident and have a welcoming attitude to our audience.

2. Arms behind the back, clasped together. This is another anchor technique used when the speaker has no idea what to do with their hands. The hands are also invisible to the audience, so the speaker feels they can forget about what to do with them or how they are placed or situated. That is true, but there are a few issues with this pose. Since cave dweller days, we have learnt not to trust people whose hands are not visible to us. They may have been concealing a weapon. The thigh bone of a major animal, a sturdy, gnarled tree branch or a sharp, flinty rock with which to bash us on the head and steal out fire, food or loved ones. In more advanced and sophisticated times, the fear is they will suddenly whip out a deadly blade and plunge it deep into our soft intestines and kill us.

The palms open and facing forward gesture is a universal and timeless indicator of “I am not a threat to you, because, as you see I have no hidden weapon”.   This when associated with certain words and phrases says “you can trust what I am saying”. Not a bad thing for a speaker to achieve with an audience, especially to a gathering of card carrying skeptics.

3. Arms folded across the chest or one hand touching one elbow while the other hand is held near the face. Like number one, these are defensive postures specifically designed to keep your audience away from your vital spots. By the way, I do recommend the latter posture, if you are ever standing close and talking with someone you are suspicious of. My karate background recommends that position, because from there it is very quick to parry a sudden “king hit” style blow to either your face or your body, but I digress.

In speaking term though, these postures send all the wrong messages. We want to be trusted as a speaker and to do so, we have to show we are open to our audience. Holding our hands by our sides is a natural position and from here it is easy to raise our hands when needed, to inject a powerful gesture with which to back up our words.

4. Hands in the pockets. This is a particular favourite of male executives who have no idea of what to do with their hands when speaking. The really confused thrust both hands into their respective trouser pockets achieving a sort of stereo effect. It presents the hands where they can be seen from the front, but it denies us the opportunity to use gestures during out talk.

5. Holding something in our hands. When we are teaching public speaking, our participants often want to hold their speaking notes in their hands when they do the pair practice role plays. I notice they actually never look at them, but they feel comforted that should they get into trouble, help is close by, if there is a possible brain white out.

Sheets of paper however tend to become a distraction as we tend to wave them around. The pages quiver and shake if we are nervous and this is visible to our audience. We are sending the wrong message to them. We want to convey belief and confidence in our message.

If we are looking down, be it at the notes page or an iPad, we break off eye contact with our audience. Instead, we need to be watching our audience like a hawk, constantly gauging their reaction to what we are saying. We also want to employ our eye power to engage with them directly and sell them on our key messages. We want to remove all distractions from what we are communicating and we want to free up our hands so we can employ our gestures to bolster our argument.

6. Gripping the podium, the microphone stand or holding the hand microphone with both hands. The double hand, vice like grip of the podium gives the speaker the feeling of stability. It also removes the “what do I do with my hands” conundrum. What it says about you though is, “I am nervous and lacking in confidence”. It can make us appear quite strained as we apply muscle power to the upper arms and raise our shoulders, as we ensure the podium does not make a sudden attempt to scarper. Best to not even touch the podium at all and just feel free to raise your hands for gestures. Holding the microphone or it’s stand with both hands, precludes us from gesturing during our talk. Don’t touch the microphone stand at all. Restrict the hand microphone usage to one hand only, so the other is free and readily available for emphasis.

Having said that, if you find your arms and hands are shaking almost uncontrollably, because the adrenaline is coursing though your body, then by all means hold the microphone with both hands and gather it to your chest, so no one can see how petrified you are. The shaking won’t be visible anymore and you can feel more confident when you are talking.

7. Hands under the table. If we are seated during our presentation, we don’t want to hide our hands under the table. This is the same trust issue as the hands behind the back in number two. Place the hands on top of the table, resting comfortably together where they can be seen. From there, pick them up and use them for gestures.

8. Over employing or holding on to the same gesture, all of the time. We need to use a variety of gestures otherwise, we become too predictable and boring for our audience. We also need to turn gestures on and off, like the faucet of a tap. Don’t let the water run too long, remember to switch it off for a while. The break between usage and non-usage, gives the gesture more force with our audience. If we hold the same hand position for longer than 15 seconds, all the power of that gesture dies and it just becomes an annoyance to our audience.

