How To Think About Making Eye Contact

Overheard a person at Temple Coffee in Sacramento, CA talk about practicing their presentation. We chatted, and eventually got to the topic of making eye contact. They said they’d recently been on stage and stared at one person the entire time they were speaking, remarking, “I’m sure the person I was staring at felt uncomfortable. I sure did.”

I suggested that instead of staring at one person the whole time, make eye contact with different people in the audience, “like watering all of the different plants in your garden.”

They said, “That analogy really speaks to me. That helps a lot.”