How in the world are you supposed to “let it all go”? What does that even mean? Well, it means living in the moment with the audience. Ok… Ok… I keep throwing actor parlance at you.
Have you ever been so fully focused on an activity that your brain stopped talking and you just responded, as if by instinct? Maybe you haven’t experienced it, but if you watch sports, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It can happen in any arena of life. Some disciplines of acting have learned to fully harness this innate human quality. Improvisers on stage do it all the time, and their principles can be applied to giving a speech as well.
It starts with embodying the text. That means knowing your speech or presentation so well that you can recite it while driving to the store or walking your dog. That makes the text a part of you, something you employ as needed on a whim, not something you fear will disappear on you at any moment. It takes work and effort – it literally sucks. But you have to do it.
Next, the text must be married to the action. Meaning, if it’s a presentation, then you need to know every click, every move of the mouse, every inch of what needs to be portrayed – forwards, backwards, inside and out. Just like the text, this has to live inside you, so you can smoothly interface with the technology or medium you’re using, adapting it to the needs of your living presentation.
From there, it’s about trusting yourself and learning to listen with your entire body. The audience is alive and must be heeded as well, but doing so without first mastering the text makes the task much more difficult. You will fall into a state that actors call, “Being in your head,” where your internal monologue overrides your preparation.
A baseball player making a diving catch in left field to win the game, or the running back who hurdles an on-coming defender: they are only able to perform such feats because they are fully present in the moment, fully present in the reality of what is occurring around them and thus able to perform superhuman feats. You, too, can tap into your subconscious this way, and it will allow you to do amazing things.