Look Me In The Eye

When you meet people for the first time it’s always nice to make eye contact and smile. It’s a simple courtesy and leads to a relaxed conversation. If you tend to be a shy person, this may be somewhat difficult for you. You may tend to look down or away when greeting someone. This can break the conversation right away.

look-me-in-the-eye In his book, How To Connect In Business In 90 Seconds Or Less, Nicholas Boothman offers a really simple solution to the problem. When you meet or greet someone for the first time, just make a mental note of their eye color. This simple technique is amazingly effective. If you are looking for their eye color you’ll automatically make eye contact for a second or two.

I have found this works well one on one and is also effective in small groups. It really helps build rapport when giving a speech or presentation as it lets the audience member know that you are paying attention to them.

I speak quite often to groups of 10-20 people in Toastmasters. When I use this technique to make eye contact as I scan the room, I pause just long enough to build rapport with each audience member.

When you first try this you may find yourself saying blue, green, brown, etc in your mind, but you’ll find it soon becomes natural and is an easy habit to develop. It’s a simple exercise but you’ll notice the difference right away.

Try it in your next small group speech or presentation. Instead of an impersonal gaze over the room, if you make eye contact, you’ll find that you’ll build almost instant rapport with your audience. They will pay better attention to what you are saying and it may keep them awake after that long lunch.

Related posts:

  1. Listening: Showing Respect
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Comments

  1. Sarah KT says:

    Hi:

    I found the explanation very helpful. The video picture
    brought to life the blog and make the information
    more interesting. Very useful and helpful article.

    skt

  2. Kevin says:

    For a multi-person audience, this technique seems pretty helpful actually. I might try it sometime. But for a one-on-one interaction, this might not lead to the deep rapport which you might want. I mean with a large audience, some people even suggest looking over the people's heads, to make people think you're looking at the person behind them.

    For a personal interaction, I feel that any kind of focused attention at all is distracting you from a true, deep connection. I would actually suggest practicing making eye contact with many strangers first to get that out of the system and not be shy about looking people in the eyes. Then just forget about eye-contact altogether, because if you're connecting emotionally, there is a 100% chance you will make eye-contact with the person you're interacting with.

    Check out my article on eye-contact,http://datingafterdumped.com/wordpress/?p=66

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