3 tips on how to influence your gestures and voice

Do you know this effect when people appear somehow awkward and angular in terms of their movements? To radiate little sovereignty with it? And that's why you can't follow so well when listening because your voice also sounds rather flat or monotonous? In this article, I want to show you an essential aspect of how you can appear confident and make your gestures seem natural, authentic and sovereign when speaking. – And how you can appear sonorously convincing with your voice precisely because of this.

Experience on the Brenner Pass

On the way back After a very interesting training day in Bolzano in South Tyrol, I recently landed high up on the Brenner Pass in that interesting museum room that is suddenly located to the right of the motorway at the highest point of the pass. A sprawling, tall, light-flooded building with a wide staircase at the front and floor-to-ceiling glass walls, set up as a monument to the Italian artist Fabrizio Plessi .

What does this have to do with the topic of voice, sovereign appearance and the question "How do I become sovereign, how can I appear sovereign?", you may be wondering now! –

 

At the hotel in Bolzano I had turned on the TV for a short time. On RAI, Italian television, a talk show was running with people gesticulating extensively and speaking quite impulsively loudly. They all seemed confident and spontaneous. This memory went through my head at the Brenner Pass when I stood in the Plessi Museum and took in the monumental interior. This made this question come up in me:

Do you have to be as extroverted as the Italians are supposed to be in order to speak powerfully and modulatedly and to appear confident?

Even very reserved and more introverted people have every chance of confident, convincing effect when speaking and presenting. Because they have an essential prerequisite for today's practical tip: their high inner perceptiveness. And this is the key to precise body sensation.

 

Check the next time you want to say something important in the circle of your colleagues, or if you want to have your say in the meeting:

  • How small or tall am I making myself right now?
  • Does the behavior of others limit me in any way?
  • How does that feel? Where in the body can I feel and feel this most strongly?

Ask yourself the question: "How much space am I allowing myself right now?"

In the next few days, observe people speaking from time to time:

  • To what extent do the elbows move when someone speaks?
  • If the elbows remain rather close to the body and thus the gestural space is restricted, how does that affect you as an observer?
  • At what moments do shoulders and elbows come loose? What makes people gesticulate impulsively and confidently when speaking – regardless of whether the gestures are smaller or more expansive?

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Why do confident gestures have such a strong effect on the voice and your confident appearance?

You may already have guessed the answer: Your voice is the audible part of your body language! The way you move, that's how you sound. Move indecisively, sound indecisive. If you move unsteadily, sound the same.

Pleasantly, this also applies the other way around: Straighten up inwardly and say to yourself: "It's important to me to make my thoughts heard!", your shoulders will involuntarily rise, your chest will widen a little, your neck will straighten slightly - and your voice will already deliver your messages in a completely different tone.

You will sound fuller and more confident, your voice will fill the room with more volume and infect the listeners with your energy.

I wish you a lot of fun and good luck and interesting experiences trying it out! Do you have any questions? Then I look forward to your e-mail.

Blaue handschriftliche Unterschrift auf transparentem Hintergrund, die Bände spricht und mit Raffinesse verkauft.

You

Arno Fischbacher

P.S.: I'm happy if you like this post. If so, please share it on one of your networks! Do you have a question or would you like to discuss my thoughts with me? Write a comment! I look forward to hearing your opinion!

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The author:

Arno Fischbacher is a business voice coach and rhetoric expert, speaker and author. He prepares executives and employees of the top companies in Germany and Austria for negotiations, presentations and media appearances. Fischbacher is the author of several books, past president of the German Speakers Association (GSA) Austria, chairman of the European Network of Voice Experts, stimme.at.

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