What do Meryl Streep, Mickey Rourke, Kate Winslet, Sean Penn and Angelina Jolie have in common? They were all nominated for acting awards at last year’s Oscars. Which means they have all had a major impact on audiences.

As speakers, that’s your job, too – to affect your audiences and bring change.  Whether you speak about customer service, or sales, or personal growth, you are hired to have an impact, and that means you must touch both hearts and heads.

Actors know how to do this, because they are trained and directed in it.  Speakers can take their cue from them, to up their presentation skills and increase standing ovations.

Speaking is a performance! However, few speakers fully integrate key acting skills and perspective into their presentations. Actors know the importance of setting the stage, using vocal nuances, creating characters and fully using their instruments (themselves) to elicit the desired emotions in their audience. By using simple acting skills, you will dramatically increase your effectiveness and make yourself memorable.

I know that as an actor, if I really and truthfully have an experience while I’m performing, my audience shares it with me. It’s magic! It’s a communion, a dance that we share, an energy that goes back and forth. And when it’s working…you’ve felt it too…when you’re in the zone…that’s when it’s life-changing. If you had a camera on it, that’s an Oscar moment!

It’s my drug, what keeps me coming back. And I know you’ve had it happen too, but do you know why?  And do you know how to make it happen every time? And why does it work once, and then not the next time? It can be very frustrating. That’s why actors develop technique and triggers to get them there every time. You can learn the same process.

Actors are trained in how to produce and deliver effective performances that blow their audiences away long after the screen goes dark. Actors know that we have to touch both heads and hearts to move the audience in a way that will change them so they are different when they walk back out that door. You don’t want them to say, “Oh, that was good,” and then forget about you and your message as soon as they leave.

Next time you’re at the movies, watch it from an actor’s perspective. When you see a great performance that really moves you, take note about what the actor is doing to make it happen. If you are being moved, it’s because the actor is living and breathing that emotion first, letting it fully affect and move through him to you, the audience. Learn from the best, so that you can learn to move your audience and yourself the same way the next time you are presenting!

Your job is to do the same thing, no matter what you are speaking about or what business you are in. Your job is to take your passion, plug into your excitement, let it fill you up and fuel you, and then let your words come from there. That is your GOLD.  And that is your Oscar moment.

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