Vanessa Van Edwards breaks down three vocal habits that make you sound untrustworthy: ending statements with question inflection, using qualifiers like "just" or "sorry," and avoiding explicit confidence statements. Saying "I'm confident that" actually makes listeners perceive you as more trustworthy.
We give away all of our confidence in usually the first few words. Really? And it's because we are using an accidental question inflection. An accidental question inflection is when you go up at the end of your sentence. So instead of stating, you're asking. Now, this happens usually on your name. It sounds like this. Hi, my name is Vanessa? Instead of, hi, my name is Vanessa. Now listen to this. Liars often accidentally use the question inflection. Because they are secretly asking, "Do you believe me?" That's so true. So if I ask my daughter, "Did you take the last cookie from the plate?" and she goes, "No?" Mmm, she did. She did. Yeah? So liars are asking, "Do you believe me?" If you accidentally use the question inflection on your name, on a boundary, on a number, you are begging people to not believe you. So you want to state, not ask. We often give away our verbal confidence by saying "just," So, you know, "Sorry, I'm not sure. I don't know if you're gonna like this." We're gonna now say, "I'm confident that." Saying "I'm confident that," they've actually shown this in the research, cues everyone else to be like, "Well, she's confident. I guess I should be too." So it's actually a subtle signal to yourself and to others. So, "I'm confident that."
