How To Avoid Looking Dumb In Embarrassing Situations

Staying confident in embarrassing, nerve wracking situations can be tricky. But unfortunately, those are the times you need your confidence the most. So in this video we'll be using Margot Robbie to demonstrate five things that will make sure you stay confident even in situations where you might normally feel embarrassed or nervous. It's important to note that there is a two way street between confidence and your actions. Meaning that feeling confident will obviously create confident behaviors. But also doing those behaviors even when you're nervous, can make you feel more confident, which is why they're so important to. Now, the first thing is a general charisma tip. It's an obvious one, but it can't be overlooked. You need to develop the habit of smiling more frequently. Margot smiles all the time when she's listening and importantly when she speaks.

You know what? The scene's not happening today. I'm just gonna eat this whole cake right now. And I ate the cake and we sat there and ate it and we're like, yeah, this is the best birthday ever.

Now, we've talked about smiling on the channel many times before and it's probably not news to you, but it is going to be especially important when you're nervous or caught in embarrassing situations. Smiling can save because it signals first to your brain that things are okay, which will make you feel more confident and it also makes everyone else around you assume that what happened wasn't actually all that embarrassing. To see the effect in action first, watch this BBC interview. Shifting sands in the region. Do you think relations with the north may change? I would be surprised if they do. Notice how you feel about the man being interviewed. Maybe you feel embarrassed for him, maybe you don't, but it's very unlikely that you found him charismatic. Now contrast how he made you feel to Margot in this next clip.

When was this taken?

Literally, the most embarrassing photo of my whole life.

My bet is that Margot probably left you with a much more positive impression, which emphasizes a key point. People do not instantly judge you when embarrassing situations occur, even though it sometimes feels that way. They judge you based on your handling of those situations. So recognize that nothing is lost in embarrassing situations, at least not initially. In fact, you have an opportunity to make people like you more based on your response. Keeping that in mind can help you to feel more confident in situations that previously mortified you.

I'm mortified.

I'm so embarrassed now. At first, smiling and laughing embarrassment off may not come easily to you. And if it doesn't, you don't have to fake it. Which takes us to our second Point if you can't laugh it off, at the very least, give. Give yourself permission to be authentic and transparent in expressing your emotions when you're embarrassed. As we discussed before, we like people who can stay positive through embarrassment. But if that isn't possible, we also like people who will be real in those situations. Which is why you'll see charismatic people seemingly over express in embarrassing moments. Maybe they put their head in their hands or they turn away in an exaggerated manner. For instance, watch here where Margot is caught stealing toilet paper from a hotel.

We found the photo that the paparazzi took of you. Do you want to see? Tell me if this person's guilty of doing something wrong. Look at this guilty human being.

The same principle of transparency applies to what we say. If you find yourself tongue tied in embarrassing situations, often the best thing to do is simply to speak out loud. Your inner nervous dialogue. Like this.

I'm sorry, I'm probably more nervous than you are, to be honest. Sorry, that's not comforting. I'm not gonna say that. That wasn't very professional.

I just thought, I'm so scared.

I was gonna say my hands are shaking, but you don't wanna hear that.

It takes confidence to reveal discomfort, but it also breeds confidence when you don't feel like there's something perfect that you have to say. Simply talking through your train of thought as embarrassment kicks in can be a way to get through, turn the tables and put you back into a much more powerful feeling position. You could try it the next time something that'd make you nervous comes up. Just give your running mental dialogue a voice. And when expressed with emotion, this also makes for an excellent hook to any story. After something like this, people will be sure to be paying close attention.

I'm scared because my husband's gonna kill me for telling this story, but it's my favorite story ever.

This connects well with our third point, which is that leaning into embarrassment is the best way to minimize it and regain your confidence again. Watch as this man on the BBC tries to pretend that the embarrassing situation isn't occurring. It makes him look rigid and hyper, concerned with his failing professional appearance. South Korea's policy choices on North Korea have been severely limited. Margot, on the other hand, takes extra time to dwell on her embarrassing moments. Like here, where she can't stop laughing at an awards ceremony.

I'm sorry, that's so funny, Margot. I don't know why it sounds so sexual to me. Open VDV is available.

Or here, when she physically points to draw more attention to the Embarrassing photo.

Toilet paper right there.

Look at that face.

Look in the bag. Don't look in the bag.