9. Pointing our finger at people, making a fist like we want to fight, making slapping sounds and waving our hands around like a drowning person when speaking. Thrusting our single finger at someone is an aggressive action, as is brandishing our fist. We associate these gestures with an invitation to argument or combat. Neither should be our intention when engaging with our audience. Slapping or hands together or slapping our legs is an unnecessary distraction and we should avoid doing so. Waving our hands around becomes another distraction from the message we want to convey and can look like we are out of control.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Presentation Advice for Japanese Politicians

Vince Staples, American Hip Hop Rapper, was recently quoted in a Financial Times interview, “You have to paint the picture because everyone doesn’t come from the same background”. Even a humble Long Beach rapper gets the point of engaging our audience with stories when we are the speaker. Japanese politicians have to do a lot of public speaking, but they are rarely engaging. They are generally speaking at their audiences rather than to them. I previously attended the Japan Summit at the Okura Hotel Ball Room run by the Economist. Sitting there listening to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, then Minister for National Strategic Zones Shigeru Ishiba and then Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy Akira Amari, I was struck by the lack of picture painting and storytelling in their presentations.

By the way, if you have seen Prime Minister Abe of late, he has improved quite a bit. Whether it was some coaching before the Olympic bid or thereafter, the man is much better. More animated, using bigger gestures, more eye contact, using those see through teleprompters to help engage the audience rather than looking down at a page of notes. He had humour, pauses for clarity and some voice modulation. Hey Japan, take note, it is possible to become better at public speaking!

I can’t give a similar praiseworthy account for his other colleagues. They are generally a dull bunch. I flash back to Abe’s arch rival Shigeru Ishiba, who also spoke that day at the Summit. Sprawled in his seat, eyes looking up and away in the distance at some obscure spot of the upper reaches of the Grand Ballroom wall, he spoke in a voice dripping in disinterest, leavened with lethargy and boredom. He absolutely proved Professor Albert Mehrabian’s rule that when what you say (content) is incongruent with the way you say it (delivery), then 93% of the message is missed.

Here is the scary part. I closed my eyes and tried to just concentrate on the words and actually the content was pretty good and well considered. If we took the transcript and showed it to people, I am sure they would be impressed with how he was analyzing the situtaion. But he totally murdered his message.

I doubt anyone in the room got many of the points he was making. Why was that? He could have made a few adjustments and the message worth and delivery could have coincided to be very powerful and build his brand with his audience. This mediocre effort is typical of the political and business worlds in Japan. They are simply not making enough effort to become effective communicators. Sometimes you feel you are stuck in time and we are back in the 1950s here.

Minister Amari was polite, nice, but boring. He was boring because like Abe and Ishiba, he was dancing the two step data dump of information. This is a problem in corporates as well, as the leader gets up and drills the audience with detail, detail and more detail. The idea that the purity or the quality of my information is superior and sufficient, is so grossly outdated and incorrect, you wonder how it could survive in this 24/7, totally connected, information overloaded world.

CFOs and other technical types, please take note – don’t bore us with your data.

Tell us a story, pleeease! Bring the points being made to life by connecting them to some people and events you have encountered. Our minds are well trained to absorb stories, because they are the first educational structure we encounter as young children. The story should start with taking us to the place of the story, the location, the room, nominate the day, month or the season and introduce the people there, preferably people we already know, to make it real for us.

By getting straight into the story we can draw our audience in. We can now intertwine the context behind the point we want our audience to agree with. By providing the background logic, cloaked in a story which is vivid, we can see it in our mind’s eye. We will have more success convincing others to follow us. Having set the scene, we finish by outlining our proposition or proposal and tie the ribbon on top, by pin pointing the major benefit of doing what we suggest. This is elegant and powerful.

Storytelling does suffer from misuse. American politicians lead the world in this regard. Like many things in America there is gross exaggeration. If a story is good, then ten stories must be better. That is why we hear politicians referencing various Joe Public individuals in their speeches, trying to connect with their audience. Usually it comes across as fake, duplicitous, over cooked and shady.

