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How to Change How Your Audience Feels, Thinks, and Acts

To inspire your audience to act, it’s essential to first make them feel.

On Stage

Public speaking

Stage performance

Michael

Port

Co-Founder

minute read

Published on

December 30, 2024

Use this performance tool to take your audience on an emotional journey throughout your speech.

Why is it that two different speakers can present the same exact information—sometimes even using the same exact words—but one is much more effective, convincing, and memorable than the other? What makes the difference?

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Of course timing, speech rhythms, and emphasis of certain words can have an effect on a speaker's overall performance. And how a performer moves on stage can also influence how the audience receives the information.

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But there’s a crucial aspect of performance that the vast majority of speakers either don’t understand or forget to put into practice.

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You see, most speakers think their job is to share information so their audience can make a change, put their strategy or framework into practice, or do something differently. And yes, that is part of your job.

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But if you want to change what people do, you first need to change how they think. And to change how someone thinks, you need to change how they feel.

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Can you “make” your audience feel certain emotions?

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Every day we make people feel specific emotions. Perhaps you make your children feel loved before they leave for school. Maybe you make your spouse feel appreciated after a long day at work. Maybe you make your co-workers or employees feel capable and prepared before starting a new project.

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Whether we’re trying to or not, we make the people around us feel different things all day long.

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Now, as a speaker, you can’t force your audience to change or adopt your strategies or frameworks. And you can’t always “make” them feel specific emotions either. Not even Andrea Bocelli can move every single individual in his audience to tears with his spectacular voice.

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Likewise, even the best speakers can’t make every single individual in their audience feel the way they want them to feel. Each audience member enters the room with their unique state of being, worldview, likes and dislikes, and temperament. Some are more receptive than others.

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While you don’t have 100 percent control over what your audience feels, you can make intentional performance choices to arouse certain emotions in your audience—and make them first feel, then think, and finally act differently.

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What Is “Playing Actions”?

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In acting, “Playing Actions” refers to the deliberate choices an actor makes to influence how other characters feel in order to achieve their objective—their character’s goal or desire in the scene. For example, an actor might play the action of “comforting” another character to make them feel safe, or “provoking” them to spark anger or vulnerability. These actions aren’t random; they are intentional strategies designed to evoke specific emotional responses in the other characters, which in turn drive the story forward.

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Speakers can use this same powerful technique to connect with their audience on a deeper level. While an actor’s goal is to change how another character feels, a speaker’s goal is to change how the audience feels. Why? Because feelings drive thoughts, and thoughts drive actions.

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By intentionally Playing Actions during a presentation—whether it’s to inspire, challenge, reassure, or energize—the speaker can open the audience up emotionally, paving the way for them to engage with the message, consider new ideas, and ultimately take action.

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The key difference lies in the target of the actions: actors aim to influence their scene partners, while speakers aim to influence their audience. But in both cases, the process is deeply human, rooted in empathy and a genuine desire to create meaningful connection and change.

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We actually didn’t even teach this concept to the first eight cohorts of GRAD | Stage Performance Mastery because it’s an advanced technique that takes a long time to master. But when we tested including it in the curriculum—the results blew us away.

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This powerful tool seemed to be the missing piece for many speakers. It increased the quality of engagement in their speeches, their naturalism on stage, and the authentic connection with the audience. As we move into 2025 and prepare to welcome Cohort #26, this technique has become a cornerstone of our curriculum, thanks to its profound impact for speakers who use it to craft deeper, more powerful performances.

Full Transcript

Don't

During GRAD | Stage Performance Mastery, speakers learn how to incorporate Playing Actions into the rehearsal process for their speeches.

Create a Roller Coaster of Feelings and Emotions

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Using the time-tested performance technique, Playing Actions can transform the way you deliver your speech onstage. But here’s the thing: almost no speakers even know it exists—let alone how to do it.

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You’ll increase your entertainment value through potent contrast. Playing Actions helps you create emotional contrast that not only keeps your audience engaged and entertained, but also ultimately leads to changes in the way they think.

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You’ll deliver a more relaxed and natural performance (and have less pre-event jitters). Playing Actions takes the attention off you as the performer. You don’t have to worry about how your hair looks or what to do with your hands because your mind is completely focused on making your audience feel specific emotions.

