INTRODUCTION

Donald Trump prepares to enter the stage at the National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, following his arraignment in Miami. He had entered a not guilty plea to 37 counts related to allegations that he kept hundreds of classified documents after his term of office expired.1

Back in New Jersey, the gathered throng are at a fever pitch when a loud, deep voice announces (a presupposition that is a stretch, at best): ‘Ladies and gentlemen. The next President of the United States!’ The audience, coaxed by a core of vocal leaders, are transfixed as they chant together ‘USA! USA! USA!’ Trump finally enters, stops in the middle of the doorway, and gestures with his arms open wide and hands facing forwards. Behind him, the flags of the nation provide a superb photographic opportunity.

Whether you like Trump or not is a personal opinion (this is certainly not a book about politics!), but it is undeniable that when he is on stage, the whole event is choreographed around his delivery. He is able to profoundly influence those in his audience, having received an astounding 67.87 million votes in 2020, nearly five million more than in 2016.2 And while his theatrics are unusual in today's political and leadership world, their overwhelming impact fascinates (or infuriates) an audience across the globe (despite the somewhat confusing and unclear speeches he often makes alongside his delivery!).

The long and the short of it … Trump has some form of gravitas. The question about whether he uses this skill with moral fortitude is a separate one. (Tiro, the assistant of Cicero, is imagined by Robert Harris to have quoted Cicero in his dying words to have said, ‘Power brings a man many luxuries, but a clean pair of hands is seldom amongst them.’3) And the answer is not obvious.

My question to you is this: can we leave the influencing to those who may not have the best intentions, when those who do are struggling?

And of course, we should take courage from the fact that — when it comes to gravitas — even the bravest fall.

The famous British-American journalist and award-winning filmmaker Louis Theroux once interviewed British adventurer, writer and television personality Bear Grylls. In this absorbing interview,4 Grylls talks about his incredible feats of bravery and survival. But he also mentions that when it comes to presenting to an audience, he crumbles. Despite being able to eat spiders and scale mountains, when it came to public speaking Grylls said, ‘I hate this more than anything.’

So what's the difference between his epic survival struggles and speaking with kids? Well, when it comes to his physical feats of endurance and bravery, he has catchphrases, rituals and techniques that help him to manage all the obstacles he faces, whether they're planned or unplanned. However, when it comes to presenting to a large group, he has nothing. Guided by a chasm of nothingness, his unconscious mind takes control and he is left scrambling.

As Bear Grylls' experience shows, many people are in this position — even the bravest among us. But why? Why are we struggling?

Communication and Confidence

The way we currently communicate has left many people — speakers and listeners alike — with a lack of confidence. This is not an innate lack. It is a gaping hole in our training. And while we were not doing well before COVID-19, the predominance of virtual communication has highlighted a weakness that is leading to disassociation, isolation and imposter syndrome. We sit quietly at the end of a virtual call, struggling to engage, absorb or respond to information because we've never been taught how to communicate better, and we believe, through experience and by watching those who came before us, that this is what's expected. When we're the ones communicating, we too often lack structure and organisation, and we tend to overlook the missing skills of delivery that would enhance our communication, instead focused on reading from a scrappy piece of paper.

With around 75 per cent of people having glossophobia5 (the fear of public speaking), one of the biggest challenges for those in the workplace is to have the confidence to speak publicly and communicate with excellence. An apparent lack of confidence in the speaker, which leads to a crumpled posture, blocked voice and a propensity to waffle, can, in turn, lead the audience to experience a lack of respect and trust in the speaker. Lack of confidence also has a direct link to performance anxiety and imposter syndrome, which can lead to us doubting our own talents and feeling like we don't deserve our role or our success. And both of these have been magnified post-COVID. The pressure has never been greater, and the skills have never been more wanting.

What is it that's holding us back from having the confidence to speak well in public and communicating with excellence — whether that's to a small room of colleagues, or on a large stage? It's the feeling that we lack gravitas. It's the feeling that we don't have the skills to deliver in a way that aligns with our authenticity as a speaker or thinker, and in a way that reinforces our authority and builds trust with our audience.

But we can build this confidence, create trust and authority and, ultimately, build our own gravitas. And to do this, we start with the learning of the ancients.

Learnings from the Ancients

These communication and confidence challenges need solutions, but there's no need to recreate the wheel. The solution does not lie in mindset: it comes from action. The answers lie in tangible, useful and immediately applicable skills of delivery, like those used by the ancient Greeks and Romans. These were people devoted to oratory and the trust and respect known as gravitas, which required a lifetime of constant application to achieve excellence.

But today we find a world where one of the key elements of rhetoric, delivery, has been completely overlooked. Delivery is where our communications fall down. And to develop gravitas we must bring delivery back into the way we speak, work and lead others.

The question arises as to why we have not recognised the ancients' knowledge of gravitas before. One explanation is that the skills are difficult to describe on paper, and so the solutions appear to have rotted on the shelves.

To reinstate the skill of delivery, we must:

• shatter the paradigms that have led to our current outdated and ineffective model of communication
• reinstate the body as the core of delivery (and therefore communication)
• reintroduce voice into the equation
• re-engage gestures in our communication
• look at the modern frameworks of rhetoric (and what's missing)
• actively practise the skills of rhetoric.

Much of what we need to do to achieve this, and solve today's modern crisis of communication, has already been developed. We just need to know where to look. And this book will show you how!

A Different Lens

The ancients believed that confidence is a choice and is gained by taking action. It's time we re-learned how their knowledge can be used to bridge our modern gaps in communication and confidence. In this book, you'll discover a new model of communication, built on that timeless wisdom. It's a model that anyone can implement, easily, in their own lives, and gain back those feelings of confidence and trust that are so vital to communicating well.

In this book, you'll discover that our actions are a set of habitual patterns, as opposed to the idea that somebody is ‘a natural’ or has a ‘good voice’. I focus on three major areas of new skills — body, gestures and voice — which can help you to, ultimately, achieve your goal of learning gravitas.

This model is built on the following principles:

• Each person is born with a perfect instrument (body and voice).
• All people can express themselves.
• There are no bad sounds, although sometimes there are unhealthy sounds.
• Voice, body and mind are inextricably linked.

In Roman times, reputedly the greatest orator of all time, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE), was what was called a novus homo, a ‘new man’, with the handicap of no family or famous ancestors. This meant he had no role models to look to who could share the skills with him that he needed for his future. But Cicero knew how to grow. He understood the notion of developing skills and habitual change and learnt to ‘play his own body’.

This was the skills development he experienced, and the skills development I experienced during my opera study. These experiences have shaped the method I have developed to help people in the workplace create stronger communications and leadership today.

How to Use This Book

My mission in this book is not to influence you about politics (Trump) or send you out into the wilderness (like Grylls)! It is also not a fulsome, in-depth exploration of rhetoric and gravitas. If you're a rhetorician or interested in a deep dive into the full research and studies, both ancient and contemporary, around this subject, get in touch — I'd be happy to send you my PhD work instead!

What this book...