by Carmine Gallo: Motivational speaker Anthony (Tony) Robbins has enough energy to keep 4,000 people engaged for 50 hours over four days. 
Featured on Oprah’s Next Chapter on OWN, Robbins demonstrated his pre-speaking ritual which involves incantations, affirmations, and movement—lots and lots of movement. This makes sense since one of Robbins’ core teachings is that energized movement can change your state of mind.
Robbins gets himself in the zone for about ten minutes prior to taking the stage. Robbins shows how he gets his body “awake and alive.” He jumps up and down, spins around, fist pumps, stands with his arms outstretched, and even bounces on a trampoline.
As a presenter physical preparation will boost your energy significantly and make a huge impact on the way your audience perceives you. Of course it’s not necessary to go to the extreme that Robbins does—and you would look a bit foolish jumping on a trampoline before your next sales pitch—but it’s important to adopt some sort of physical pre-presentation ritual since movement and energy are so intimately connected.
Where are you on the energy scale? Here’s a technique that I’ve used with executive speakers over the years and it works wonders. Right before the presentation I ask the speaker, “On a scale of one to ten—one being asleep and ten being Tony Robbins who is yelling, fist-pumping and smacking his hands against his chest—where are you right this second on the energy scale?” The typical response is somewhere between four and six. I then suggest that the speaker clap his or her hands together three or four times, shake out their arms, and put a big smile on their face. “Now where you are?” I ask. “About seven or eight,” the speaker normally responds. “Now rock it!” I exclaim.
Yes, this simple exercise makes us all feel a bit nutty but it’s fun and results in dramatic changes. In fact the typical speaker stumbles a few times as soon as they begin presenting. Why? Because they have been forced out of their comfort zone on the energy scale. But as they practice at their new energy level, everything changes—their body language, eye contact and delivery.
As a speaker you are being judged on the quality of your story, your body language, and your delivery. Raising your energy level to a “7 or 8” will help to improve two of three qualities—body language and delivery. Practice the ritual before you try it in front of an audience because it will take you out of your comfort zone until you get used to your new energy level. Now clap those hands, shake those arms, jump up and down, put a huge smile on your face, and rock it!
