SELF STUDY AND IMPROVE  (‘Traits’)

I am a member of Toastmasters. Many years ago, a fellow club member offered to video several of us presenting speeches for evaluation.  Part of the evaluation was a study of the video he took as we gave.

I thought I’d made a fair fist of my speech. When the video of my presentation was played back, I discovered (along with everyone else) several ‘anomalies’:

• I overly shuffled, and the movement was out of sync with and detracted from my presentation.
• I scratched my posterior on two occasions.
• I once picked at my nose.
• Several times, my eye movements were out of context and did not support my trying to reach the audience through eye contact.

Without the video revelation, I would have been unaware of these unconscious actions.

Nowadays, videoing on mobile if using an iPad simplifies the whole process. My suggestion is that readers consider having someone video presentation for the sake of weakness awareness as a precursor to improvement