In business, we don’t want any of that inference, so we should use storytelling sparingly yet powerfully. Less is more, but none is bad. Unite our disparate audience from multiple backgrounds by wrapping our key message in a story and if you do, what you say will be remembered, unlike almost all Japanese politicians. Let the story create your context, evidence and sizzle for your key message

Action Steps

1. Stop believing the quality or quantity of your information is enough
2. Don’t try and pack too many stories into your presentation
3. Start the story by creating a vivid mind picture of the scene

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "The Presentations Japan Series" and "The Sales Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Speaker Final Impressions

Final impressions at the end of a speech are what determine our memory of the person.  Life is throwing so much information at us and at such a manic pace we are easily overwhelmed. We are unlikely to recall too much of the detail of the talk, because there are so many other details in business and life competing for our brain space.  I remember reading that Albert Einstein didn’t bother remembering his own phone number. He said he wanted to apply his available memory space for more higher order items. I like that excuse for why I can’t remember a lot of stuff! Anyway, as an audience we may be similarly picky about what we choose to recall. Yet, we will retain an overall impression of the speaker, for good or otherwise, forever. We can let that be a random selection event or we can plan to have the final impression the one we have chosen in advance.

It is a bit like a restaurant we may visit. Unless you are like my wife, you are unlikely to remember every meal you have ever eaten, but you will come away with an impression of the quality and taste of the food, the service levels and the atmosphere. We will either record that as a place to revisit or we will determine to drop that one off the list of the many choices we have facing us.  The same with speakers. If we are left with favourable impression, then we will look forward to spending time with them and hearing from them again.

I attended a recent presentation. The speaker was rather casually dressed for the occasion and frankly it didn’t look promising. It was one of the best presentations I have attended in a long time. I can’t remember every detail, but that speaker is right up there in my mind as someone I would look forward to hearing from again. The delivery was competent and the information was super well presented and highly relevant. Another speaker here in Tokyo always draws a huge capacity crowd whenever he speaks. He has a unique style, but he has combined his content and delivery faculties well and is now a go to guy to have speak. The final impression is “that was a very valuable use of my time to sit there and listen to him speak and I want to hear more from this guy”.

Now your talk may not even get off to a brilliant start, but it better have a brilliant finish.  The idea of recency is that we tend to remember more of what we heard last, than what we heard first.  The details of the talk's key points and the evidence backing it up are lost, as the content quantity builds, each point overlaying the last. The speaker we remember yes, but the details no.  We have to therefore really work on how we leave the audience. Will we have a call to action, a rallying cry to do something that will grip the audience’s imagination and inspire them to make a change to what they have always been doing?

Will we leave them with a pithy quote that really gets them thinking about their view of the world and their place in it? Will the ending reheat the one key point we want them to remember?  There are so any ways to end a talk, but the key is to plan it well from the very beginning.  

The ending is where we should commence our design process.  That sounds a bit counterintuitive doesn’t it. Normally we think we should start at the start, that is the opening of the speech and then we flesh out what will be the key points and finally we design the wrap up at the end. That is the technique of the rank amateur. Actually the order is the other way around. We start with the end, then design the key points we will raise and finally we design how we will open it up.

Designing the ending is no small thing. To get a long argument of a 30-40 minute speech chunked down to a single sentence is hard work.  This is the professional skill of the copywriter and few of us have that training or expertise. Yet we have to come up with the equivalent of a killer line that encompasses the entire talk and encapsulates the key message for the audience. A take away for the audience that resonates well after the lights had been turned out and the doors locked at the venue.

If we can do that, then the last impression will be positive. If we can inspire the audience to take action, then we will have made a real contribution to the business and they will thank us for it. If we changed their view or widened their vision of how they see the world, they will feel richer than when they arrived for the talk. We want the audience to mentally thank us for adding something to their business or their life. That exchange of their time for greater value is what raises our value in their minds. This should be our aim and how we finish the talk is the tool to deliver that outcome.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

About The Author

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.