EYE CONTACT: THE EYES HAVE IT

The look of love is in your eyes.

The eyes are the window to the soul.

Eye contact says a lot about your self confidence and outward concern for others.

It also is a sign of belief: having an "I mean it" look in your eyes will often close the deal.

If you do not look your interviewer in the eye, chances are you will not be hired.

So, what problems do we have with eye contact?

First, we tend not to look people directly in the eye; instead our eyes hazily meander from the back wall, to the floor, with maybe a sneak peek at one person's face.

Here's my advice: pretend that your audience consists of children who are tearing up, and in need of your help and reassurance. When I see a kid in trouble, I look wide-eyed at the cherub, and my eyes make a direct and prolonged connection with his or her eyes. 

Here's another piece of advice: when talking with people look at their eyes to see exactly what color they are. If you reduce eye contact to an interesting study, you focus any nervous energy you have on that ask, and the twitchy eye contact goes away.

Second, we tend to only look at people and not look into people. What does this mean? Well, if I am just sending out the message to people's faces, I am missing out on what's more important: my concern that they understand and appreciate what I am saying. SO, when you make eye contact, you are saying, with your eyes, do you follow? do you see? do you understand?

Here are some general rules of thumb:

1. Look at someone, eye to eye, for the length of a phrase/thought. A phrase is like a punch: for a punch to land it must follow through. So, I begin looking at Joe's eyes, and I finish the phrase while still looking at Joe's eyes. Then, I move to another's eyes, as I begin a new phrase.

2. When you are ready to engage person number two, easily change your gaze to number two's eyes, and accompany that change with some sort of new facial expression.

3. During the silence after you deliver an important phrase, make eye contact with several people in the audience, as if saying: do you believe what I just said?

4. If your eyes tend to freeze up in panic, pretend that a little puppy is licking your face, or that you are holding a smiling gurgling baby in your arms. The images will loosen you up. Also, doing a line by line  tone analysis will give you emotions to express, and this will automatically unglue the frozen look.

More on this later:)

YOU GOT THE LOOK

Despite the old adage that we should not judge a book by its cover, most of us do; first impressions count.

First, check yourself out ahead of time. Before you are called up to speak, your audience is watching you, assessing your credibility and poise and confidence. Hit a restroom to see that no piece of clothing is our of place, and no hair is waving in front of your eyes. 

Second, that being done, sit in a way that says I'm comfortable and in control. Look pleased. Smile. Listen intently to others who speak before you. Lean into them, and enjoy what they say, and provide positive feedback: shake your head in agreement, and smile in appreciation. Because you are a great audience member, you will be more liked when your time to speak comes. 

Third, when you are introduced, BEAM. Listen with pride. Rise slowly from your seat, remaining still for a bit to show that you are in control, then walk confidently to the podium or the designated performance area. Keep your head held high, and smile away. 

Fourth, turn to listeners with the warmth and control of a benevolent god, who knows that his people are waiting for him/her to bring them the joyful good news:)! Actually, I often have those i coach practice out loud saying to themselves, "I am god, and i love you, and i am here to make it all better."

Fifth,  keep on smiling, making eye contact with select people to your left, to your right, and dead center. I'll talk more about eye contact later.

Sixth, take a pause before you begin; never rush into your presentation. Enjoy the anticipation in their eyes, as your smile makes them smile.

Seventh, begin, always remembering that you are the one who is there to spread the good news; news you love to spread.

THE SPEAKING VARIABLES

Let’s face it: A well delivered decent speech sells better than a shabbily delivered excellent one. Vocal variety is a must. Read here what you need to do with your voice in order to mesmerize your audience with your excellent camp text.

Paralanguage is the use of inflection and modulation to convey meaning.

 

The rule of thumb is to use CONTRAST. If the whole world turned “orange” we would see nothing, as everything would be one color; only by seeing white against red or yellow against blue can we see ANY color. So, in order for an audience to “see” and “hear” what we are saying we must have sufficient contrast.

 

What are the variables?

PITCH                           High to low (high when piercingly excited; low when calm and relaxed—with lots of variance in between)

VOLUME                      Loud to soft (loud if you want to audibly arrest an audience; soft if you want to lure them in to feel what you are feeling, to heed each and every word)

RATE                             Fast to slow (fast if you are talking about something inherently exciting or if you are telling a something which quickly builds to a climax; slow if you are deadly serious, if you are establishing the bottom line)

STRESS                         Word emphasis is necessary to highlight what is important (either by raising pitch and volume on a word/phrase or by stretching a word/phrase it or by doing something else that draws attention to it)

TONE                           CHOOSING THE RIGHT TONE FOR EACH AND EVERY PHRASE IS CRUCIAL. TONE CHOICES TELL YOUR LISTENERS HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. ARE YOU MAD? SAD? GLAD? SCARED? AND SO ON. 

QUALITY                      Pulling sound from the entire chest cavity, producing full volume and resonance, to pulling sound from the throat, producing a lesser volume and resonance (in the first case to take over a room; in the second case to show your sensitivity)

PHRASING                  Pausing after a few words to pausing after many words (in the first case to make the point slowly so that it sinks in; in the second case to build to some climax)

ARTICULATION         Fuzzy (bad) to crisp (good). 

SYLLABLE DURATION                  One second per syllable to a few per syllable