For most people in the workplace, the most stressful situation for your body language is when you're asked to speak on television. Now, we talked earlier about video, whether it's just on your cell phone, Skype video, and that can be stressful. But if you're in a big TV studio, Bright Lights, camera operators coming around, perhaps a prominent host grilling you with questions. For most people, that's the most nerve racking and these days, it's not just the CEO, there are so many cable niche networks, networks that are focused on subsections of subsections of industries. You could be a 24 year old Product Manager at a company or a junior Product Manager at a trade convention and be asked to speak on behalf of your whole company on some niche TV network could be an online TV network. So you need to be prepared for this.
You know what, oh no, I'm not a an on camera person. If you To be successful in the workplace today, you've got to think of yourself as someone who can communicate at anytime, anywhere about what you do, and what your organization does. So all the same rules from before video apply, you want to hold yourself high, lean forward about 15 degrees, you want to make sure you move your hands, your body, your face, you don't want to be frozen at all. You don't want your eyes to go back and forth. You don't want a blank look on your face. You need a little bit of a smile.
But there are additional challenges when you're on TV. So for example, if a reporter or talk show host is interviewing you, where do you look? Hi, Jay. And I'm really glad you asked me that question. Yes, I'm very trustworthy and honest. See how bad that looks on my eyes shift back and forth.
Here's the rule of thumb. If there's a human being talking to you and you see the person, the reporter, the host Just look at the person ignore the camera, you cannot go wrong. Ignoring the camera if there's a person there. Occasionally you may be asked to do an interview through satellite interview or through Skype, and you have an earpiece, and you can't see the person asking you questions in that case, then just look at the camera. But you're likely to be more nervous than just doing a little Skype meeting in your office so you're even more tempted to freeze. Have your eyes bugged out Don't forget to blink.
Don't forget to move head, face body, and you'll be okay other things through different about TV. You can get away with no makeup if it's a little handheld Skype video or FaceTime with a colleague or two but when you're on TV, people could be looking at you on a giant screen. So even if your skin is normally flawless and Mine isn't. imperfections will show up. Be magnetic. Find your face will look oily, greasy, even if it's not.
So my recommendation even if the TV station or network doesn't provide it, put some powder on yourself. All you really need is a mosaic powder that doesn't change the color of your skin. You don't want to make yourself look like you're getting a tan. And you don't want to whiten yourself either. You want it to not change the color of your skin. I have powder all over my face now, because I want to reduce the shine.
In case any of you are looking at this on bigger screens, if you're watching on a cell phone, it probably doesn't matter. So that's one big difference. When you're in a studio sometimes it's more intimidating. There are a lot of people around people can be talking. You got to zone out, ignore all that and just focus on the person asking you the questions. Look at that person.
Look at the camera. You might be put in a chair that swivels Don't swivel you want to move but just from the waist up, not from the waist down. It'll be highly distracting and you'll look nervous and uncomfortable. So those are the basics of how your body language will come across your best anytime you're on television