Confident Public Speaking At Work - How To Communicate With Confidence

Your public speaking ability has a tremendous influence on your work life, on your success in work, on your ability to get ahead, to reach the next level, to get a promotion, to influence people, to take on leadership positions, to even create your own business. All of that is directly linked to your ability to speak effectively, to communicate clearly, to influence, to persuade, to reach people. Whether it's one on one or one on ten in a small meeting or one on a hundred and you're speaking to a company, everything comes down to your ability to speak clearly and communicate. So if you're held back right now and you're not doing it, and you're scared and you're awkward and you're frightened about it, then you're really just limiting. You're hitting a ceiling right now in your work life and your career. I can pretty much guarantee that. And so what can we do to help you break through? The first thing you have to realize is that confidence matters most at work. I mean, unfortunately, it's true. It's what matters most. Because think about this. You could be the most brilliant person in the world. You could have incredibly powerful ideas. You could have million dollar ideas, billion dollar ideas in your mind, be in a setting where you could share those ideas and have an influence, whether it's in your IT company or in a sales meeting or something. You have some brilliant idea, but you don't say anything. You keep it to yourself. You keep it quiet. Or perhaps you do speak up, but you're like, I have something to say. And then someone talks over you a little bit and you're like, oh, stupid, I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm talking about. Don't listen to me, right? And you just shut it all down. You just keep it all inside, or you someway inhibit yourself. You block yourself from putting your voice out there with authority and confidence. And that is what matters most at work. I mean, if someone is able to carry themselves and share their ideas, and even if they're not on 100% of the time, they just have a number of good ideas or are able to put themselves out there. People perceive them as more intelligent, capable, and that's the truth of it. And that's unfortunate. That's how the world works. But that's the reality of it. And so you have to be able to communicate with confidence and it can go a long way. And so let's get some ideas. I'm going to share some short, in a short video, some ideas with you that are going to help you start to Shift that start to build that confidence when it comes to sharing ideas and speaking up and public speaking at work. And if you go down on the menu on the side of this page, there are specific articles and videos on on how to apply it to very specific situations at work, such as business meetings, sales meetings, presentations and all that stuff. So this is more of a general overview. This is going to help you in any area of building your confidence to communicate clearly at work, the first thing you have to realize is this. Your voice matters. You matter. What you think, perceive, feel, believe matters. That's the worst way we sell ourselves short, right? We say, I have an idea, that idea doesn't matter, I don't matter. And you might not say that to yourself. You might not be aware of saying that to yourself in your mind, but look at your behavior. You're about to open your mouth and you don't. If you really start to pay attention and break this down, you'll start to see, oh, on some level, I don't think my voice matters as much as that person's. That person's voice is more important than mine. I don't matter. My voice doesn't matter. So you have to break that pattern. You have to start saying to yourself, my voice matters. I matter. In fact, I would recommend saying that to yourself when you're driving or commuting to work. And if you're in a public transportation system, that's a great opportunity for embarrassment, inoculation, or if you don't want to do that, just say it in your head. I matter. My voice matters. My opinion matters. My perspective matters. I matter. Just keep saying that to yourself and your head will start to reprogram yourself to realize that you do have something to offer, you do matter. And that's just not some fluff or affirmation. That's just reality. That's just true. You matter because of your unique perspective. And here's the thing is, the less we believe in ourselves, the less other people believe in us. Isn't that true? And that's gets to the next thing, which is self esteem, which is I want to talk about in this video is people think, you know, sometimes I share this with someone who's pretty successful in business and they're like, how dare you say that I don't have low self esteem. Look at where I am in my company. And I'm like, I get it, I get it. You're not like that 19 year old kid who's in his basement who says the world hates me and I suck you're not that level of low self esteem, so maybe the right term is just lower self esteem and in very specific areas. So you get into that meeting and there's a senior management around you. Then your low self esteem kicks in. It's very situation specific and you're like, oh God, they're better than I am. They have more to say, they have more to share, they have more to offer. So you have to start looking at how do I compare myself to others and where do I feel like I fit in the hierarchy of things. And if you find yourself you're continually on the bottom, then you have to start breaking that pattern and developing your self esteem. And two simple ways to do that, to get deeper, which