I chanced to hear a song from 1968 the other day created by the slightly twisted genius Frank Zappa:  “What’s the ugliest part of your body?”  The song got me wondering what the ugliest part of a speaker’s body is.  

Is it the face?  When speakers come under the influence of adrenaline, they tend to lose affect.  That is, their faces go blank.  People who would smile, nod, laugh, and move their eyebrows around in normal conversation become Great Stone Faces on stage.  

Is it the hands?  Nervous speakers go to great length to protect themselves from their audiences by using their hands as barricades to separate them from the people in front of them.  A speaker may clasp her hands nervously over her stomach, or lace them together just below the solar plexus, or any one of a hundred other variations.  The net effect is to prevent speaker and audience from communicating effectively.

Is it the feet?  Speakers often get ‘happy feet’, wandering randomly all over the stage in an effort to get rid of excess adrenaline.  While purposeful motion is fascinating (Where is he going?), random motion is not.  After a while, it is intensely irritating to the audience.  

Is it, as Frank Zappa suggests, the mind?  Absolutely.  It’s the mind that creates the adrenaline-based fear that causes all of the above symptoms to appear.  If you can open your mind to the experience of connecting with the audience, you can avoid all that dismal behavior, and then the mind, and the human connection, have the chance to create something beautiful together – and even to change the world.  

What's the ugliest

Part of your body?

What's the ugliest

Part of your body?

Some say your nose

Some say your toes

(I think it's your mind)

But I think it's YOUR MIND

(Your mind)

I think it's your mind, woo woo