When I was walking across Turkey, one of the most common things I would do when I met someone was spell their name.

As in, I would spell it loud, even if their name was Ali.

“A-L-I.”

Sure, “Ali” is extremely simple. In fact, it’s one of the most common men’s names in Turkish, and I had done it a million times already.

But still, I would look into the person’s eyes and spell it out with my finger. Often I would make mistakes, even if it was a simple name like “Ali.”

Why was I doing this? It had absolutely nothing to do with learning how to spell “Ali.” It was a chance to look into their eyes, to see if they seemed like they could be trusted, to see if they were patient with a foreigner, to see if they were patient with someone who was making a mistake, to see if they would keep a smile on their face and a sparkle in their eye when they were correcting that foreigner or if they would get angry instead.

What does this have to do with your presentations?

Your audience is looking at you the same way I was looking at Ali.

And if you are like most presenters, what does your audience see in you? They see tension, and fear, and shiftiness in your eyes. Not the calm confidence they want to be seeing in you.

That is why you practice a lot, so you know your message so well that you can relax into it, and the tension, and the fear, and the shiftiness in your eyes, disappears, and the calm confidence gets a chance to come out where people can see it.