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You’ll be able to focus on your true purpose as a speaker—to serve your audience. Playing Actions helps you know exactly which emotions you want to produce during each moment, so you’ll be able to powerfully help your audience feel, understand, and apply your unique message.

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You’ll craft a more authentic and believable speech. Playing Actions ensures you connect deeply with your audience. As you craft a deeply emotional experience, you’ll maximize your believability onstage.

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Playing Actions is the actor’s secret weapon—and it can be the speaker’s as well. In fact, the actions you play can become the driving force behind each performance choice you make.

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How It Works in Three Simple Steps

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Playing Actions is both highly subjective and highly creative, which means there’s not one right way to do it. You’ll determine what actions to take based on your experience of what it means to make a person feel the specific emotion you choose.

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As you take the following steps, it will feel improvisational at times—which is exactly what you want. After all, it’s called “playing” actions for a reason. Play with different scenarios and performance choices until you find one that feels right to you and works effectively for your audience.

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Step 1: Identify your baseline

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What do you think you make people feel—just by showing up as you? (On an average day, in any typical situation.)

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Maybe you have a warm and inviting presence that makes people feel welcomed. Or maybe you are more stoic and firm and make people feel intimidated. Perhaps your confident and professional aura makes those around you feel admiration.

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It’s important to know your baseline, because when you walk onstage, that’s the effect you’re likely to have naturally—unless you consciously make other choices.

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Step 2: Decide what emotion you want to evoke

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Once you’ve determined your baseline, now you can start to build contrast by provoking other emotions during certain parts of your speech. Each important idea in your speech can be aligned with different emotions.

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For example, if you say to your audience: “There may be some people you should drop from your life. I believe that if the people around you hold you back from playing new and different roles, roles that serve your dreams, they need to go—not the dreams, they should stay, but the people who don’t support them, they should go.”

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It’s important to first identify what you want your audience to feel during that specific moment, when they hear those words.

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Do you want them to feel guilty? Heartbroken? Devastated? Or do you want them to feel empowered? Determined? Relieved?

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The emotion you choose to provoke will determine which actions you decide to take (the way you play or deliver that part of the speech). And there are so many possible emotions you can choose—we feel with such nuance as human beings. As you practice assigning a word to a feeling, you’ll open up more possibilities and a greater depth of actions you can play on your audience.

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Step 3: Determine what actions you’ll play

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The way Playing Actions works is that you plant a little seed in your head of what you want to make your audience feel, and then you let yourself play with that. You test out different staging choices, language, rhythm, timing patterns, vocal energy, use of props or visuals, and more, that might work to provoke that emotion.

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The action you are playing is what you do to make them feel differently. Your actions will determine how your audience interprets your words, and what they feel when they hear them. You can change what they feel based on what action you play.

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Think of the actions you take as objectives—specific tactics you use to achieve your goals for each important idea in your speech.

Don't

limit yourself to only the basic emotions—happy, sad, angry.

identify the specific nuanced emotions you want to provoke during key parts of your speech.

Let’s go back to that example from before. If you say to your audience: “There may be some people you should drop from your life. I believe that if the people around you hold you back from playing new and different roles, roles that serve your dreams, they need to go—not the dreams, they should stay, but the people who don’t support them, they should go.”

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When you deliver those lines slowly, in a soft voice, with your hand over your heart and a tone of quiet regret, you might make the audience feel a pang of guilt or self-reflection, as if they’ve let an opportunity slip away.

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But if you emphasize different words (using a technique called content mapping), increase the volume, throw back your shoulders, and lift your chin as you deliver those lines, you can inspire the audience to feel empowered and determined, ready to take action and seize what lies ahead.

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Don’t worry about whether you agree with this idea or not. It’s simply an example to demonstrate that the way people respond to your ideas depends upon what actions you decide to play and on which emotions you choose to focus.

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Avoid Disengagement and Confusion

Now, Playing Actions is not a technique that can be mastered overnight. It takes hours and hours of rehearsal and practice to be able to make subtle changes and tweak your actions to be able to powerfully provoke a specific emotional response in your audience.

