Once again, I'm focusing on an extraordinary thinker and scientist, V. S. Ramachandran.  His work in neurology has helped patients with phantom limb pain, a particularly cruel affliction for people who have lost an arm or a leg.  What's more, his ingenious solution for phantom limb pain cost all of three dollars.

He has also brought clarity and insight to a number of other curious brain diseases, including the very rare syndrome where a patient believes his or her mother to be an imposter.  V. S. is one of those rare thinkers that sees old problems in new ways, thereby transforming a field of inquiry.  Further, he has the extraordinary ability to explain his insights clearly and memorably to the average person. 

Here he is on people who can't recognize their mothers, phantom limb pain, and other mental mysteries like synesthesia:

 

 

As a speaker, Ramachandran' s humor and passion carry conviction and make him memorable.  It's interesting to note that his posture is a pronounced "head" posture -- meaning that, seen from the side, he leads with his head.  That's typical of intellectuals and others who have a lot on their minds.  And, it's a posture that more and more people adopt these days because of hours of work in front of a computer.  But, unfortunately, it's not a posture that people instinctively trust.  We read it unconsciously as timid, downcast, subservient, or self-effacing.  In V. S.'s case, it comes partly from the relative position of the audience (below him, off the stage) and partly from all the thinking going on.  But regardless of where it comes from, it has a negative effect on the audience. 

Instead, when you're giving a speech, or simply trying to make a good impression, keep your chin up and your shoulders back a little, like a soldier without the tension.  Standing up straight will create unconscious feelings of trust in your audience.  We instinctively lower our heads and pitch them forward when we know ourselves to be in the presence of someone we consider our superior.  It's that unconscious self-abasement that you want to avoid. 

In Ramachandran's case, the effect is mitigated for his immediate audience by the raised stage.  And his extraordinary rhetorical skills further engage his audience rather than putting it off.  But imagine how powerful his speaking would be if he could get himself out of that head posture!