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While conducting my workshops on how to handle the fear of speaking up or stage fright, I get asked the same question a lot “when I’m presenting, I don’t know what to do with my hands”.

I typically answer this question with a question. “When your speaking at home, in a meeting, with friends do you ever think about what to do with your hands?” The answer is 100% of the time “no”

”So why do you think you’d don’t know what to do with your hands when you’re presenting?”

I used to have the same problem and the answer is fairly simple. The reason you don’t know what to do with your hands is because you aren’t putting yourself and your passion into your presentation. You’re trying to go from someone else’s template. You’re speaking from your head and not your heart.

You’re speaking like the spokespeople in a bad local commercial. “We’ll save (insert finger pointing hand gesture) YOU, A LOT of MONEY!” Wow, I know I’m sold…

In my workshop, I’m not going to tell you where to put your hands because I don’t want you to THINK about your hands, or making eye contact. I want you think about your content, why you’re presenting, I want you to try to inspire and excite your audience. Even an audience of one!

How do you do that? First get excited yourself! If you don’t care about your subject, why would anyone else?

No matter how dry the subject matter you can excite an audience. You can bring passion to your presentation. You may not get through to everyone but you won’t bore them at least.

When presenting think about the following:

• Who is your audience and why are they there?
• What message are you trying to get across?
• Why are you the one presenting the material?
• How can you inject some humor, even with serious subject matter?

Getting excited, will calm your nerves and give you a sharper, more inspiring presentation, no mechanical hand gestures needed.