Have you ever wondered what techniques a speaker uses to connect with their audience?
In this video, Michael Grinder, the pioneer of nonverbal communication, comments on Mark Gungor’s excellent presentation and breaks down his body language and speech patterns. If you’ve ever wondered what elements make a speaker successful, you’ll want to watch this insightful video.
Presentation skills breakdown: Mark Gungor’s A Tale of Two Brains
To easily differentiate between Michael’s dialogue and Mark Gugnor’s, you will find Mark’s quotes italicized.
Read the modified transcript to “Presentation skills breakdown: Mark Gungor’s A Tale of Two Brains” below:
Hi, my name is Michael Grinder. I love studying nonverbal communication. The easiest way to improve your own is sometimes by watching experts. What they do may seem so fluid and natural but oftentimes there’s a formula to it. There’s a structure to what seems so easy and effortless.
We’re going to watch someone who’s really, really good and we’re going to show you what he’s actually doing so you can duplicate, you can mimic, you can emulate this particular person.
His name is Mark. Watch his talk about male and female styles of communication.
We’re going to see about 45 seconds. Then we’re going go see it a second time, and I’ll show you what he actually did.
“So now, we’re going to start discussing men’s brains, women’s brains, and how they’re very different from each other. Now I wanna start with men’s brains. All right?”
Now, I know we’re going to only see 45 seconds of this particular segment, but I want to make sure you recognize what did he just do? If you would, when you want to go to a new location, look sideways. Most of us are trained never to break eye-contact with the audience.
Nah-ah, break eye-contact.
Why do you want to have different locations?
Let each location represent an idea, a concept and it will last longer in their brains because it’s associated with the location.
Watch how he turns sideways.
“Discussing men’s brains, women’s brains and how they’re very different from each other. Now I wanna start with men’s brains.”
He walked all the way over sideways to the audience and then he settles himself. Now watch his eyes. We’re so trained never to break eye-contact, he breaks eye-contact. But he looks at something.
“All right, now men’s brains are very unique. Men’s brains are made up of little boxes and we have a box for everything. We’ve got a box for the car. We’ve got a box for the money. We’ve got a box for the job.”
Now it may seem so easy to do but if you would, watch again. He pauses his hands as he says different content areas. Job, box for the car, the children. Watch! Learn to pause your hands as you are talking.
“Box for everything. We’ve got a box for the car. We’ve got a box for the money. We’ve got a box for the job. We’ve got a box for you.”
And he’s going to say a funny one.
“We’ve got a box for the kids. We’ve got a box for your mother somewhere in the basement. We got, we got..”
Now, it seems like he’s such a pro. What can I emulate from him?
There is a concept that is rather advanced and I encourage you to really think about it and then watch lots of people and see if it’s true.
Normally, what you do is you join the audience, it’s called pacing.
Talk about something they [the audience] want[s] to talk about. Then talk about something that you want to talk about. Change. As you change, that’s called leading. So pace, lead, pace, lead.
Now, if you’re telling a funny thing most people will pace, lead. The whole audience laughs and then you wait for the laughter to come all the way down. Now you have to pace again.
But if you want, there’s a secret here. And that is: pace, lead, tell the joke, and as the audience starts to laugh or applause, as they start to change, as they start decreasing in their volume, before it gets to the bottom, change whatever you’re doing.
If you’ve been quiet, be loud. If you’ve been moving, stop. If you’ve been stopped, move.
Listen to how he does it. He makes sure that he goes pace to lead, to lead, to lead. He doesn’t have to go back to pacing. Brilliant!
“For your mother somewhere in the basement. We got, we got.. We got boxes everywhere.”
He changes! Why? He’s still leading the group. He’s not just pacing them. And that’s what’s so brilliant about him.
Now we want to go to another section and show you something else that he does. It just, he’s so good. You want to really, really copy people. Literally see if you can do the same voice, the same pace of their voice. See if you can do the same gestures. See if you can do the same movement.
Now he’s going to go from one location to another location. You’ll see that he has statutes of both the male and the female brain. Smart, why?
He gets to break eye contact with the audience. That means that when he does look at the audience, which is different than his baseline of looking at the statues, it must be important.
“And then we close the box and put it away being very, very careful not to touch any other boxes.”
It seems so simple but watch what he’s doing.
When he finishes a location, he freezes, he pauses and when he’s ready then his whole body changes. His head comes up, he turns sideways, the hand gestures come back towards his torso.
