Lee Glickstein, founder of Speaking Circles International, is an authority on leadership presence and magnetism in public speaking. Author of “Be Heard Now! End Your Fear of Public Speaking Forever,” Glickstein is a recipient of the Athena Award for Excellence in Coaching and Mentoring. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area and coaches nationally and globally via Zoom. His hobby is constructing crossword puzzles for the New York Times. Contact Lee at speakingcirclesinternational.com

Be kind, because everyone you’ll ever meet is fighting a hard battle. — Bob Dylan

We have innumerable opportunities to be seen and heard by others. The settings may be informal social events, structured work meetings or high-stakes public appearances. My book is about how to transform these opportunities into a natural connection with groups of any size, assemblies of any composition and even one-on-one. You might be a CEO talking to your team, a guest giving a toast at a wedding or an entrepreneur making a pitch at a networking meeting. Perhaps you’re a teacher welcoming an assortment of parents to Back-to-School Night, or a parent consoling your kid after a difficult setback. I’m sure you’re already thinking of a time, or times, when you are called on to address others.

Although different in purpose and level of audience engagement, all these encounters have something in common: the tone that the speaker sets. “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see,” writes Christian Nestell Bovee. Perhaps in initiating connection with an audience, it is the essential kindness that the speaker brings to the interaction that sets that all-important tone.

Over decades of facilitating authentic speaking, I have come to call this type of interactional kindness “relational presence.” As this approach developed over time, it became clear to me that I have two main objectives. The first is to create a safe external environment in which speakers and their listeners can enjoy a deep sense of personal connection. My second goal is to guide speakers to develop the internal environment they need in order to discover how to be seen and heard for who they truly are — which is the key to becoming comfortable, fearless and effective in front of any audience.

If you have been a student of public speaking, you’ve already been exposed to a whole host of tips, tricks and performance techniques for engaging audiences. You’ve been advised to open with a provocative statement or an intriguing question. You’ve been shown how to gesture with your hands, vary your voice and walk the stage. Although these measures can sometimes be useful in aiding speakers to “get through” a presentation, the relative success can often come at the expense of the speaker’s emotional well-being and can leave the audience cold, having deprived them of true connection.

The practice of relational presence as a method of mastering public speaking is fundamentally different. In fact, it is precisely the deliberate absence of technique that uplifts the energy of the speaker and leads to an easeful and effective connection between the speaker and the audience.

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Whatever degree of anxiety you may have around fully accessing your voice, the cure is positive corrective experiences in an enriched listening environment. This experience of connection literally rewires the brain. My brain had essentially been wired in early childhood to trigger panic — and its byproduct, contraction — when all eyes were upon me. But the practice of relational presence builds powerful neuropathways that associate being seen with pleasure and expansion.

The turning point in solving my own crippling stage fright came with the epiphany that the problem was not a block in speaking, but rather a block in receiving the “available listening.” As a speaker, one must allow room to receive the audience’s listening. Although it takes practice, when you are able to do so, the audience’s attention comes to you as if magnetized.

We have discussed how for those of us who were not seen nearly enough in our essential magnificence in early childhood, the challenges facing us in listening and speaking can linger for decades. It is difficult to let in the listening when you imagine it’s not there — or worse, that those listening are judging you. But corrective emotional experiences of ideal listening can turn this around. In Speaking Circles, using relational presence, these experiences take place in a group composed of warm, intelligent humans who know what it means to “hold stillness” for another. Participants in these groups are people who are willing to become luminous listeners for others in their cohort, one individual at a time.

Quality attention from such a group creates a field of belonging that each person can explore. It is a safe place to discover, preach, inspire, inquire, try something new, tell a courageous story or simply stand in silence and appreciate the luxurious stillness others are happy to hold for you. | AC&F |

Excerpt from “Be Seen Now! Inspiring Insights into Being a Fearless Speaker” by Lee Glickstein