Watch Your Way to Speaking Success

I often tell audiences that I improve my skills by observing other speakers.
If you want to get to the next level of speaking, watch good speakers. That’s right. I’m talking about the power of modeling behavior. When you observe someone else, the brain fires “mirror neurons". Mirror neurons in the brain reflect the behavior of humans. The neurons build a model of the observed behavior.This allows the unconscious mind to try the behavior.

In a lab experiment, monkeys watched a researcher pick up a piece of fruit. When the monkey observed the behavior of picking up the fruit, the brain was activated as if the monkey had actually picked up the fruit. The next step was to show a bowl of fruit to a monkey which was then hidden behind a screen. The researcher reached behind the screen. The monkey couldn’t see what the researcher was doing. Yet, the monkey’s brain was activated as if the monkey had picked up a piece of fruit. At this point, the monkey was visualizing in his mind.

This is the power of visualization. If you’re nervous and want to become a confident speaker, continue to watch confident speakers. If you want to become more humorous watch comedians. Over time, an image of the behavior will form in your mind and you'll begin to model good speaking techniques.