Getting rid of distracting unintentional movements

The Pathways educational program from Toastmasters International has a required project at Level 2 in the Presentation Mastery path on Effective Body Language:

“The purpose of this project is for the member to deliver a speech with awareness of intentional and unintentional body language, as well as to learn, practice, and refine how he or she uses nonverbal communication when delivering a speech.”

Four decades ago I had prescription safety glasses supplied by my employer with plastic frames, similar to those from the Navy shown above. Even after I added self-adhesive foam pads to their nosepieces they inevitably would slide down. About every five minutes I had to push them back up. That was my unintentional and distracting body language.

More recently I got titanium frames with very comfortable silicone rubber nosepieces that swivel. These glasses are comfortable and they stay put.

As shown above, a woman with hair that blows in her face on a windy ocean day will keep having to brush it out of her eyes. During a speech that unruly hair is another type of unintentional and distracting body language to avoid.

Back on August 1, 2015 I blogged about How to confuse your audience with inconsistent hand gestures. In the YouTube video by Brian Tracy on How to overcome your fear of public speaking, when he says the word small his gesture says large (and vice versa).

Still another way to distract people is by hiding your gestures. If you are short and stand behind a lectern, then your audience may not be able to even see your elbows - and your hand gestures might mostly be invisible. On the video shown above the camera repeatedly zooms from a frame three heads high (showing from the head to below the elbows) to one only two heads high. Using brackets around the times in seconds for zooming in, the frame changes a dozen times - at [22], 39, [52], 64, [77], 94, [113], 121, [138], 154, [163], 170. Of those 194 seconds 77 or ~40% are spent zoomed in too closely.

In an online Zoom meeting (typically via a laptop computer) you can hide your gestures by sitting too close to the web camera. If you move back, then you need to speak louder since you are further from the microphone. (Or you can get a wireless Bluetooth headset).