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In fact, we dedicate various master classes and lots of rehearsal to this topic during GRAD | Stage Performance Mastery. HEROIC alumni continuously adjust the actions they play as they learn more about what their audiences respond to each time they deliver their speech. It’s part of the process of continuous improvement. It’s not an easy concept to master, but the benefits it adds to your delivery are absolutely astounding.

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You see, if you don’t play actions onstage, one of three things will happen:

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Your audience becomes disengaged. Without specific emotions, your speech starts to feel more like a lecture. It falls flat. Your audience feels nothing—no connection to you, your message, or the ideas you’re trying to convey.
Your audience becomes confused. When you don’t consciously choose which emotions you want to evoke, your subconscious will still make your audience feel different things, but likely not emotions that align with your message. This creates confusion and misalignment that can make even a well-written speech hard to understand.
You don’t consistently earn stageside leads. A bland, emotionless, or confusing speech usually won’t have the transformational power to produce critical stageside leads. You might earn some praise, but you won’t be able to cash in on the power of compounding gigs without a referable speech.

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When you know what you want to make your audience feel and how to do it, you’ll be able to create a rich contrast and guide your audience through an emotional journey—where the final destination is major mindset shifts, change, and action.

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Your audience will first feel, then think differently, and finally act—they’ll leave with a determination to take action and apply your ideas in their lives.

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“HEROIC helped me take my keynote speech to a higher, more performative level—exactly what I needed. Amy and Michael are true experts, wonderful teachers, and clearly passionate about getting their students to a level that likely would be unattainable without their guidance.”

Mark Bayer

Keynote Speaker, Former U.S. Senate Chief of Staff

Over the coming months, we’ll continue to dive into what it takes to successfully Play Actions onstage. You see, Playing Actions isn’t about showing an emotion. In fact, if you do that, you’ll likely come across as fake or inauthentic.

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In Part Two of this article series, you’ll learn how to avoid the trap of emoting—and what to do instead.

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Create a Roller Coaster of Feelings and Emotions

‍

Playing Actions is the actor’s secret weapon—and it can be the speaker’s as well. In fact, the actions you play can become the driving force behind each performance choice you make.

‍

How It Works in Three Simple Steps

‍

Step 1: Identify your baseline

‍

What do you think you make people feel—just by showing up as you? (On an average day, in any typical situation.)

‍

It’s important to know your baseline, because when you walk onstage, that’s the effect you’re likely to have naturally—unless you consciously make other choices.

‍

Step 2: Decide what emotion you want to evoke

‍

It’s important to first identify what you want your audience to feel during that specific moment, when they hear those words.

‍

Do you want them to feel guilty? Heartbroken? Devastated? Or do you want them to feel empowered? Determined? Relieved?

‍

Step 3: Determine what actions you’ll play

‍

Think of the actions you take as objectives—specific tactics you use to achieve your goals for each important idea in your speech.

Dont

limit yourself to only the basic emotions—happy, sad, angry.

identify the specific nuanced emotions you want to provoke during key parts of your speech.

During GRAD | Stage Performance Mastery, speakers learn how to incorporate Playing Actions into the rehearsal process for their speeches.

‍

Avoid Disengagement and Confusion

‍

You see, if you don’t play actions onstage, one of three things will happen:

‍

Your audience becomes disengaged. Without specific emotions, your speech starts to feel more like a lecture. It falls flat. Your audience feels nothing—no connection to you, your message, or the ideas you’re trying to convey.
Your audience becomes confused. When you don’t consciously choose which emotions you want to evoke, your subconscious will still make your audience feel different things, but likely not emotions that align with your message. This creates confusion and misalignment that can make even a well-written speech hard to understand.
You don’t consistently earn stageside leads. A bland, emotionless, or confusing speech usually won’t have the transformational power to produce critical stageside leads. You might earn some praise, but you won’t be able to cash in on the power of compounding gigs without a referable speech.

‍

Your audience will first feel, then think differently, and finally act—they’ll leave with a determination to take action and apply your ideas in their lives.

Don't

Mark Bayer

Keynote Speaker, Former U.S. Senate Chief of Staff

‍

In Part Two of this article series, you’ll learn how to avoid the trap of emoting—and what to do instead.

‍

Don't