Watch! But watch the freeze and then he moves.
“Other boxes.”
He walk sideways. Most of us we walk and continue to look at the audience. Don’t, don’t! Go sideways.
Now watch when he comes over to a new location, he’s going to settle himself. Most of us, we talk as we move into the location.
Nah-ah, get to the location, settle and you’ll be okay.
Watch how he does it.
Where are his eyes? Watch his body. He sways just a little bit to make sure he has balance with the weight on both legs.
Watch him do it again. Watch him settle as he comes into the new location, then he talks.
Now here is something that is important to consider.
He’s over here and he’s at the male brain. I’m going turn off the sound. He finishes here and he’s going to start walking over towards the female brain.
Now here’s the rule of thumb.
If you go to a brand new location for the very first time, you have to talk as you go there.
But if you’ve already been at a location, you can go back without talking.
So rule of thumb, return to a location in silence, create a new location by almost a pretense of talking as you go to the location.
Watch!
Yes, he’s good. Yes, he gets good applause. But watch him. What does he do with his body?
“And then we close the box and put it away being very, very careful..”
Now his ready.
“Not to touch…”
He goes to a new location.
“Any other box.”
In silence after pausing. Look at him, look at him, look at him. Looking down. Watch him settle. He settles in the new location. Now he’s funny. He’s so good.
But there’s structure to it. It’s not just happenstance.
Now we’re going to jump ahead about half a minute because there are so many good things. You can watch this on YouTube yourself. It’s called, The Tale of Two Brains. You can also type in, The Nothing Box and you’ll get to the same location. He has a whole video that you can purchase that will give you the whole program. Well, worth watching.
We’re now going to watch him go to a situation where he’s going pause his hands. And as he pauses his hands, it’s going to look like it’s effortless. No, there’s structure to it. Watch!
“Now women’s brains are very, very different from men’s brains. Women’s brains are made up of a big ball of wire.”
Watch the hands, watch the hands, they do pause.
“And everything is connected to everything! The money’s connected to the car, and the car is connected to your job and your kids are connected to your mother. And everything is connected to everything!”
Watch it, watch it. See if you can duplicate this. As he’s doing it, I’m going see if I can do it with my hands at the same time.
“And everything is connected to everything! It is like.”
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
But watch also how he’s still doing his pace, lead.
So when he finished over at the male, he let this applause go completely silent, he comes over to the female and now he starts again. So there are times when you can do pace, lead then go back to being pace, lead again.
But once you have it, come on! As you hear the volume change in terms of the applause in the audience, change what you’re doing.
Listen! If you would, look away from the picture and just listen, auditorily.
“And everything is connected to everything! It is like.”
So he looks up as the volume changes. Now watch him turn his head sideways.
It doesn’t matter what you do, just change what you’re doing when the volume changes and you’re still leading them. Oh, it is so artistic to do it that way.
We’re now going to jump way ahead to at least 10 minutes and watch him do a series of activities that are just absolutely brilliant.
Remember, your longest-term memory that your audience will have is when you act differently than you’ve been acting so far. So we’re going to first show you what he does and then we’ll go back through and explain what he does.
“And that’s when she starts reaching for the knives and stuff. She’s gonna stab you if you keep it up, okay? Now a woman, she senses her husband’s all stressed out. She loves him therefore she offers to him, her best and finest solution. Talk to me.”
Come on, come on, it’s funny but watch what he did. He made sure he’d walk sideways. He got to the location then he starts talking.
“She loves him. Therefore she offers to him, her best and finest solution.”
Watch, watch, watch, watch! He settled, he settled, he settled.
“Talk to me.”
Now he talks. Now watch what he does.
Talk about lead, lead, lead. Whew, brilliant! He’s not looking at the audience.
His whole body is sideways. He has been upright the whole time. That means if he kneels, that’s a change from his baseline, long-term memory. Watch!
“I want you to talk to me.”
What’s the most important thing you want to say to an audience? What are the top three?
New location for each one, different body, change what you’re doing with your eyes, change your voice.
So take your nonverbals: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and breathing.
Save the change for when things are really important for you to convey.
Emulate. Find people that you can turn off the sound and just watch them. Change and mimic their hands. Now, look away from them and listen to their voice. Can you duplicate their voice?
Be the best you, you can be. And you’re going do that by understanding your own nonverbals.
Michael Grinder here. Watch the experts and emulate.
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