Own the Room

When someone takes their place behind a podium, hits their mark center stage to address the crowd or sends those first amplified syllables through the microphone to redirect your gaze, what it is about them that captures your attention? What does it take to captivate? What must emanate from us in order to draw a listener in?

On the last day of first grade at Our Lady of Victories School in Jersey City, New Jersey, our teacher, Mrs. Goglia, handed out certificates of achievement to a handful of students for things like “Perfect Attendance” and “Excellence in Mathematics.” They were those frameable diplomas written in calligraphy with fancy embossed seals. All the smart kids held theirs up, beaming as they stood next to each other facing the class. “Last, but not least,” Mrs. Goglia added, “we have a very special award,” and she held it up to reveal a hand-drawn re-creation – in mimeograph blue lines – of the iconic Rolling Stones logo of an open mouth with a giant tongue protruding from it. Written across the top were three words: The Blabbermouth Award. As some students started to laugh, Mrs. Goglia fixed her gaze upon me and said, “For 180 days of non-stop chatter, this one’s for you, Anthony Giglio.”

I have to admit that while I don’t remember much about first grade, I’m quite certain that I was consciously training to own the room at the age of six. I think I learned pretty early on that carefully selected words had weight and power and consequence, because I grew up surrounded by an extended family of storytellers. I’d listen to my grandmother, who lived in the apartment above ours, gossiping with her sisters on the phone. I’d hear my mother and her girlfriends sharing scandals while they played cards on Friday nights at our kitchen table. My dad would take me along on Saturday mornings when he met up with his buddies to wash and wax their Cadillacs, stopping often to outdo each other with another story more outrageous than the last.

My father, however, was – and remains, at 82 – the king. He’s the one I channeled in first grade, and it’s his style, his rhythm and his cadence that I’ve been buffing and polishing like his ’77 Fleetwood Brougham d’Elegance ever since. What’s his secret and – dare I presume to ask – how did I come to possess it? In a single, massive word, it’s connection. It’s making eye contact and lingering there until the other person smiles (or looks away horrified). It’s acknowledgement, letting people know that you see them and hear them. It’s being honest and transparent and vulnerable – sharing and baring it all, even if it’s sometimes cringe-worthy. My father is famous for his ability to tell outrageously inappropriate jokes and not offend a soul, but I’ve learned to use that power to tell otherwise mundane stories in a way that makes people lean forward and then (hopefully) guffaw. I also have an ability to make people cry – myself first! – by slowing down the narrative and pausing for impact. I’ve been told by strangers that they could listen to me for hours (although never by my wife, ba-dum-bum!). And I’ve been cautioned by media friends about how much vulnerability I reveal when I’m storytelling. To which I reply: I know no other way.