Rehearsing what you can’t say in words

In a previous post (October 12, 2008) on “How should you rehearse before giving a speech?” I discussed Nick Morgan’s advice on how to rehearse.

He briefly described his latest approach in a 5-page article titled “How to become an authentic speaker” that was published in the November 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review. That article likely is excerpted from his just-published book Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma.

Your body language has to precede your words, or it will seem inauthentic. The basic idea of his article is that in your rehearsals you have to imagine meeting the following four aims (rather than just trying to rehearse your nonverbal conversation):
1. Being open to your audience
2. Connecting with your audience
3. Being passionate about your topic
4. Listening to your audience

You can read a brief summary of the magazine article here. Compared to his book, it probably will seem like watching a 30-second teaser for an epic movie. Early this week he began discussing the book on his blog.

In a 2004 article he presented some similar ideas about “Preparing to be real”.