I can't get into in this video, but goes, you know, way more in depth on exactly how to do that. One is my program the Confidence Code, which will go in depth. Videos teaching you how and helping you experience a shift in your self esteem. Very powerful techniques in there. Also you can check out my book the Solution to Social Anxiety which has, you know, dozens of resources and exercises and ideas that will help you feel a shift in terms of your value. Knowing your strengths, knowing what you have to offer, being able to speak up boldly, do what scares you. All that stuff can come from that book. So those are ways to enhance that. But you have to start investing in this and paying attention to where your self esteem is lower. The next thing you want to do is you want to just start practicing. You want to lift and learn new patterns. If there's one thing that I hear really often, it's like I'm trying to do this thing that scares me. I'm trying to speak up in a meeting at work and I just freeze. I just lock up. I just can't do it. There's no way. I wish I could, but I just can't get myself to do it. And what means there, what happens, what's happening there is you've conditioned your body and you're just stuck in a certain physiological, mental, emotional pattern. And so you have to learn how to break free of that pattern. And one way to do that is just to start practicing new ways of being in the world. And the best place to do that is alone first. And then you bring it into the world because it's less scary alone. There's less risk of disapproval when we're alone. So what you got to do is you start to start practice speaking up loudly again while you're in your work to car or your work to Car, on your drive to work in your car. I'm getting excited. Or you're in the shower, or you're at home alone, or you're just where no one's around, just start speaking up more loudly. Hi, I have a friend who's an amazing vocalist, a super talented singer. His name is Jonathan Brinkley. Check out his website. But he also does voice lessons and I've done some voice coaching with him because he's got incredible singing voice and speech speaking voice and all that. And I wanted to develop mine. So I went to go see him and he started having me practice, do these exercises where we stand on one end of the room and he wants me to project my voice to the other side of the room and say something like this. Hark, who goes there? Hark who goes there? And it's ridiculous, but it gets me into my body and affects my posture and my volume. So I recommend walking around your house and just saying stuff like, I am a Z's. I matter. I have valuable ideas to contribute. I. I'm speaking slightly louder. I'm speaking with confidence and certainty and authority. And you just start practicing those things when no one else is around. And you'd be surprised how that conditioning, that practice, just like if you were to be lifting weights with your arms and biceps, then you go to lift something and all of a sudden it's easier versus if you never tried to do that, you never worked out and you just got there and try to lift something heavy, you know, pop out your back or give yourself a hernia or something. That's the same way when it comes to this idea of social fitness, of building your ability to speak and communicate. So practice at home. And the final thing I want to share is you got to start paying attention to the comparisons that you make in your own head because those kill you. Comparisons can just demolish you. And what you do is you notice someone somewhere like that person makes more money than I do. That person spoke more clearly in a meeting than I have. That person is more intelligent in X field. They, that person is further along in their career and they're the same age or younger than I am. And what happens is you end up on the bottom end of the comparison. And how do you feel when you do that? Like crap. You feel worthless, you feel low. So you really have to start catching it when you're doing it and saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't want to compare myself to people. There's something about each of us that makes us unique. And I don't need to compare myself to to that person in order to feel good about myself or feel worse about myself. We're just two different people, and whatever they're doing, I could learn how to do too. Let me focus on myself. Let me stop comparing myself to that person. Alternatively, you can say, yes, that person earns more money than I do and there are hundreds of things I could compare myself to everyone on. That's just one facet that does not necessarily link to my worth as a person. So you kind of talk yourself through it and catch yourself with those subconscious habitual you just do it without thinking about it patterns of comparison and really start to break that habit. So those are some of the basics of how to bring more of confidence in your voice to work. I mean, there are so many more things that I can get into in this short video. Check out the article on this page, check out the specifics in the work settings, business meetings, sales meetings, presentations, all that stuff, and really find it in yourself to start practicing. If you haven't gotten my book, how to Overcome youe Fear of Public Speaking, you can get a free version of that in the product section or on the top of this page here. You can enter your email and get a free version of that, but you have to start taking action and practice this stuff because when you do is when you'll start to notice that shift. So thanks for listening and I look forward to talking to you more in the future.