8 Tips for Authentic Public Speaking

As a coach in authentic public speaking, I'm often asked what it means to speak or present authentically in public and how to get started.

The essence of authentic speaking is very simple. It's about building a genuine connection with your audience. This means allowing them to see who you really are and keeping a two-way channel of communication open so that you can receive their feedback whilst you are speaking. Authentic speaking is about dropping performance mode and being willing to 'get real'.

The advantage of authentic speaking is that audiences will feel warmer towards you and more receptive to what you have to say, and you will feel more comfortable speaking to them as you don't have to 'put on an act'.

Here are 8 ways that you can connect more authentically with any audience:

1. Use genuine eye contact. Genuine eye contact is where you are really looking at a given person in the audience and seeing them, and allowing yourself to be seen by them. This allows them to see who you are and you to receive their feedback moment to moment.

2. Allow the eye contact to be soft. This is looking gently - not staring. This sort of eye contact is usually experienced by audience members as non-invasive and therefore pleasant to receive.

3. Use your peripheral vision. By bringing in your peripheral vision when making eye contact, not only do you make your gaze less intense, you give yourself access to the feedback coming from the audience a whole. You can practice this skill by allowing the person you are looking at to be clearly in focus, whilst letting yourself see the people around them in soft focus. (This is the same skill you use whilst crossing the road when you widen out your vision).

4. Stay with each member of the audience for long enough to feel that you've made a real connection. For most people this is at least 3 seconds. There is nothing more uncomfortable for an audience member than a speaker whose eyes are darting around.

5. Allow your eyes to always be with one member of the audience. In order to maintain the connection with the audience, make sure (where possible) that you are always in eye contact with someone.

6. There is no need to make contact with everyone in the audience. Provided that you are making eye contact with people in different parts of the audience, there will be a sense in the audience that everyone is included.

7. Don't fear the fear. It's absolutely natural to be a little nervous when you are speaking in public. When you recognise that this applies at least some of the time to all public speakers, you can allow the fear to be present without trying to fight it, which is paradoxically very relaxing. One of my teachers once said 'excitement is fear plus a little breathing'. If you're not worried about your fear and you breathe into it, you will often find out that it turns into excitement, which your audience will really enjoy.

8. If in doubt, pause and breathe! Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly activates your parasymptatheic nervous system and immediately calms you down, allowing you to think more clearly. It also gives you better access to your feelings, which is important for anyone who wants to be able to share what they are feeling with an audience.

If you follow these tips you will find that you are much more relaxed as a speaker, more able to build rapport and much more able to make an authentic connection with those you're speaking to.