Let's talk about some of the logistics when you're on a panel. Now, you've seen in many cases where there's a table, a microphone on the table every couple of feet. Sometimes if there's six panelists, they may share three microphones. Here's what a lot of people do, there's a table in front of them. So they put their hands on it, and they lean down. And what's happening there is it just makes you look sloppy, slumped over.

Kind of bored, makes everything wrinkled, too. And it robs you of your energy. So if you're sitting at a table and there are microphones there, what I recommend is you do not touch the table with your hands and arms when you're speaking. I recommend hold yourself up pi. Lean forward and be gesturing moving your hands when you speak. That's what I recommend doing.

Don't swamp over now another scenario is Directors chairs, I've seen this at many, many conferences, everyone's on a director's chair. And depending on how long you have, but if it's an opening five minutes statement, what I would do is just get up and then walk in sort of a square of two to three feet, you can get better eye contact, you get more people focusing on you eye contact back at you. There is more variety and you appear much more confident. Now, I wouldn't do that every single time. When there's question and answer session and people are giving 20 and 32nd answers, I would stay seated for that. But if there's one point at the beginning, when it's understood, you have a good five minutes I would actually stand because it just conveys confidence.

It shows you're serious about it, and it works very well. So I do want you to be comfortable with how you're standing how you're setting Another scenario is there's a lectern. panelists are sitting down and what's their turn to talk, they get up behind the lectern. I need you to use your judgment here on the room size and the audio. If you're speaking to 500 people, and there's a microphone at the lectern, you're going to have to get close to that microphone. But I've also been in many conferences, where there's only 2530 people in the room.

So there's no need to get behind the lectern to use that microphone. The microphone might not even be on. If there's only 25 people in the room. When it's your turn to speak. Just walk up, get as close as possible to the first row, speak to people and you'll come across as more genuine or authoritative, more confident. Yeah.

A word about notes. It just looks odd when you're sitting down. You have five minutes to sort of bury your head and be reading you've robbed the audience of icontact. You don't seem very passionate about it and you don't seem like much of an expert. The other thing that looks odd is having notes on a napkin. I've seen that countless times because people say, well, it's just a panel, I'll just jot down something at a cocktail party beforehand.

That doesn't send the level of seriousness, I would recommend either no notes, or my first choice. have notes on a single sheet of paper, large font, so you don't have to stop every two seconds and doing this stuff. extra large font, a single sheet of paper. That way you can glance down occasionally using it as a roadmap. There's a certain particular number that's really important or big concept you want to stress. It's right there on your single sheet of paper, but it's not a big stack.

Have papers where people are expecting five minutes and they see this and their first reaction, oh my gosh, this person's gonna go way over the time limit. Now you need your notes on a single sheet of paper, which, by the way, that's what great speakers do. Even if they're talking for an hour, they keep the notes on a single sheet. So, I want you to go ahead and prepare your notes for this panel discussion. For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume you have five minutes to give opening comments on the discussion that everyone's gathered here to discuss. So have just comments for five minutes, single sheet of notes with large font and also get ready to give your presentation as part of the panel based on how you've set the dynamics Will you be sitting or standing