Respond with Confidence: Tips to Improve Your Communication Skills

If you want to change your life for the better, well, this is one of the best ways to do it. On today's episode, we're talking how to respond with confidence. Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication, I'm going to ask you to please follow this podcast, and if you would, leave a review. I'm going to let you know that my book, The Next Conversation, is officially out on order. It is a book that's going to teach you how to say things with control, to say with confidence, and to say it to connect. And as always, if you have any topic suggestions for this podcast, you can just throw them in the comments. If you want to sound more confident, do this. Number 1, eliminate the fluff. Eliminate the fluff. You know what I'm talking about? Fluff is that kind of— well, I mean, you know, it's just this— it's just this— I mean, you know, it's fluff, fluff that absolutely kills the confidence in your responses. Number 2, we're going to work on uptalk. That is where you begin to increase in the tone of your voice, almost like you're asking a question. Instead of saying something like this, it sounds kind of like this. At the end of your sentences, they uptalk, and that's not good because it makes it sound like everything you're saying is a question, like you're uncertain about it. And number 3, we're going to work on word choice. That means we're going to eliminate ending your sentences with You know what I mean? We're going to eliminate using the word just all the time, and we're going to minimize your reliance on adverbs. Those are words that end in -ly, literally. Now, I want to be clear. There is a difference between talking to friends and talking in a professional setting, period. When you're talking to people that are close to you, who cares about fluff words? If you are fumbling over your words and you're saying, um, and you know, and I mean, well, maybe, you know, Anytime you're saying that to a friend, no problem. It's casual. It's comfortable. It's part of the conversation. But if you're talking in a professional setting, maybe at work, maybe in front of an important group— do you hear I just said that? In an important group— then it's not that— not great for you because it makes it sound as if you are uncertain, like you're hesitant, like you're not sure what you're wanting to say. But in regular conversation, it's It's part of the game. Now, about fluff. Fluff comes in all shapes and sizes, and I want you to think about it as if it is static. It's a filler. They call them filler words. I like to say fluff. They also are ways of thinking about it of too much ice in your drink because they dilute your message. If you want to sound confident, you got to serve your words straight. So when you begin a sentence in front of a group, they ask you a question and you're on the spot to respond. And the first thing out of your mouth is, "Um." That's very common. They ask you a question and the first thing you want to say is, "Um, well, uh." Automatically, that confidence and how you sound just tanks because you're not communicating. You're just wanting to make sound out. That's really what it is. We feel comfortable when we have this constant sound wave. Whenever there's the constant just noise, whether it's actual words being articulated or not, we just like hearing that sound. So that's why it comes out that way. If somebody asks me a question and I go, "Um, you know, well, I mean, it depends, you know." You see how vague that is versus you ask me a question and the first thing that I say is, I haven't run across that before. I think it depends on a number of factors. And I begin to speak very different. Same goal. I'm telling them I've never run across that before. Very different sound. So you want to find ways to eliminate that fluff and how you do it is very simple. It's very simple. Okay, enough. It's so simple. You're going to be like, Jefferson, I knew this, but are you doing it? The question here is, do you know how to eliminate that fluff And you do it by saying nothing. Wherever the fluff would be, just get used to silence. It's that easy. Get comfortable with silence. That's it. You just get comfortable with silence. So wherever that filler word would be, say nothing. The way I teach, and I know I've said this on my podcast before, let your breath be the first word that you say. So when somebody asks you a question that you don't know, the worst thing you can do is go, Um, and look up as if you're searching for the words. Instead, take a breath. Let that silence be there, and then you get to respond. You don't have to have just noise for the sake of noise. Give it a pause and fill that space with absolute nothing. Allow your breath to catch the attention for them to hang on to your next words for you to say, I haven't run across that before, but what I am confident about as we can look at X, Y, and Z. That's how you handle fluff. Now, uptalk is a little bit different, and I find that it is very dependent on gender most of the time, where men don't really have this issue, but women do. It's an uptalk just because of the way you can tweak the end and sound of your voice, but it certainly happens to guys too. I don't want to say it's just a female thing or a male thing at all. It's not. But it sounds like this. And when you have that, people who are in the office and they're talking to you and they go, yeah, I think I can do that. I mean, yeah, we can probably get it to you by Friday. Like, as if you're hanging on to it, as if they're asking for permission in some way. When you say that and you sound like that, it cuts