Kymberlee: This week in Talking Technique, why don't you ...

Alan: Allow your audience to feel?

Kymberlee: Something, anything, allow your audience to feel. As an audience, we don't want to just sit there and be numb. We want to feel emotions of any kind.

Alan: People often ask, how do I get the audience's attention? How do I command the stage? The idea is to get your audience to feel something, to feel the emotion you want them to feel with story, anecdote, whatever, but what gets them to be in an emotional state.

Kymberlee: One way you can do that is to think of your talk as creating an experience for your attendees. It's not you just talking, talking, talking at them and pushing information at them, it's really creating an experience so there's an opportunity for laughter, there's an opportunity for surprise. You allow your audience to be in the moment with you within your story, within your lessons, to be right there with you.

Alan: One way to have your audience feel emotion is for you to feel it as well. If it's a story that's important to you, you have to put yourself in that position. What was it like when you were going through that experience? What was the emotion you felt? How did your body feel? What was it that you went through when you were in that position?

Kymberlee: What I like to do when I'm telling stories is to stay present tense because that can help the audience to be in the moment. When you are saying things just as they are happening, not were happening at some point in the past but they are happening now, that can help your audience relate and feel those emotions.

Alan: Relating is an important part of it. We all feel emotions. We're human beings, we have emotional reactions. When you're setting the stage, when you're laying out the story and it's present tense, immediate, that's when they're ready to go with you and to a particular emotional state and if you felt that emotion, you can recreate it.

Kymberlee: Think about your favorite movie. You probably felt something while watching your favorite movie. Maybe it was a comedy and you remember, "Oh, this is just hilarious," - you felt something. Or if you like drama and adventure, you remember feeling the adrenaline rush of what was going on in that moment in the story. It's the same with speakers. We want to evoke those emotions within the audience so that they walk away from your talk and they remember it and they actually got to experience it with you.

Alan: Those emotional moments really count on detail. Not the detail of the plot, not what led to this moment or the things that went on. That's important, but the emotional content is the detail right now. What did the environment feel like? What are the smells, temperature, how your body felt, the body position you were in? All of those elements, the details of the story at this moment are what prepare the audience for the emotions they're going to be feeling based on the story.

Kymberlee: Yes, so use your senses. Use all of your senses to bring your story to life, to bring your talk to life because when you do, then we can all have an experience together.

Alan: So, why don't you...

Kymberlee: allow your audience to feel?