Way back when I interviewed Ewan Mcgregor. In a pub in NW3. Happy days.
You’d assume he’d be a confident speaker, right?
You’d be wrong.
It was somehow incredibly reassuring that he too, found it daunting when asked to speak at say, a friend’s wedding. He dreaded it just like the rest of us, saying “Walking up there your heart is in your throat, it’s a horrible feeling. Once you start your temptation is just to speak far too quickly and rattle through what you have to say and miss bits out”.
He described the feeling perfectly – it’s like being a runaway train.
Don’t we all know that feeling as speakers of accelerating out of control, headlong, sentence by speedy sentence towards the buffers of speaker shame. Hideous.
But as so often is the case, within the problem is the seed of the solution.McGregor told me that as an actor he knew well that you deliver one line at a time, one breath, one thought.
Actors know about the “fuel tank” of breath that supports your speech.
- Your in breath fills the tank – breathe in through the nose.
- Your speech/out breath empties it – speak out through the mouth.
- The longer the sentence – the deeper the in-breath to refuel – If you want to say a long line you need time to refuel.
It was when Mcgregor connected to that rule in his own public speaking that things started to change. He started to find his brakes “If you can get hold of your nerves, speak and think at a reasonable rate, everything starts to change”.
As ever in life it’s in equal measure as hard to do as it is obvious. But there is a practice that actors are taught that works just as well in civilian life.
How do you do it?
Simply by practising the refuel. It forces you to “stop at each station” and take that pause so you put the brakes on.
Try this:
Choose a sentence – for example “Hello my name is…” You build up the sentence word by word, filling up your fuel tank a little more each time.
Say Hello
Slightly longer in breath.
– Hello my
Slightly longer in breath.
– Hello my name
Slightly longer in breath.
– Hello my name is
Slightly longer in breath.
– Hello my name is Caroline
Now, if you try saying the whole sentence you notice something. By paying attention to the need to refuel, you aren’t rushing anymore. You take your time, you own your words.
For all of us as speakers, if we match the breath that comes in to the thought that we speak, we’re in control.
Goodbye runaway train. Hello, confident speaker!
I shared a short video about this earlier in the week which you can watch by clicking on the link below.
Match the in-breathe to the thought that you speak!
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