down on your confidence because it sounds like you're not sure. It sounds like you're unclear and you're asking for permission. In some way. Think of it this way. This is how I want you to say your words. Ask as if you're asking someone to pass the salt. All right, here over in America, in Texas, if I'm going to ask somebody to pass the salt, I'm going to say, hey, so-and-so, can you pass the salt? Period. You see how my volume, excuse me, my tone there at the end went down? Can you pass the salt? So when you end on a lower note, it sounds more Serious. You see that? And instead of saying it sounds more serious, it sounds more serious. When you uptalk, it sounds like you're asking a question. When you go down, it sounds like you're making a firm statement. So I wouldn't say, hey, can you pass the salt? As if I don't know what salt is or you don't know what salt is. Instead, I say, can you pass the salt? As if I'm assuming, yes, everybody knows what it is. I'm going to keep that cadence flat. And if I can, drop the tone just a little bit at the bottom to make it sound a lot more firm and a lot more confident. All right. This one is— this one's going to step on some toes a little bit. This is word choice. Word choice. What are the words that you're saying to sound confident at any given time? One of the biggest culprits, in my view, is ending your sentence with something that doesn't feel firm. Does that make sense? There it is right there. This element of, does that make sense? Every time you ask that question, you're doing something that is double-sided. Let me explain. If I'm going to tell you something and I make a statement, I say, does that make sense? I'm doing two things. The reason I'm saying that, reason you may be saying that, is because it's this internal fear or insecurity of Maybe the words that I'm saying aren't actually making sense to someone. They're not clear. I'm not communicating well. On the other side, I'm assuming that what I am saying may or may not be making sense to them. So the other person, it could also be offensive in some way to them, especially if you make it after a statement that is very common. Like, I mean, the sky's blue today. Does that make sense? The other person's like, oh yeah, of course. Of course it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. You just, it was a plain sentence. There's nothing complicated about that. So in some ways you may be insulting their intelligence by saying, does that make sense? You, you poor pitiful mind. You, does, does that, do I need to go a little bit slower for you? So I'm not saying it's all the time, but it definitely runs that risk. I've certainly had it where somebody asks, does that make sense after a statement where I only say, yes, yes, that makes sense. How else could I have taken that sentence? But I know where it's coming from is this insecurity feeling of, am I saying it right? Am I doing okay? It's best that you eliminate that. All right. Instead of saying, does that make sense? You can replace that with, what are your thoughts? That's it. What are your thoughts? Do you have any questions? Do you have any feedback? My favorite is, what are your thoughts? Instead of, does that make sense? I'm saying, what are your thoughts? I'm inviting communication. I'm inviting continuing the conversation instead of, do we need to stop and set a new paragraph for you to feel comfortable with this? I'm inviting them. What are your thoughts? What do you think? That's it. They might say, I'm good. I don't have any thoughts. That sounds great. Awesome. But at least I'm not assuming that they didn't understand what I said. If I said, does that make sense? So I would get rid of that. Just replace it with, what are your thoughts? Another way to tweak some of your communication to sound more confident is eliminate the word just. I love the word just in my regular day conversation. It's very common. But if I'm going to communicate in front of a group, try to eliminate it. Or if you're going to email somebody, try to eliminate it. Hear the difference. If I text you, or email, or I say to you, hey, I just wanted to check in, I just want to touch base. That sounds almost hesitant, doesn't it? Hey, just want to check in. That sounds almost hesitant versus, hey, I wanted to check in on you. I wanted to touch base. That sounds like I'm leaning into it. I'm not shying away. I'm stepping into it. I wanted to do this versus Hey, I just wanted to, as if I'm just a little bit, don't, I'm not trying to get in your space. Very different. Eliminate that word just because it makes you sound more hesitant in your communication. And that's not the way you want to sound. Another is the way you use adverbs. I'm going to step on a little bit of toes here with this. And that is often when you overuse adverbs, it makes it more fluffy. That were really not saying anything. We all have these little tics that we like to say. Maybe we got them from family, maybe we got them from friends, or wherever you're working, but they cut down on the confidence and assertiveness of your sentences. So here's some words like that: essentially, big culprit, literally, those two alone, basically, anything that ends with -ly. Here is a very common response when somebody is responding to something or answering a question that you're asking. They're going to say, "So essentially, I mean, what we have is..." That means nothing. That means nothing. It's just fluff. Those are comfort words. Those are security blankets that you'd like to have. It's going to be best if you eliminate those. There's not some kind of cure. You just need to find ways to get rid of them. If you