How to Make Eye Contact with the Audience - Public Speaking Video Lecture

so how should you use eye contact during
a speech there are basically three types
of eye contact for any presentation
there's the bottom 5% of speakers
they're staring at their notes they're
staring at the floor they've got their
back turn to you and staring at their
bullet points on their PowerPoint or
they're kind of looking over people's
head to an imaginary spot on the wall or
they're looking at a clock this is the
absolute worst thing because your
audience feels ignored you do not want
to do that it's a complete disconnect
now the next 94.9% of speakers do
something like this they're addressing
the audience the whole time I call it
the windshield wiper now it may be fast
or it may be slow but if you're in the
audience you never really feel like that
speakers looking exactly at you there is
another way of doing it there is what
the top 0.1% of speakers do now if any
of you have ever seen former President
Bill Clinton speak you know what I'm
talking about and hey we're bipartisan
here we're giving examples of Ronald
Reagan's good speaking skills too but
Bill Clinton is especially good at this
now colleague of mine was once having a
beer with President Clinton this was
reelection time it's after a long day of
campaigning and their sleeves rolled up
they were playing poker and having a
beer and my colleague turned and said
wow mr. president he did it again
you had 10,000 people in the palm of
your hand how did you do it and the
president turns it Andy very simple I
didn't speak to 10,000 people today it's
not what I did
I picked one person in the audience and
I had a private one-on-one conversation
with that person for a full thought and
then I went to another person in the
audience and I really looked at them and
I have a private conversation with that
person for a full thought now the key is
you're only looking at someone for maybe
four or five seconds
but compared to the typical speaker
who's doing like this it seems like
eternity so that's what President
Clinton does but anyone can do that
it is simple it's not really hard like
learning at it hit a hole-in-one
learning how to be a world-class
ballerina those are hard tasks just
looking at someone for a couple of
sentences is relatively easy but here's
what it does it relaxes you because
you're no longer looking at 10,000
people or a hundred people it also makes
the person you're speaking to feel like
wow he's really speaking to me she's
really speaking to me so it's a much
more powerful impact on the audience it
also makes you look steadier as a
speaker because if you're like this you
look nervous
so even when someone is over here and
you're not giving them direct eye
contact
you look steadier and it's a much much
more powerful impression so that's
really the key is you're holding eye
contact with one person for a full
thought now you're doing this throughout
the room you're not just looking at your
best friend you're not just looking at
the pretty woman or the hunky guy you're
not just looking to the decision-maker
you're not just looking in the middle of
the room you're doing it sporadically in
a random way but you're trying to cover
the whole room so that's really the key
no one is left out now if you're
speaking to 50 people or fewer for even
10 minutes that means you can give every
single person in the room direct
individualized eye contact now
occasionally someone may feel
uncomfortable they look away
that's okay you go to the next person
remember it's not a staredown contest
and you're not singling out one person
you're giving people more or less equal
time throughout the ribbon that's the
most effective way to use your eyes
during a presentation
you