The Real Estate of the Stage

How do you make use of the speaking area? Do you hold forth just standing there like a wooden Indian? Or, equally silly, do you pace back and forth like a caged tiger? The one strategy is as mindless as the other. Be aware: the real estate of the stage is a vastly valuable, and under-utilized, resource!

Instead, make your movement parallel the organic development in your spoken content. So, why not try this? You're telling a story to illustrate your point, and it's chronological. So start at stage left at "when I was in diapers;" then move a few steps toward the center at "I wasn't much better as a teenager;" and another few steps for "Fast forward 15 years." [Be careful that you don’t move back, say, to center stage unless you’re referring to your teenage years again.] When your story is finished and it's time for "And here's my point," MOVE FORWARD A FEW STEPS!

Your audience may not realize how you did it but they'll be captivated - and all you did was tell the three paragraphs of your story in three parts, each told from different points on an imaginary straight left-to-right line, then you stepped forward from that line to make your point. In other words, you will have made it easy for them, literally, to follow you.

Get it?