Can you imagine if the bag broke and just toilet paper went over?

And in other cases, she does what you can do, which is simply to spend more time elaborating on a particular embarrassing moment.

Cup of tea. I'm in bed. I'm clearly really enjoying myself reading Harry Potter.

Yeah, you are.

I have braces, which I had for two years.

We perceive this habit of leaning into embarrassment as charismatic. Because embarrassing moments naturally call people's attention. People want to spend time assessing and addressing those moments. And when you try to lean away from those moments, perhaps by quickly suggesting another conversational topic, you will almost always lose your audience. Instead, you can take control of the situation with something called pacing and leading. First, pacing means allowing attention to go where it is naturally called. In this case, it's to that embarrassing thing. And then once the audience is laughing and you've become that conversational leader, you can lead them to another topic. And when done in this way, people usually won't resist that change in topic. Now, there is another nice thing about slowing, slowing down and pacing an audience that wants to focus on your embarrassing moment. And it's that that enables you to make jokes that get easy laughs, further boosting your confidence. You can watch here as Margot tells her story of misspelling a tattoo that she gave on the cast of Suicide Squad, particularly to a crew member. Notice how rather than try to race through the story, she jokes at her own expense.

Afterwards, everyone was spelling it as S, K, W, a D, but I went straight from the S to the W swad. But if you still want one.

Now, the fourth point is one that will build confidence over time, and it's that you actually break the golden rule. You treat other people in the opposite fashion to how I just described that you're going to treat yourself. Which means that instead of leaning into their embarrassing stories, you help other people escape their embarrassing moments while saving face. And you can see Margot do this here with Jimmy Fallon as he tells a story about a dorky date that he once took a woman.

Today we're gonna go ice skating together in Central Park.

Is that your idea of a date? That's so sweet.

I think so.

Now this definitely deserves a caveat because sometimes people might enjoy laughing at their own embarrassing moments. They've achieved a distance from them. And in those cases, it's fine to lean in and playfully tease someone who.

Can take it the face of a 20 year old. But the hearing of a 90 year old. Should I say that again, but louder?

But generally speaking, if you see someone is uncomfortable and you don't take the time to pile onto their difficult moment, you're subconsciously asserting that you don't need to drag someone down in order to elevate yourself. And this naturally boosts your confidence. So in those situations where someone does look a bit uncomfortable, see if you can find a way to see the positive or otherwise bail them out of that moment. But of course, all the habits here are ultimately to reinforce a mindset. And the mindset that will most help you handle embarrassing situations with confidence and poise comes down to what question you're asking yourself when you become uncomfortable. And if the question that you ask yourself in those social scenarios is how is my reputation being impacted by all this information, you're naturally going to have a difficult time with those embarrassing stories. You're going to try to escape them, and most likely you'll make things worse. But if you make your habitual question, what would make this moment more fun? You'll handle embarrassment much more confidently. Not only will you naturally, naturally exhibit all the habits that we covered here, but you're signaling that you aren't identified with whatever dumb thing you may have done, nor are you as strongly identified with what other people think of you in any given moment. And oddly enough, that makes people drawn to your authenticity, even when you might feel nervous. Now, perhaps surprisingly, genuine authenticity can be a habit that's actually hard to develop, but you absolutely can be yourself while still being charismatic. And one of the resources that most helped me to work on that is called Radical Honesty. It is so good and so that I've gone through Radical Honesty three times and lines like this still hit me right in the gut.

We all lie like hell. It wears us out. It's the major source of all human stress. Lying kills people.

I highly recommend checking out the whole thing, and if you would like to do that, you can do so today for free, courtesy of this video sponsor, Audible. When you sign up for a free 30 day trial at audible.com charisma or you text Charisma to 500 500, you can get your first audiobook for free. I really recommend making that Radical Honesty. Plus, you get two Audible originals and those are titles that are exclusive to Audible. That's not to mention the access to their huge library of audiobooks for as long as you are signed up. Now, the nice thing about Audible is that you can listen while you're commuting, while you're working out or just doing chores around the house. And that means that even if you're busy and you don't have extra time in your day, you can still make sure that you're improving yourself every single day. And that adds up over time to massive changes in your life. So if you want to give Audible a try and check out Radical Honesty for free, you can go to audible.com charisma or text charisma to 500500 to get started today. Either way, I hope that you have enjoyed this video and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.