ever see an email that says essentially or basically or literally or any other type of words, understand you can just eliminate them and they're going to be a whole lot better. Remember, if you want to have strong sentences, you need to just serve your words straight every time. Okay. We're at one of my favorite parts of the podcast, and that is where I get to answer a question from a follower every week. One time a week, I send a communication tip right to your inbox. And those that are part of the newsletter, I'll put a link down here in the in the show notes, you're able to email me back and ask questions, and I'm able to connect with you and try to help any way I can. And it's a whole lot of fun, and I get a— it's, it's really meaningful to me, so I like it a whole lot. I pulled one. This one is from Emily in South Carolina. Emily says, hey Jefferson, I love your stuff. Thank you, Emily. I have a question. I'm part of a large sales team and I have to go around the country giving presentations. That's really cool. But I have an issue or a problem with answering questions that I don't know. I often have this deer-in-the-headlights look. How can I avoid that? Any advice helps. Awesome, Emily. I totally got you. You're not the only one. Anybody that's in sales, and there are a lot of people out there, we all get— they all get this. They all can empathize with this. And anybody who's not from the United States or you're not familiar with this thing, when she means deer-in-the-headlights look, If you've ever seen an animal, a deer in the headlights of a car, they just freeze. That's what happens. They freeze, their eyes kind of go wide and they don't move. It's that feeling where you just kind of feel paralyzed by somebody's question. Here's what I'm going to recommend that you do, Emily. You ready? Number 1, anytime you get a question that you don't know, I want you to take a beat. Take a second. There's the tendency to— if somebody asks you a question, you have to have a very rapid-fire answer. I guess it's this notion somehow that if they ask a question, you have to have this rapid answer right away. They ask a question, you go, um, I mean, that's not really true, and I really think that— give it a break. Give it a break. You don't have to have this immediate ASAP answer. Instead, like we talked about, let your breath be the first word. Give it a second. Listen to their question. Take a breath as if you were really chewing on it and acknowledging it and wanting to think about what they just asked, and then begin with your response. All right. Number 2, go to your past experience. You have experience, Emily. I know that you do. I don't know how much, but everybody's got some kind of experience. Instead of saying, I don't know, or I'm not sure, one little tweak to that is Go off of your past experience, meaning instead of saying, I don't know, which by the way, there's nothing wrong with saying, you can say, I haven't run across that before. Easy as that. In my experience, that hasn't been an issue. Period. Go on your past experience. You all, everybody has some kind of experience that they can draw from. I haven't run across that before. In my experience, blah, blah, blah. In my time here, We don't see that as being an issue. You draw from your own past experience because it makes it look like instead of this isolated incident of going, no, I don't, sorry, I'm somebody who doesn't know the answer. You're going, no, I have years of experience here and that hasn't been an issue. And you can follow it up with, let's say it's, they ask a question and you go, I haven't run across that before, but what I can do is X, Y, and Z, but I'll make sure and double-check that with our IT team. You pivot to make sure that you're kind of taking care of— if this is a question that you truly don't know and you haven't run across before, instead of just saying, I don't know, and leaving it at that, you can do two— it's like a combo package. I haven't run across it before. In my experience, that hasn't been an issue. But what I can do is follow up with our IT team and make sure we get that concern taken care of for you. Right? Just kind of do that little pivot. And now it feels like a little package with a bow on it. It sounds really good. Another thing, number 3, Emily, is use the word confident. Use the word confident in your responses. It just makes you sound confident because they hear it out of your mouth. So if you're going to respond to it, for example, instead of this, I don't know, blanket response and say, I haven't run across that before. Well, what I'm confident we can do is X, Y, and Z. Just use the word confident. If you plug that into your sentence, You know what they're going to think? Oh, this person is very confident just because they heard you say it. So find ways to do that. So we're going to talk about giving a beat to what you just said, not having that immediate response. We're going to draw from your past experience, Emily, and make you sound just as you are, seasoned and experienced salesman, salesperson. And then also we're going to make sure that you insert where you can the word confident, which is going to boost that feeling for them and for you. You got this. All right, thank you for listening to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I'm going to encourage you to follow this podcast, and if you would leave a review or a star or anything, it really makes a difference. As I mentioned, my book is on pre-order. It's called The Next Conversation. You can find it wherever you like to order books. I'll make sure and include links. And as always, you could try that and follow me.