Showing That You Are Confident Through Your Eyes
For our inaugural GoLive session, we had the honor of having Lee McKing in our studio.
He was more than happy to share with us how confidence can be portrayed while in a virtual call or a live stream. He also valuable insights to how we may be able to overcome the very common stage fright that plagues even season speakers now.
Catch the whole interview here and see what else Dayyah manage to pick from this talented Hypnotherapist.
As business leaders, I am sure you face many challenges. After some research, there are a lot of common issues that are faced by business leaders.
The top 5 are:
Leadership
Growth
Strategising The Company
Business Alignment
Maintaining A Positive Mindset
And on top of all that, be a confident leader to your team.
As a leader, you need to wear many hats and you need to constantly communicate with people. Be it your own team or a client. And in conversations, maintaining eye contact is one of the most important parts of our body language when communicating as the eyes speak volumes for us when we communicate.
Having eye contact indicates that you are a good listener. You are focused and paying attention, basically listening to what the person has to say. Most importantly, you are not listening with just your ears.
This applies for both physical and virtual events, but I have to admit, maintaining eye contact for both types of events is totally different. And this is where Blissful Studios come in!
Yes, the pressure is there but looking at the camera feels different from looking at somebody in the eyes. When I look into someone’s eyes, I am able to know a little bit whether that person likes me or not. Whether he or she is interested in talking to me. I am ale to observe and pick up cues to decide how I should proceed with the conversation.
On the other hand, when I look into the camera, I do not know who is watching me. I do not know whether the audience like me. There is this scary sense of mystery which me and some others may be uncomfortable with; What they think of me and such.
Eye Contact: Do You Really Need It?
One of the most important parts of our body language when communicating. Our eyes speak volumes about us and how we communicate. Eye contact is a sign that you are a good listener. Indicates that you are focused and paying attention, basically listening to what the person has to say. “Don’t just listen with your ears”. It is also a way of building a connection with the other person by building trust and indicating openness in communication. A body language expert Lillian Glass mentioned in her book “The Body Language Advantage”:
“When eye contact is maintained, it signifies control or power over a situation and establishes dominance.”
Let’s talk statistics here. A small percentage of communication involves actual words; 7% to be exact. The other 93% is nonverbal. Out of that 93%, 38% are vocal nonverbal signals such as pitch, speed and volume, and the 55% of nonverbal communication is visuals such as body language and eye contact.
Cracking The Eye Contact Code đź‘€
How do you overcome the anxiety of eye contact? Here’s what you can do:
When you look, do it slowly
Rather than looking away, look at another spot on their face
Break your gaze to make a gesture or to nod
Make eye contact before you start talking to someone
50/70 Rule - Maintain eye contact 50% of the time speaking and 70% when listening
Practise with a mirror
Again, let’s talk Statistics…
Even in inanimate objects. Researchers concluded that pictures with faces that “makes” eye contact evokes positive feelings of trust and a deeper connection.
Marcus Lemonis, who coaches entrepreneurs on CNBC’s “The Profit,” encourages those in the workplace to pay attention to body language cues like eye contact and facial expression when analyzing someone’s leadership abilities. In fact, research shows that those who are able to hold a gaze appear more competent.
In another study, participants with higher self-esteem were found to break eye contact less frequently whereas those with lower self-esteem broke eye contact more often. The study found that there is an association between confidence in one’s own worth and the ability to hold eye contact.
Overall, adults only make eye contact 30 to 60 percent of the time when speaking to individuals or groups, communications-analytics company Quantified Analytics tells The Wall Street Journal. However, they should really be making eye contact 60 to 70 percent of the time to create an emotional connection.
Now everyone, eye contact IS important. Previously, in better days, it was about overcoming the fear to maintain eye contact with an actual audience that you are speaking to. However now, virtual conferences are all the craze and the most intimate eye contact you'll be getting is by looking into the camera lens on your device! Technically, that camera lens is the window to your audience's eyes.
All of the points mentioned were collated from one of our GoLive episodes with Lee McKing, an an Author, Numerologist, NLP Master Practitioner and Conversational Hypnotherapist. He aims to do his best to help people in most whatever they require as effectively as possible using techniques from NLP and Hypnotherapy.
With this desire to help as many people as possible, as effectively as possible, he is always sourcing for new techniques and knowledge in order to improve his skills, so that he can create positive change in people's lives. And because a joy of learning and having new experiences as well as seeing the smiles after a job well done inspires him to do his best, McKing is one of the youngest effective hypnotists in Singapore.
He was interviewed by The New Paper in 2016. One of his books, The Better Business Book, is a collaborative effort with 99 other authors and has been downloaded over 20,000 times on Kindle. He has been interviewed on various channels and platforms such as Shout.SG, The Freelancers Academy, The Royal Singapore and many more. He also won the South East Asia Business Award - Hypnotist of The Year 2020!
Watch the full interview below 👇
